Two Women Walked into a Bar by Cheryl Strayed, A Review
As I read more memoir, I have come across beautiful pieces that I would like to share. I was blown away by the structure and diction of this piece. Everything below is a spoiler and I suggest you read the full essay here.
Excerpt from Two Women Walked into a Bar by Cheryl Strayed
In the moments before we left, when Brian and the kids had wandered away from her bedside and I’d remained behind, Joan looked at me with the same intensity and vulnerability with which she’d looked at me when she’d asked why I didn’t like her. She reached out suddenly and clutched my hand, and I clutched her hand back, our eyes meeting more deeply than twenty years since she’d walked into that bar and I’d picked her last. She’d been alive in my life for nearly as long as my mother had. She was my family, my ancestor, no matter our distance or difficulties or disappointments, the truth of that finally crackling between us.
“Thank you,” she whispered with more force and clarity than I thought she had left. In three days, she’d take her last breath as Brian held her. “Thank you”, she said again, like she wanted me to remember it.
And I did.
This short memoir caught my attention while I was putting my daughter to sleep. I needed something quick to read on my kindle. Reading it while feeling the weight of my three-year-old in my lap, her long legs draped over the edge of the arm chair and wisps of her hair tickling my nose, made it more appealing. In the short essay, Cheryl Strayed mentions many different kinds of relationships mothers can have with their children and their children’s spouses, ranging from abject rejection to whole-hearted devotion. These relationships result in forced absence because of death, contrived distance because of disinterest, and the idealized close and open mother-child bond. I have felt something of all these emotions with my daughter.
The main story is Cheryl Strayed’s relationship with her mother-in-law, Joan, whom she met in a bar after eight months of her future husband Brian. Cheryl’s father left her when she was twelve and her mother died when Cheryl was in her twenties. After her mother’s death, she launched herself into writing essays and books, eventually publishing award-winning and national best-selling books like Wild, Tiny Beautiful Things, and Torch.
Even though this memoir essay is not very long, it still follows a character arc which begins with her first impression of Joan, follows the tension of their relationship and ends with her sincerely saying that she loves her. The excerpt above is a beautiful way of depicting that final resolution to the story. Joan looks at her with intensity and vulnerability that she had rarely shown in life. The line she reached out suddenly and clutched my hand, and I clutched her hand back is a visual of this emotional connection they are having. The truth of that finally crackling between us lets me feel that clutched hand. The word crackling is evocative.
Sometimes it is only on their deathbed that we appreciate those in our lives the most. I love the way that the last paragraph places the fact that Joan will die soon in between her two thank you’s. The fact of her death does not detract from the impact of Joan’s final words to her.
The entire essay is filled with jewels like these and the more I read it the more I see how well it was crafted. It was a pleasure to read this.
“Thank you”, she whispered with more force and clarity than I thought she had left. In three days, she;d take her last breath as Brian held her. “Thank you”, she said again, like she wanted me to remember it.
