Sonya Lea's Blog
July 30, 2015
Story of the Week at NPR
Sonya Lea and her husband Richard Bandy had a 23-year marriage filled with ups, downs and memories. In 2000 Bandy developed a rare form of appendix cancer and had an operation which was successful — sort of.
Bandy lived, but he was almost a different man. He had suffered a post-surgical complication called "anoxic insult" that cut oxygen to his brain and cleared much of his memory. He called his wife "Sweetness," but could not remember how they met, when they got married and the births of their two children. Twenty-three years more or less vanished from his mind.
"I very much live in the now now," Bandy tells NPR's Scott Simon. "I mean, I have no real recollection of how I used to be and no real interest in trying to preserve it or trying to go back there."
Lea, whose essays and interviews have appeared in Salon, The Southern Review and other publications, has written a book about their journey forward together. It's called Wondering Who You Are.
Story here: http://www.npr.org/series/100876926/n...
Bandy lived, but he was almost a different man. He had suffered a post-surgical complication called "anoxic insult" that cut oxygen to his brain and cleared much of his memory. He called his wife "Sweetness," but could not remember how they met, when they got married and the births of their two children. Twenty-three years more or less vanished from his mind.
"I very much live in the now now," Bandy tells NPR's Scott Simon. "I mean, I have no real recollection of how I used to be and no real interest in trying to preserve it or trying to go back there."
Lea, whose essays and interviews have appeared in Salon, The Southern Review and other publications, has written a book about their journey forward together. It's called Wondering Who You Are.
Story here: http://www.npr.org/series/100876926/n...
July 25, 2015
This Is Our Life, On NPR's Weekend Edition
We had a wonderful conversation with Scott Simon of NPR's Weekend Edition on Saturday's show. http://www.npr.org/2015/07/25/4256558...#
July 17, 2015
Chicago Tribune Review
I couldn't decide who I was while reading Sonya Lea's intense, unblinking marriage and identity memoir, "Wondering Who You Are." I was sympathetic and concerned, but also discomfited. I was privy to a couple's deepest intimacies — and not quite certain that I should be. I was carried forward by the linguistic ferocity of a self-proclaimed badass, but also by great empathy for the husband whose medical tragedy lies at the heart of this story and whose own thoughts and ideas have, as Lea admits, been primarily remembered and crafted for him. Richard, Lea's husband, is a "man who wants to agree with me," Lea tells us. A tragic brain injury makes it impossible to know if he truly does.
Lea was a wild-hearted young woman when she married Richard. Richard was physically graceful, intelligent, disciplined, hardworking — and, key to the couple's longevity, sexually adventurous. Their first child came soon. Struggles ensued — the sort of challenges brought on by deliberate rootlessness, reckless attempts at independence, Lea's own alcoholism and Richard's occasional violence toward their son.
Theirs was a craggy marriage, often rescued by good sex, but by the time Richard is facing surgery for a rare form of appendix cancer, the two are united by a time-tested love and an idea they have about their future.
The anoxic insult to Richard's brain in the aftermath of that surgery changes everything. Richard wakes to a world he doesn't remember. His cognition, his high-level reasoning, his executive function, his sense of self, his past, his manners — all of that has been damaged. He regards Lea, but seems to know little of their life together. He begins to speak, but language comes slowly. He is without affect. He calls Lea "sweetness." He prefers silence, has no agenda. Over and again, Lea describes her husband as a newborn, a baby, a toddler, a child. His condition is an affront. Who he is is not what she wants.
"The "you" in Richard has disappeared, and in its wake a mind appears in random flashes of gestures, words, expressions. … I'm unmoored by his apparent nothingness. He's a living embrace of impermanence, in dude form. But I don't want this bodyspace called husband, absent of ideas and longings and history. I want him to be as he was. I want to have what was once mine, even though I know he really didn't belong to me. But this man does not stay. He goes and goes and goes. Whatever has done this to us cares nothing for what I want."
Dogged, determined to please Lea, determined to return to his job as a physical therapist, determined to contribute, Richard willingly takes on myriad post-surgery rehab programs, homework sessions, tests, responsibilities. Lea does an admirable job of steering the ship — of advocating, of insisting, of demanding more. She reads, asks questions, thinks deeply about the brain and how it works, about identity and how it is formed, about our inability to ever capture or convey a pure, unadulterated memory. She writes smart and knowingly. The facts of their new life abrade her. She sets them down, without fear.
Beth Kephart is the author of 19 books, including "Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir."
"Wondering Who You Are"
Article located at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifesty...#
Lea was a wild-hearted young woman when she married Richard. Richard was physically graceful, intelligent, disciplined, hardworking — and, key to the couple's longevity, sexually adventurous. Their first child came soon. Struggles ensued — the sort of challenges brought on by deliberate rootlessness, reckless attempts at independence, Lea's own alcoholism and Richard's occasional violence toward their son.
Theirs was a craggy marriage, often rescued by good sex, but by the time Richard is facing surgery for a rare form of appendix cancer, the two are united by a time-tested love and an idea they have about their future.
The anoxic insult to Richard's brain in the aftermath of that surgery changes everything. Richard wakes to a world he doesn't remember. His cognition, his high-level reasoning, his executive function, his sense of self, his past, his manners — all of that has been damaged. He regards Lea, but seems to know little of their life together. He begins to speak, but language comes slowly. He is without affect. He calls Lea "sweetness." He prefers silence, has no agenda. Over and again, Lea describes her husband as a newborn, a baby, a toddler, a child. His condition is an affront. Who he is is not what she wants.
"The "you" in Richard has disappeared, and in its wake a mind appears in random flashes of gestures, words, expressions. … I'm unmoored by his apparent nothingness. He's a living embrace of impermanence, in dude form. But I don't want this bodyspace called husband, absent of ideas and longings and history. I want him to be as he was. I want to have what was once mine, even though I know he really didn't belong to me. But this man does not stay. He goes and goes and goes. Whatever has done this to us cares nothing for what I want."
Dogged, determined to please Lea, determined to return to his job as a physical therapist, determined to contribute, Richard willingly takes on myriad post-surgery rehab programs, homework sessions, tests, responsibilities. Lea does an admirable job of steering the ship — of advocating, of insisting, of demanding more. She reads, asks questions, thinks deeply about the brain and how it works, about identity and how it is formed, about our inability to ever capture or convey a pure, unadulterated memory. She writes smart and knowingly. The facts of their new life abrade her. She sets them down, without fear.
Beth Kephart is the author of 19 books, including "Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir."
"Wondering Who You Are"
Article located at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifesty...#
July 6, 2015
Seattle Writer Shares New Memoir About Husband's Memory Loss
Consider the connective tissue holding a long-term marriage together: a web of understanding based on personal history—years of discussion, arguments, realizations, inside jokes, terms of endearment, intimate gestures, memories of private moments. Then think about a spouse suddenly losing all that backstory, and in the process, losing the personality that made you fall in love with him or her in the first place. Now you’re married to the same physical person, but the persona has been wiped clean, like a hard drive. Who is this new spouse in your bed? Are you still in love? And if your partner can’t weigh in on your shared past, what counts as the truth?
More at http://www.seattlemag.com/article/sea...
More at http://www.seattlemag.com/article/sea...
July 4, 2015
BBC Names Wondering Top Ten Book in July
As her husband of 23 years goes in for an experimental treatment survivors call MOAS – ‘Mother of All Surgeries’ – for a rare cancer of the appendix, Lea prepares for a tough recovery. In addition to a lengthy physical recovery, complications leave Richard with a brain injury that leaves him with profound memory loss. “The man we knew as Richard died to us,” Lea writes. “And with his former self, any notion of an ‘us’”. Lea’s account of her loss, and her adjustment to the new man her husband has become, is unflinching, as is her detailed account of their life together as she remembers it. The gradual evolution of their new life together becomes, in the end, a love story. “My husband shows me that the fundamental nature of being here – on earth, in love, within the sexual experience – is joyful.”
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/2015...
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/2015...
June 5, 2015
Excerpt From The Memoir
I'm so proud to be included in Guernica Magazine with a chapter from Wondering Who You Are.
https://www.guernicamag.com/features/...
Wondering Who You Are
https://www.guernicamag.com/features/...
Wondering Who You Are
May 6, 2015
Daisy Duke and the Manosphere
"I've wondered if the most effective political act is to have your own orgasm."
New provocative, feminist piece at The Rumpus: http://therumpus.net/2015/05/daisy-du...
New provocative, feminist piece at The Rumpus: http://therumpus.net/2015/05/daisy-du...
April 16, 2015
Roxane Gay Selects This Essay for The Butter!
One morning on Facebook, my friend Laurie Wagner of Wild Writing posted an illuminating string of Twitter remarks by Roxane Gay. These were about what makes a good essay.
Since I was teaching at Seattle's Hugo House, I made them into writing prompts, and my class and I worked each of those questions for the purposes of revising our essays.
The next day, reading back through my journal, I realized that my own essay might be improved. Following Gay's guidelines, I connected the personal story to the universal. In this case, how being vulnerable in the public realm might help others. The essay was submitted, and within a week or so, was picked up by Gay at The Butter.
You can read the piece here: http://the-toast.net/2015/04/14/the-g...
Reading the comments at the site has been eye-opening, and a wonderful way to get to know other communities, people who have experienced ambiguous loss in their lives. You write alone in a room, and then you get a chance to be with others, often silently holding their questions. It's precious, all of this holding of each other we get to do through language.
Since I was teaching at Seattle's Hugo House, I made them into writing prompts, and my class and I worked each of those questions for the purposes of revising our essays.
The next day, reading back through my journal, I realized that my own essay might be improved. Following Gay's guidelines, I connected the personal story to the universal. In this case, how being vulnerable in the public realm might help others. The essay was submitted, and within a week or so, was picked up by Gay at The Butter.
You can read the piece here: http://the-toast.net/2015/04/14/the-g...
Reading the comments at the site has been eye-opening, and a wonderful way to get to know other communities, people who have experienced ambiguous loss in their lives. You write alone in a room, and then you get a chance to be with others, often silently holding their questions. It's precious, all of this holding of each other we get to do through language.
