Salon.com > Lee Uttmark Wicks

Diary of a crone

Wed, 01 Nov 2000 11:16:00 +0000

I saw "Macbeth" this summer, probably for the third time, but now I am 54, so I understood it differently. In the darkened theater, as the witches shuffled onstage and began their incantations, I saw them for what they are -- sleep-deprived, menopausal crones suffering from night sweats, vaginal atrophy and loss of libido.

So there they are in the middle of the night, drawn together because none of them can sleep, and that stuff they're pouring into the caldron is a desperate attempt at relief. Menopausal women will ingest an astonishing array of weeds and herbs. Need proof? Go to any health food store and look down the most crowded aisle. There you'll find middle-aged women offering advice and criticism, sharing experiences and demanding information from the woman at the store who has been assigned this detail. At the Whole Foods Market near me this woman has gray hair and the pale calm of someone who eats a lot of grains and sips lukewarm herbal tea, slowly.

Divorce karma

Wed, 15 Mar 2000 17:00:00 +0000

My ex-husband took pictures of our divorce. A guard at the courthouse finally made him put his camera away just as we went before the judge. But until then he kept clicking away. He photographed me as I walked up the courthouse steps, as I crumpled some of my skirt in my nervous hands and as I looked away from him, out the window. It had been like that throughout our life together, from our very first date: No experience seems real to him until after he has developed the film.

I was ready for closure, but I was not prepared for what happens in court. When it came time to see the judge, he made us raise our right hands and swear on the Bible that we had done all we could to salvage the marriage. To every question we each said, "I do" -- just as we had on our wedding day -- until the judge pronounced us divorced. Earlier that morning, my daughter, Ali, then 10, had asked, "Is it like a wedding, except you each say 'I don't'?"

Sad, huh?

Who loves you, Wicks?

Fri, 07 Jan 2000 17:00:00 +0000

My husband Roy and I are having dinner with friends. We begin talking about our kids, who all are in their mid-20s. Eben, our best friend's son, lives in Brooklyn
and works nights at a wine bar in Tribeca so he can go on auditions during the
day. He's already been in a movie. Sarah, the daughter of other close
friends, works for an Internet design firm and lives in Soho. Her brother Adam
is doing well as a journalist. My daughter Ali, who sometimes refers to herself
as a "small dyke cop," has just received a check from her grandmother so she
can buy a bulletproof vest.

We all laugh. We don't know what else to do. None of us have great memories of
the police. When I was a kid, the cops in my Brooklyn neighborhood hung out in the candy store. They seemed more menacing than the neighborhood criminals, who were far too busy running numbers games to offer any threat to regular people.