Ode to Melinda Gates and Age of Innocence

I am starting to write a novel about women of privilege. I have a friend, Lisa, who lives in a rarified and wealthy corner of the world. She started telling me all of these crazy stories about her world.

"You should write a book about this!" I said.

"No, Lauren," Lisa replied. "You are the writer. You should write about it."

Wow. I thought. She has a point. I could write about this. It would be so different than writing essay and memoir. I thought I'd give it a try. Writing a novel is harder than it looks, which is fine. In memoir, writers can stick to the truth more or less. The truth is typically more compelling and complex than a whitewashed version of events.

I met with a friend, Sereena, for lunch yesterday who comes from an opposite world. While she is super educated and intelligent, she had a bout of homelessness after she was struck with a disability and lost her job. She was not suffering from chronic homelessness caused by mental illness or an addiction, but rather she had a spell of bad luck. She has been in stable housing since I've known her. Sereena is a wonderful education advocate and I have a tremendous amount of respect for her.

Why am I writing about a world of privilege instead of the plight of those suffering from poverty or racism? I am hoping to figure out how my friend Lisa's crazy world relates to the rest of the world.

I am doing massive amounts of reading as research for my novel: Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Great Gatsby, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I am reading Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton for the first time. The novel is about privileged New York society in the 1870's, when Wharton was young. I saw the movie with Daniel Day-Lewis years ago, and I hated it back then. I thought the movie was boring and nothing happened. Someone told Ian McKellen, the actor who played Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings movies, that he didn't understand the plot of these movies. He was reported to have said if you want to understand what is going on, read the books. The same holds true for Age of Innocence.

Edith Wharton grew up in a class where women--and most men--didn't have to work. Edith chose to have a literary life, and volunteered in Paris during the Great War.  Wharton wrote this book after World War I, after she had seen a great deal of suffering. I haven't yet figured out what inspired her to write it, but I hope to get there. I don't think she likes her main characters. I think she thinks they are vacuous and self-absorbed. Newland Archer reminds me of one of my high school boyfriends, and not in a good way. (Not Sean or Rob, in case either of you are reading this. My other high school boyfriend whose name will not be mentioned here.) Nevertheless, the book is interesting.

Many of the women in Lisa's world are both privileged and relatively powerless. Their wealth comes from their husbands. While they have everything they want, they lack purpose, even though they have enough financial freedom they could do whatever they want. Lisa is a stay-at-home mom and she loved her boys. She embraced motherhood more than other women I know who gave up careers for their kids.

My husband Jack will often ask me, "If you could do whatever you wanted to do, what would it be?" That is hard question to ask a mother like me when my kids are not yet settled and require my attention.

I wonder how the women in Lisa's 1% world would answer that question. Most of them play tennis. Some of them exert their power in mean and cruel ways over other women who have fewer means. I asked Lisa if any of these women do meaningful volunteer work, like serve on boards for arts, health or human services organizations. Do they write novels or music or are they trying to save the whales?

"No," was her short reply. She didn't even ponder. She almost yelled it.

In thinking about women who lead privileged lives, I started to think about Melinda Gates. I know some people in Seattle criticize the Gates for their undue influence in education. Let's remove that from this equation and look at what else Melinda Gates has done. Instead of frittering away her fortune, education and intelligence, she has put all three to good use. She advocates for improving health for pregnant woman and getting global access to birth control, and not just writing a check and hoping someone else will make it happen. She goes to the places where the work needs to be done, and she talks to people who are directly involved.

I remember reading a story in a magazine about Melinda's trip to New York City. She was in a posh hair salon, and the women working there didn't know who she was. The women who work there probably take care of the "Who's Who" in New York, but they didn't know Mrs. Gates was married to the richest man on the planet. This says a lot about Melinda's low-key approach. She'd probably rather hobnob with a midwife in New Delhi than strut down a red carpet.

I was googling Melinda and I saw her Twitter feed where she talks about access to healthcare for women all over the world. In her pictures on her Twitter feed, she isn't wearing visible make-up or jewelry. She looks downright frumpy but she is smiling and looks happy. I love it. Good for her! I am sure she has an amazing jewelry collection but that is not what is she using in her image to the world.

Sure, some people might think, I could do all sorts of cool stuff like that if I were as wealthy! But that is the point. Some people are wealthy (well, no one is as wealthy as Melinda and Bill) but they choose to spend their time, money and energy primarily on frivolous things like the characters in Age of Innocence whereas Melinda does not.

My friend often says she looks at people by how they carry their burdens. I would add to look at people how they carry their privilege, as well.