On letting go and going for it
In her final column for the Boston Globe (syndicated since 1976 by the Washington Post Writers Group) Ellen Goodman talked of letting go. At what she calls the “sheet cake lunch,” an editor quoted from a column written 30 years earlier.
“There’s a trick to the Graceful Exit. It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, a relationship is over-and to let go.
Her column of Jan. 1 hit me especially hard because it has, for the past few years, been one of my most inspiring links to what’s happening in the real world. She took a place right alongside my other favorite columnists, Al Martinez and the late Molly Ivins. If this says something about my political preferences, that’s only a small part of what these writers have meant to me. The fact is that all are more than outstanding wordsmiths, they’re chroniclers of the human condition, with well-defined senses of humor, qualities that I revere.
To forestall the day when there would be no more Ellen Goodman columns in Tuesday’s edition of our local paper, I decided to reread “Value Judgments,” a collection of her work (mostly from the 1990s), finding it nestled on the shelf next to Martinez’ “Reflections” and Ivins’ “Nothin’ But good Times Ahead,” from approximately the same period. (Ivins’ essays were originally published in several newspapers and national magazines; Martinez’ work appeared for decades in the Los Angeles Times.)
My thought was to choose only one column to read with my morning tea on Tuesdays. At that rate it would be more than two years before they ran out. But, of course, it’s not working out that way.
I flipped first to the chapter on Politics ‘92, which Goodman described this way: “It seemed that the baby-boom generation had trouble coming into power because they couldn’t resolve their own deep divisions. In a tough and grueling way, this campaign did some of the work of resolution. In many ways this campaign was about generational change.”
Well, instead of one column, I read the entire chapter, marveling at the relevance, almost prescience, of her observations. Particularly about Hillary. Considering these were written at a time when women were still struggling with expectations that no longer reflected their abilities, interests and ambitions. This was the year of Hillary the Wife, not the Candidate for Senate or President of the next decade.
After an interview with Hillary on the campaign trail, Goodman writes of the “disparity between our view of marriage as a merger-two people as one-and our view of what it means to be a successful individual. It’s not easy for women to be seen or to feel both professional and coupled.”
After the election, Goodman wrote: “It may be Bill Clinton’s place in the intergenerational wars that fuels his real passion to mediate conflicts, to find a center that holds. As he said to the crowd, ‘We need a new spirit of community, a sense that we’re all in this together.’” Again, she had her finger on the nation’s pulse.
Goodman has always written passionately and poignantly about the issues surrounding abortion and legal challenges to overturn Roe vs. Wade. In May of 1989, when the U.S. government asked the Supreme Court to “reconsider and overrule its decision in Roe vs. Wade,” Goodman covered arguments by Bush attorney Charles Fried and questions from Justice Sandra Day O’Connor concerning civil liberty and coercion. “While the court deliberates the Missouri case, it is worth remembering that if you take away the right of individuals to make decisions about their lives, you cede it to the state. And that’s just the beginning.” When the decision was handed down, upholding Roe but allowing onerous restrictions by the state, she wrote again: “In practical terms, the Webster case affects only Missouri. But the national message is clear. Don’t count on the Constitution to protect rights. Count votes.”
Almost four years later, with a pro-choice president in the White House, Goodman wrote what availability of the abortion pill RU486 might mean. “Finally, after all these years, most abortions could truly become a matter between the pregnant woman and her doctor.”
If there is a significant difference between Goodman’s analysis and that of the average pundit, it’s her understanding of the dynamics in families, generations, the basic stuff of life for most of us. She writes fondly of the ways we live, work, love, all of it.
In her remarks about retirement, she tried to avoid the old cliché about spending more time with family and yet I can see her with her grandkids on the porch of the Maine cottage to which she retreats for a few weeks each summer.
While I’ll miss your weekly take on the workings of our world, my friend, I wish your retirement to be as rich and joyful as my own. In your own words: Let it go and go for it.