 illustration by Penny Van Horn |
was typing furiously on my laptop when another
passenger took the seat beside me on the flight from Chicago, so I didn’t look
up right away. But even with my head bent firmly over my monitor, I couldn’t
help but notice that she was wearing almost exactly the same shoes as I was.
And black tights. And a black skirt. When they ordered electronic devices to be
shut down prior to take-off, I sneaked a sidelong glance, and found that she
had the same hair too: long and dark, with bangs cut straight across her
forehead. She was already deeply engrossed in a thick stack of typescript
pages. When the stewardess came by to ask if we needed a beverage, she ordered
a scotch, straight up.
I had to ask. “Are you a writer?”
“Why yes,” she replied.
“Me too,” I said, and we launched into a rather amazing conversation in which
we found that our identical bangs, tights and computer models were only the
most superficial of the characteristics we shared. We even had matching
personal tragedies, revealed sometime after the second round of cocktail
service.
This is hardly the first time this has happened to me. Or even the twentieth. I consider the possibilities: Perhaps there was some
extra-terrestrial transport of clones that dropped out of the mothership. Our
spawn wafted on the breeze and rivers to far-flung locations across America,
emerging four decades later as The Intergalactic Federation of Women in Black
Tights. Separated at birth? Maybe so. Or perhaps it’s less science fiction than
a matter of perception: When you’re young, you are determined to believe that
you’re different from everybody else, and when you’re older, you realize it
just isn’t so. And, further, that it’s not entirely a bad thing.
True, back in my twenties, I found this doppelganger situation less than
amusing. When I was living in New York in the early Eighties, it seemed to me
the city of my birth was a veritable Marion Winik factory, a city overrun by
Marion Winiks, all wearing the same cute outfits, writing the same short
stories, taking the same trains to the same parties to talk about the same
movies with the same people. I escaped to far-off Texas, where I benefited from
a certain �migr� mystique; I had my funny accent, my matzo-ball
soup mix, and a checkered past of a distinctly East Coast variety. I so rarely
met someone “just like me” that I was able to sustain an illusion of
uniqueness.
But now I’m starting to feel generic again. If I hadn’t noticed it myself, the
media would surely have pointed it out to me. I mean, you’ve got whole
magazines and Internet sites narrowcasted at women with my profile: working
mothers obsessed with their working, their mothering, their cellulite, their
sex lives, and their free-range guilt. Sitcoms star an airbrushed version of
me.
J. Crew, Lillian Vernon, and Sharper Image all know exactly where I
live. But it gets worse. I write a book, a deeply personal memoir, and by the
time it is out, a dozen other people have published similar deeply personal
memoirs, and the writing of such books is not only a trend, but already on its
way out. The bestseller list is crowded with women I’m sure I would be best
friends with if I could only overcome the urge to kill them.
Does all this sound familiar to you? What a surprise. Now tell me how you wear your hair and how
many pairs of tights you own. Take my Reader Survey: Do you dream of wealth,
instant weight loss and exotic foreign travel? But can’t fit it in right now,
because you have a job and kids in school? Does your vehicle have more than
four seat belts? Is there a half-eaten Popsicle in your freezer? Are you hoping
the tooth fairy will leave enough money for your kids’ college education?
Have you ever had a broken heart? Does it still hurt? Are you hoping they find
a cure for menopause before you get there? Does rush-hour traffic drive you
nuts? Do telephone solicitors drive you nuts? How ’bout the neighbors who leave
their garbage cans out in the street? Do you feel the cranky old lady you will
someday become growing inside you? Do all the terrible things that happen in
this world make you ill?
If you answered yes to the preceding questions, I’ve got your number. And
you’ve got mine. I think there may be a couple million of us on this party
line, which is not such a bad thing. At least we’ll have no trouble finding
someone to talk to.
Marion Winik hasn’t yet kicked her addiction to black tights, but the NPR
commentator’s most recent book, First Comes Love, recently became available in
paperback.
This article appears in November 29 • 1996 and November 29 • 1996 (Cover).