Thank you for the many heartfelt emails and messages you sent to me after I published my newsletter last week for the first time since my “mastectomy retreat.” (A phrase I’m stealing from the brilliant wordsmith Lisa Hadden!) How grateful I am for this community of strong and compassionate women writers who know that connection is the essence of writing and life!
One of you asked me in an email if I’d had a chance to do any writing outside of my journal during my retreat.
As it happens, writing in my journal and crafting the mastectomy material into memoir pieces outside of my journal got me through the mastectomy and its aftermath. It’s not an understatement to say that there were long stretches of weeks where the only time I felt like myself was when I was writing.
Today I’d like to share with you a memoir essay titled “Her Imprint: A Mastectomy Postscript” that I wrote four months after the mastectomy. It appears in the March issue of Pithead Chapel: An Online Journal of Gutsy Narratives and explores what it means to be a self in a female body after losing a breast.
It also explores Sisterhood, as described in the following “blurb” that one of the venues I submitted to requested:
A mastectomy does not come with operating instructions explaining how grief will throttle your sense of self. Such knowledge does not exist outside the sisterhood of women who have lost their breasts. When the narrator of “Her Imprint,” crazed by grief, encounters a chance meeting with a “sister” who walked the road of mastectomy before her, she is met with such profound understanding that she sees in her sister a welcome reflection of herself.
Click here to read my memoir essay “Her Imprint: A Mastectomy Memoir.”
Oh, and speaking of sisters, that photo of the red boots? One of my sisters and I posing as shoe-twins, a whole different kind of sisterhood! And, yes, a memoir piece that traces the origins of the red boots is in the works. And, yes, those boots also tell my mastectomy story.
Much love,
Marilyn
I have a knot in my stomach reading your powerful words Marilyn. You have such skill at writing from deep within your heart in such a raw, vulnerable, and strong way. I suspect your story will resonate with all women having undergone a mastectomy. I have to share though it also totally resonates with me undergoing a completely different set of circumstances but left wondering who I am and how to proceed with this new normal. Every time I see your name in my inbox I am filled with joy, pour a coffee, and savor your words. Much love.
Thank you so much, Katherine, for this heartfelt comment and for sharing how “Her Imprint” resonates with you. Whatever your circumstances, I KNOW that you are growing into/as a result of them. Your thoughts also remind me that every single time we grow we face that old perennial question, Who am I? And isn’t so much of life discovering more of ourselves as we pursue that question? Isn’t that how we become more fully human? Much love in return, M
Marilyn,
Such a wonderful essay..as a writer I love how the narrator changes her voice from the first section to the following sections. Almost as if we can tell by her writing that she is transforming herself right on the page. So well done, my dearest. xoxo Ginny
Thank you, Ginny. This is the essay that Sam and I are collaborating on putting to audio. Funny that you mention the narrator transforming right on the page because that’s what Sam’s drawing out with sound effects. Much love, M
Marilyn,
Thank you for such breathtakingly beautiful honesty. Several members of my family have had breast cancer. You have helped me understand better and go forward with an enhanced sense of empathy. The piece also made me think about my own sense of self which has changed so much over these past few years as I go forward through menopause. So many deep-seated and nuanced questions to think about! You have made me think and that is such a wonderful gift. I am so glad that you are back in my inbox and I am grateful to hear your voice again. You are, as always, an inspiration.
Thank you so much for your beautiful comment, Christine. And I’m so glad I’m back in your inbox, too :). Meanwhile, funny you mention menopause. Because the cancer I had was estrogen positive and a recurrence, I also had an oopherectomy–removal of ovaries–in order to minimize the estrogen in my body. I was plunged into menopause the next day! It’s been its own kind of hell but also, as you mention, brings to the fore a deep deep sense of self emerging. Here’s to emerging into our highest selves with our deepest truths in hand! Much love, M