revafisheye

Where have you gone, Marcy Lewis?

The newest issue of Bitch came in my mailbox yesterday, but it was craft night so I didn't tear it open until today. Travel mug of tea in one hand and back pack on my lap, I flipped through the pages, back to front, in keeping with my life-long habit, looking for a short article to read on my commute. I read about The Office (sigh...Tim...) and Female Friend Cuture; I glanced at the Janeane Garofalo interview. As I reached the front pages, always chock full of interesting tibits, my heart sank and tears welled up in my eyes. There, next to a smiling photo of my one of my favorite childhood authors, Paula Danziger, it read 1944 - 2004.

The Cat Ate My Gymsuit, and its sequel, There's a Bat in Bunk Five, got me through 7th grade. I was the new kid, an alien from the midwest that had infiltrated the south, I was shy and I was fat. Okay, Gramma, pleasingly plump. I had read Cat... the year before in sixth grade, but I returned to it in a time of crisis. It was like my little, 12-year-old Bible, my guarantee that life, with all its trials and tribulations, would be good if I just believed. Through Marcy, I could laugh at myself, be angry with my parents and dream of something beyond W.C. Friday Jr. High. I carried that book to school with me everyday. I didn't have my own copy; money was tight and the library was my home away from home. If the school copy was checked out, I would have my mom take me to the public library. I would renew it over and over. I saw myself in Marcy and Marcy always won in the end.

When I first moved to New York 9 years ago, I waited tables on the Upper West Side at a popular brunch spot. One evening a stout woman wearing purple reading glasses, multi-colored Doc Marten's and draped in Joseph's technicolor dreamcoat, joined a group of people in my section. Paula Danziger, my own personal Jesus, the woman who wrote my bible, was sitting at my table. I was too awestruck to tell her how much she touched me; how she made me believe, way down in a tiny corner of my adolescent heart, that I was beautiful; how she helped a timid seventh grader through the worst year of her young life.

Ms. Danziger, you did all of those things, laughing all the way. Thank you.

posted by revafisheye @ 1:00 PM