Blythe's Book 16: The Middle Place

I got lucky with this memoir. Nate can tell you that I am easily influenced by pretty much any book I read; if I'm acting different than usual (edgier, more worrisome, more flippant, whatever), I'll often hear him ask, "WHAT are you reading right now?" And the minute I start rambling about the plotline, the emotions, a young woman searching for her identity, blah blah blah, he can say, "Okay. Got it. No, we aren't selling our house and moving to Panama. Read a different book." SO when I started reading Kelly Corrigan's memoir The Middle Place, a book about a woman navigating the gray area between being a child and starting her own family, I was already on the lookout to make sure I didn't start examining (or perhaps more accurately, inventing) issues I have that parallel Kelly Corrigan's. I definitely think there is a tenuous balance we all strike as we leave our immediate blood family to go begin our own; combine that with staying in the same area code, as I chose to do, and there's even a bit more juggling involved. I could empathize with Kelly as she tried to assert herself as a wife and mother (more at her husband's urging than out of an actual desire to), but also tried to maintain that special position of adored and adoring daughter.

I've thus far completely ignored a major focus of this book, which was Kelly dealing with breast cancer as her father simultaneously battled bladder cancer. However, I think the issue was less the cancer (although it certainly made her appreciate her kids and husband more) and more coming to terms with the fact that her dad-- her essential, most important person-- was eventually going to be gone. She absolutely loves her husband, Edward, but as even he points out, "I'm not your dad; no one is." While Edward is obviously Kelly's rock, and in ways has replaced her father, she is also terrified by the idea of a world without her dad. After a fight betweent Kelly and Edward early into their relationship, Kelly reflects, "This was our first 'discussion' of this type, the type where I talk a lot and he's blindsided and apologizes an hour later, after the defensiveness fades. I'm never sure if he really gets it or just prefers harmony over retraining a girl who was raised by a man who crowed about her ordinary achievements as if she learned to live underwater" (174). For me, as a reader, the portions about her family, and the lessons she learned as a child, were the most poignant and relatable (is that a word?). We all have to make adjustments as we go from being the center of our parents' universe to half of a partnership. I loved when she said, "One day you're cheering your daughter through a swimming lesson or giving her a pat for crossing the monkey bars... and the next, you're bragging to your parents about your newest trick-- a sweet potato recipe, a raise at work...It's a giant Venn diagram where you are the only member of both sets" (29). Kelly is fiercely loyal to her family, both the one she is creating and the one she was born into, and this is what I will hold on to long after returning this book to the library. Rather than worrying Nate all week with paranoid reflections about juggling being a daughter and wife, or about losing my parents-- fears reading this memoir could have definitely encouraged-- I instead chose to rejoice in the fact that I am a daughter, sister, and wife-- and lucky to be all three.

One of my favorite passages-- I SO could identify:
"'We really recommend no more than one to two alcoholic drinks per week.'
Tell that to my parents. My husband. My entire immediate neighborhood... in addition to doctors and medicine, I believe parties can be curative.
I am a party girl, a 'one more drink!' girl. I got this from my people, as sure as I got my brown eyes, my loud voice, and my tendency to touch people I'm talking to."