The improvisatory nature of composing a life
For many years I’ve been intrigued by the complexities of a life, the often non-linear paths taken by creatives as well as by women. Since 2017 I’ve been interviewing creatives for my podcast, Sighs & Whispers (formerly Lady’s After Hours)—if you’ve ever listened to an episode or read the accompanying short bios then you will know that I generally talk to creatives and artists towards the end of their lives and careers, reflecting back over decades of ups, downs, diversions and new directions. There is rarely linearity—even when there appears a straight path at a glance (say, Shirley Lord’s career in journalism from age 16 on), our conversations reveal dramatic questions, decisions and about-faces that directly impacted their journey (for example, Lord’s running away from an unhappy marriage to a new country and therefore a different career in magazines).
The media’s continuing false narrative about prior generations settling into a good job for life (complete with a pension and retirement) really only applied to white men—and only white men with white and blue collar jobs up until the 1970s, at that. For women, minorities and artists, careers (and life) have always been uncertain and unpredictable. The people I've interviewed for the podcast have been members of the Silent Generation and Boomers, and there has rarely been any certainty in their lives—those with family money have had the privilege to know that they have something to fall back on, but there has never been the security of a well-paying job that will protect them for decades with a lovely pension at the end of it.
The podcast started in response to a realization I had—due to my work as a historian I would often have the opportunity to speak with incredibly interesting, successful people but I would solely question them about a tiny moment in their lives that directly related to my research. For example, there I was interviewing Elsa Peretti or Britt Ekland about their memories of Thea Porter and, while we had wonderful off-the-record chats, I lost the chance to discuss more with them because I did not have an outlet for those conversations. The podcast allows me to share with you long-form, almost oral histories of fascinating creatives—in-depth, intimate discussions where they reveal much about life, love and creativity.
The more conversations I’ve had the more aware I’ve become of what cultural anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson termed the “improvisatory art” of “composing a life.” In her 1990 book of the same title Bateson studied the lives of five women (herself and four others), using the form of comparative biographies to weave an understanding of the creative composition of complex, ever-adapting lives. Much as my podcast interviews have revealed, Bateson’s book furnishes an appreciation of the non-linearity of a woman’s or creative’s life (or to use her metaphor, the patchwork nature of it). While only one of Bateson’s subjects is an “artist” within the traditional narrow definition (Joan Erikson—dancer, jeweler, weaver and writer amongst many other occupations including Google’s descriptor, “Erik Erikson's wife”), I would classify all as creatives in much the same way that I see all my podcast interviewees as creatives. Not only are their finished creative projects inspiring, but also inspiring are their creative approaches to problem solving the complicated issues of life, love, marriage, divorce, parenthood, and death.
The Sighs & Whispers podcast has always attempted to be an antidote to our culture’s ageism and obsession with youth. While my interview subjects all made significant impacts on the culture or their fields, many seem mostly forgotten. I can’t tell you how many interviews I have heard a variation of, “The phone stopped ringing and no more work came in once tastes changed/technology changed/I became X years old.” When the people making the decisions and doing the hiring only have eyes for newness and novelty, we all lose out on the wisdom gained of hard-won experience.
After the last two years the uncertainty of life and career is even more apparent—those lucky enough to have had their paths previously untouched by recessions and crisis were unable to avoid the upheaval of the pandemic, but those with uncertain journeys (women, artists and marginalized groups) have been affected the most. With the “great resignation” and the intense burst of sudden career path changes, it feels even more important than ever to share the stories of those elders who made similar shifts—when we feel unsure of our direction and choices, listening to their stories can help us feel less alone and provide us innovative solutions. When we hear those older than ourselves make sense from their life’s discontinuities, it allows us to make peace with our own—as Bateson writes of Erikson, “As a young college student, Joan knew with certainty that she was a dancer. Over time, this identity has meant being a teacher and a therapist, a wife and a mother, a craftswoman and a writer. From the vantage point of a seventeen year old, this would have looked like a jumble; seen now, from her eighties, it makes sense.” The fluidity and discontinuity historically inherent in a woman’s life is now part of all of our lives. These uncertainties, altered paths and new directions are part of being a human—we all are creatives as we compose lives and careers within a constantly shifting, destabilized reality.
Bateson writes, “I believe that our aesthetic sense, whether in works of art or in lives, has overfocused on the stubborn struggle toward a single goal rather than on the fluid, the protean, the improvisatory. We see achievement as purposeful and monolithic, like the sculpting of a massive tree trunk that has first to be brought from the forest and then shaped by long labor to assert the artist’s vision, rather than something crafted from odds and ends, like a patchwork quilt, and lovingly used to warm different nights and bodies.” Writing this newsletter is an improvisatory, new approach to the historical topics my work has always engaged with. The long-form interviews encompassing all of life will stay on the podcast, but this newsletter will provide me the place to share shorter interviews that focus on a specific project, aspect of work or research—to continue Bateson’s metaphor, a single patch versus the whole quilt represented in the podcast.
I hope that these weekly missives provide you with inspiration, knowledge and enjoyment.
Further Reading and Listening
An interview with Mary Catherine Bateson from OnBeing
For historical analysis of the uncertainty of the middle-class and particularly women in the 1970s and 1980s, read Barbara Ehrenreich’s essays reprinted in The Worst Years of Our Lives: Irreverent Notes from a Decade of Greed (New York: HarperPerennial, 1990).
Joan Erikson, Wisdom and the Senses: The Way of Creativity (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1991).
Mary Catherine Bateson, Composing a Life (New York: Plume, 1990).