Carolyn See
Dreaming:
Good Luck and Hard Times in America
(New York: Random House, 1995)
Many women throughout history have faced and endured hardships, tragedy, and prejudices. Many women have had numerous triumphs, celebrations, and happy times. Some were courageous, smart and some had the guts and the will to do what they wanted in their lives. Some faced struggles and yet were determined to get where they are today. There are many women that have had their share of good times and bad times, whether it was centuries ago or today.
While reading my Western Woman's autobiography, all these emotions came to my mind. This woman went through it all in her life. How she strive to get where she is today, and her persistence of not giving up. This Western Woman not only had the determination, she also had the spunk. This woman is Carolyn See and her book Dreaming is a book that explains her life. Reading her book and reading her words, you felt for her, you were sad for her, and you were happy for her. You were able to understand and you were able to picture every word in every situation in your head. Reading her autobiography, she showed how she prevailed in her life.
Carolyn describes her life in full detail. She begins with an introduction to her family, her parents, aunts, uncles, first husband, second husband, boyfriends, and her children. She was born and raised in California, and has lived there her whole life. She was born in 1934, to George and Kate Laws. Her father worked in an advertising company and her mother was a housewife and mother. They lived in Eagle Rock, a working class suburb of Los Angeles. They had a small but inviting house with a wide front porch with a fence that runs by the driveway. From the outside it looks like a happy little family, for the most part, but when the door is close, the truth comes out.
The majority of this book is about how drugs and alcohol played a huge part in Carolyn's life. They affected her father and his family, and her mother and her family. Carolyn found out for the most part of her family, how drugs and alcohol worked through her family. The two substances have been around nearly for hundred years. She also wrote about how her family went through mental, physical, and emotional abuse. Carolyn was a daughter of a broken family. Her father left her and her mother when she was about ten years old. He called one night to tell that he wasn't coming home for dinner and that he wasn't coming home at all. This was devastating to Carolyn and more devastating to her mother.
During this time Carolyn's father remarried, her mother got a job, and Carolyn knew that school was her only way out. Her mother kept telling her that at the age of eighteen she was out and Carolyn could not wait for that day. Her mother also remarried and had a baby girl named Rose. At this time Carolyn went to live with her father and new step-mom. She lived with them for a while and when she graduated high school, she moved in with her girl friend and her mother. From there she went to community college and saw both sets of parents regularly. Carolyn started to get on with her life. She wanted to become a writer and she knew she had to push herself.
In 1954 she married Richard See and had a daughter with him and went to live in Paris for a year. About five year's later back in California, her and Richard divorced. Within the same year, she met, fell in love and married again for the second time. His name was Tom Sturak with whom she had another child, a daughter named Clara. She was happy and had two beautiful daughters Lisa and Clara, a new husband and a new life. They were both young adults with their PhDs and they both experimented with drugs, Marijuana and Acid.
The year was 1967, and at the age of thirty-five Carolyn and Tom divorced. He was seeing another woman and fell in love with her. Here she was again, divorced twice, two kids and little money. She thought her life was over, but it wasn't. She managed to keep house, be a mother and be a friend.
While reading this book, I was amazed of how well a woman during this era managed to keep on going. Carolyn's whole life was very interesting and it made me feel how lucky I am. Throughout her life she had ups and downs. Her parents divorcing, the verbal abuse she went through from her mother, her divorces, her drinking and doing drugs, having no money at times and just living day by day. To me that is so hard and so emotionally draining. But to look on the other hand, she had two beautiful daughters whom she loved to death, she was a writer, and she made it in a world known back then as a "man's world." Today she is a college professor of English at UCLA, her daughter are married, she is a grandmother and lives with her boyfriend John Espey in Topanga Canyon, California.
Carolyn See overcame barriers and walls. She had the power and the knowledge of doing it all. She saw what it is really like to live your life. She might have seen it differently from other people and she might have had to fight, but she did it and to me that takes courage and strength, and that is what she had.
Further Readings:
Carolyn See, Blue Money: Pornography and the Pornographers (New York: McKay, 1974)
Carolyn See, Golden Days (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987)
Carolyn See, Making History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1991)
Carolyn See, Rhine Maidens (New York: Coward, McGann and Geoghegan, 1981)
Carolyn See, The Rest is Done With Mirrors (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970)
Carolyn See, Literary Exiles and Refuges in LA: Papers Presented at a Clark Library Seminar, April 14 1984 (Los Angeles: Williams Andrews Clark Memorial Library University of California, 1988)
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