Wendy Wasserstien

1/31/06
A playwright of our generation died yesterday at the age of 55, just7 years older than I. I followed her career, especially as a neophyte play and screenwright myself, with interest as I never quite understood her import on the world stage (excuse the pun). I had seen Heidi Chronicles, but didn't quite relate to the characters even though I had shared the world they inhabited. Perhaps there was some jealousy in not seeing what made her work so much more special than mine: the "hey, I can write like that!" Or maybe I just never cared for her style. But I was always interested in her the person, most recently when her secret conception and difficult pregnancy at age 48 was made public. Like myself, and many other women in my generation, child bearing came late, and with much medical reproductive assistance. Sadly, as a celebrity she had to endure not only the pain of a premature birth, but the speculations into the origins of her sperm donor and commentary on whether her obesity and age contributed to the pregnancy problems that resulted. I wondered to myself whether she had used donor eggs and fumed that I hated when celebrities had late pregnancies without revealing all the particulars, thus fueling many women's mis-conceptions about how late you can push your reproductive envelope. But I admired her drive, the sheer application of will, to write, to reproduce, the shrug off society as she lampooned it. And now, as I take stock (wish that it were of the summer kind) of my own writing aspirations and how little time we have to acccomplish our goals in life, I am saddened by the loss of someone I did not know personally and whose work I didn't absolutely adore but who represents a life lived according to one's own compass. What a role model for women, for those she wrote about, for those she inspired and for her daughter who follows.