Essay by Arlene L. Mandell
Why Write? Why Breathe?
1944
With my left hand clenching a blue Crayola crayon, I write ARLENE in shaky block letters. I’m three years old. I like the way my name looks on the page.
1946
My first setback occurs when I’m five. Miss Livingston, my first grade teacher, pulls the pencil from my left hand and instructs me to use my right hand. I survive the trauma, but to this day have never forgiven her.
A shy child with wire-rimmed glasses, I diligently make my way through eleven years of Brooklyn public schools, writing nicely, spelling properly, and staying within the lines. I show a bit of talent, but my highest aspiration is to become a legal secretary.
1957
When I graduate at sixteen, I get a job as a secretary to a group of professors at NYU Law School. While taking night courses at the School of Commerce (NYU offers its employees eight free credits per semester), I meet my future husband. He’s in the seat in front of me in Introduction to Psychology. Two years later, shortly after my nineteenth birthday, we get married. Five months after that, I become pregnant with my first child.
1971
The world is changing for women. I start taking bigger breaths.
When my daughter is six, I go back to college and get a B.A. in English. At the same time, I’m writing an op-ed column for a local newspaper. After cooking dinner, cleaning up the kitchen, and taking out the garbage, I sit at my IBM Selectric to write my 20-inch column. Sometimes I write other things, hiding them from my then-husband.
In October, the Equal Rights Amendment is passed by the House.
1972
The ERA is passed by the Senate and sent to state legislatures for ratification.
Although I’m deeply unhappy, hemmed in by circumstances in a suburban ranch house, I’m also strangely elated. My newspaper columns start out cute—like the one about the solitary sneaker and other items you can find in the “Lost and Found” box at the elementary school—and become more assertive as the months go by. A few cause quite a bit of controversy, which pleases my editor.
1975
At 33, having finalized my divorce, I start dating again, something I haven’t done since I was 17. Though I continue to live in a sleepy suburban town and am responsible for two children, a mortgage, and a poodle who often runs away to consort with a collie, I have a remarkably good time.
I write an impassioned column for Suburban Trends about the progressive defeat of the ERA as key states fail to ratify it. (In case you haven’t noticed, women still don’t receive equal pay for equal work.)
I’m also a devoted member of a consciousness-raising group of seven women. We meet every Thursday, sometimes smoking a little pot (it’s the seventies), and talk about sex, men, money—or the lack thereof. We debate whether we can be good feminists and shave our legs, pool our kids and resources for impromptu barbecues, and keep on meeting until each member moves away, dies, remarries, or goes mad.
1978
My ex-husband goes bankrupt and stops paying child support.
I take a full-time job as a glorified secretary in a biomedical research firm. A few months later, I learn that I’ve won a New Jersey Press Association Award for a feature article, “Credit in a Man’s World,” which was published in “my” newspaper, Suburban Trends.
During this time I have two articles and an op-ed piece published in the New York Times under a pen name because I’m writing about struggling with all of the above. But my most passionate prose is confined to my diary, which I’ve since destroyed. Too bad—it would have made a terrific tell-all novel.
1979 onward…
I meet my second husband, who is smart, kind, and supportive. I get a job at Good Housekeeping in New York City, writing health and consumer services articles. Later I switch to public relations, where I earn enough to send my children to college, loan-free.
Then I get a M.A. at Columbia University, followed by ten years teaching composition, literature, and women’s studies at William Paterson University in New Jersey.
2012
I now live in California. While I’ve had three different last names and one nom de plume and have been published in a great many places, I still feel a thrill when I see my name in print.
When you’re a writer, however your life may unfold, something inside you insists that you take that crayon in hand and make marks on paper. The marks become bolder, the paper reaches more people. And then…one day, you’re 71, smiling as you once again take a deep breath and send your work out into the world.
Editor’s Note: The Equal Rights Amendment is still not part of the U.S. Constitution. It continues to be reintroduced into every session of Congress, and, as of this writing, 35 out of a required 38 states have ratified it. For more information, please see the Equal Rights Amendment website, a collaborative project of the Alice Paul Institute and the National Council of Women’s Organizations.
Art Information
- “Schoolgirl at the FSA (Farm Security Administration) farm workers’ camp. Caldwell, Idaho” by Russell Lee, 1941; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division; public domain
- “New Braves manager with his secretary in his office at Braves Field” © Leslie Jones, 1951; Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection
- “Levittown houses. Peg Brennan, residence at 25 Winding Lane” by Gottscho-Schleisner, Inc., 1958; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Gottscho-Schleisner Collection; public domain
- “Women’s lib[eration] march from Farrugut Sq[uare] to Layfette [i.e., Lafayette] P[ar]k,” August 26, 1970, by Warren K.Leffler; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division; public domain
- “IBM Selectric” © Thomas Cloer; Creative Commons license
- “Free Group Hugs” © Jesslee Cuizon; Creative Commons license
- “City at Night” © las; Creative Commons license
- “Author” © Brian Smith; Creative Commons license
Arlene L. Mandell, a retired English professor, has published more than 400 poems, essays, and short stories in newspapers and literary journals, including the New York Times, Wild Violet, and Women’s Voices. You can Google her for a mash-up of her work with that of an actress who played a main character of the same name in a 1980s TV series called Baby Boom.
“Each of us needs to tend our garden as best we can, planting bulbs, cutting back wild roses, but conversely, also permitting a certain randomness, like the tiny purple violets that appear on the path between slate stepping stones after a cold and rainy winter.” — Tending Your Writing Garden
