Book Description: Defending Happiness, and Other Acts of Bravery is a book about fighting for your bliss. The collection of stories demonstrates how one woman faced off with breast cancer, online dating, and motherhood, using audacity and wit to not only survive, but repeatedly reclaim her human right to happiness.
Q&A with Author Amy Shea!
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Q.
The essays in your new book reveal a middle-aged woman who confronts
issues such as aging, dating, and rebelling.
How do life’s events shape your writing?
A. My life shaped my thinking, which in turn
shaped what I decided to write about. Facing difficult circumstances early on, I
felt at first only a general survival sense, a “go the other way” feeling to
the concrete things like where I lived, the lack of money, the danger, etc. I
didn’t know what it was I wanted but I knew what I didn’t want. But I did
understand, though very young, a responsibility about the whole thing, that it
was all on me to change it. I saw happiness as a very active pursuit, though it
did take some maturity to come understand the difference between pleasure and
happiness. So, as a writer, I always have the choice to write as a victim—”let
me tell you how horrible this has been” sort of thing—which would be a
betrayal, as that is not how I approach life, or I can write from my true nature,
as someone who faces what is, and chooses to write about that experience.
Q.
You also write of overcoming a number of challenges, losses and
setbacks. How do you find the fighting
spirit to handle what comes your way?
A. I would not use the word “overcoming.” I
didn’t overcome cancer. I had it; it happened. And that’s true of anything I
write about. That’s the point, really, that life isn’t something to be
overcome. It’s something to be responded to in the way you wish to respond, and
not fighting it because it hasn’t met your ideal. I couldn’t change that I had
cancer. I could, however, decide that I would do my best to keep dancing—which
I have done all my life—and not waste time wishing that dancing was less of an
effort, the way it had been before radiation therapy. Dancing makes me happy,
so I defended that and kept doing it. I didn’t stop because it didn’t look the
way it once did during that time.
Q.
One of the tragedies to befall you was the loss of your brother, who was
murdered by your cousin. How did you
come to terms with this shocking loss?
A. One of the things that happens when a young
handsome man is murdered in a “tabloid-like” way by his lover, who was also my
cousin, is that there are no rules for how to behave. And that turned out to be
a valuable experience, because I was able to experience that kind of divine
release from custom and convention, as Socrates has put it. And that felt
right—to act oddly under such odd circumstances, instead of trying to pack life
back into its previous shape. What surprised me, however, was that it stayed
with me. I never quite snapped all the way back into a conventional way of
responding to life after that—and that has kept my brother with me all these
years. He was dramatic and very beautiful, and liked to be a little shocking.
So, him leaving me with this lack of conventionality is a sweet reminder of him
that allows me to feel as if I’m carrying on for him, in a way. Not as a kind
of mimicry, but as a gift he left behind for me. I’d still rather have him
here, but that is not what is.
Q. A survivor of breast cancer, you know that life is precious. What bits of wisdom can you share with us
after having confronted the end of life?
A. That you are going to die. That’s it, really.
Cancer helped me to stop thinking about happiness as THE BIG THING. A lot of us
have one of those: when I retire, I’m going to FILL IN THE BLANK. I wanted very
much to write this book, it was a big thing in my life, but my happiness is
hardly limited to this book. It’s the dozens of choices I make in a day, from
taking time to eat something lovely instead of just having toast because it’s
easy, or walking in the rain because I love doing that even though it’s messy.
Whatever it is, defend it from any belief that it doesn’t matter. It’s what
your life feels like to you, and that matters.
Q.
You sound fiercely independent.
Marriage just didn’t agree with you but you love to date. Is marriage an
unrealistic institution today?
A. No, not at all. I’m just not temperamentally
suited for it, at least not traditional marriage, but I have dear friends who
have great marriages. From what I can tell, they are based on friendship and
cutting each other a wide swath to be themselves. I do think marriage should
always be a custom-made suit, however. I think many couples approach it
following a parental paradigm or something they’ve already seen, often without
even realizing it, when what they want in both their hearts is to create the
kind of structure that suits them both as unique individuals. I often think
that I might have been able to be married if I could have found a man who saw
the value in us having separate houses, and checking accounts.
Q.
One of themes presenting your writing is the advancement of women and
how your generation broke through some significant barriers. Where do we stand
as a society, in terms of the roles we see men and women occupy?
A. Gender relations are always going to involve
a healthy dose of détente, because men and women are really wired differently.
But, the social empowerment of women has colored even the most traditional
aspects of relationships, like having children and marriage. I see it in young women all the time. There’s
a sense of value that women feel now that I don’t think existed at this level
when I was young, and that changes the entire dynamic, in a good way, even if
it’s difficult at times. Women expect friendship from their husbands—something
my mother’s generation would have never even thought about. That makes me feel
very optimistic.
Q. You rage against aging. Are you
winning the battle?
A. I’ve won the battle against raging, but not
aging. Aging is shocking when you first start seeing changes, which I talk
about in the book. And I felt angry and set up by it. But that was another
opportunity to really question what I was associating aging with. It felt like
one big ending, and that turned out not
to be true at all. Yes, of course, there are things that are different, and
even ended. But, as an independent woman with a killer wardrobe, well, I have
to tell you, I’m having a great time. Aging
was
another opportunity to defend my happiness from a myth that life was winding
down when, in fact, this is a whole second adolescence, but without the acne.
Q.
You grew up as one of seven in abject poverty. Did you buck the odds just by growing without
getting shot or pregnant as a teen?
A. I was more afraid of getting pregnant than
shot, actually. We were raised Catholic, and being an “unwed mother” meant a
ticket straight to hell, whereas if you were shot and had recently been to confession,
you could end up with your own cloud. I think one can grow up in poverty, and
that’s one thing, but being poor and unsafe is something else entirely. Growing
up in a housing project was incredibly dangerous. It was only as an adult that
I fully realized how much the idea of safety motivated some of my early
decisions. But there is also an amazing spirit in the people who come from
there, some of whom have come forward to buy my book, feeling very happy that
we made it out. Some of us didn’t.
Q.
What advice would you give to young women today?
A. Find your bliss, and be prepared to defend
it, because resistance and distortions are a part of life. And those things
come from both outside and inside of you. And keep your sense of humor. Wit is often
the quickest way to the truth. And a man without a sense of humor will be
intolerable to live with, so figure that out early on in the dating process.
Q.
What inspired you to write your book and where does the title, Defending Happiness and Other Acts of Bravery, come from?
A. I’ve written all my life. My first short
story was published when I was a teenager, and I have published a lot of poetry
over the years, which I still love to write. But I began to feel very
interested in talking about life in a direct way, and just began one weekend
writing the first story, the one on motherhood. Then I wrote another and
another, realizing very soon that I was writing a set of stories linked by the
philosophy that it took bravery to be happy. I don’t think of happiness as a
soft thing. When I picture happiness it’s always wearing a black motorcycle
jacket. I mean, just watch kids. What happens when someone takes their
happiness away? It isn’t pretty. I can identify with that, though I’ve learned
not to bite and kick.
Q.
Is life ever as you expect it or hope it to be?
A. No. It’s far more wonderful and frightening
than that. I think it’s harder than we expect, and more rewarding than we ever
imagined. It seems to me that the collective human experience of life not ever
matching up with an ideal should be encouragement enough to throw out the whole
concept of applying ideals to people’s lives once and for all. Using an ideal
to make a toaster is one thing; to try to make a life, that’s ludicrous. Find
your unique bliss in all the moments of your day, and defend doing it. That’s
work enough for any of us.
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About Amy: AMY SHEA is the
Executive Vice President of Brand Development for Brand Keys, Inc. in Manhattan
and is the founder and president of Amy Shea Consultancy, Inc., a brand
research consulting firm. Her clients include Microsoft, Delta Dental, and the
US Army. Her work has been recognized by
the David Ogilvy Excellence Award in Research, with both a Grand Ogilvy and
First in Category for her global work with IBM. In 2008 she was recognized by
the Advertising Research Foundation with a Great Minds Award in innovation. A
graduate of the University of Georgia’s Marketing Research Program, Amy’s
academic background also includes an undergraduate degree in creative writing,
earned with the University of New Hampshire, with joint studies at Harvard
University. She also co-authored a
business book,
The Certainty Principle.
Her
writing career began as a teenager when her first short story was featured in a
national magazine at the age of 13. She has continued to write throughout her
life, publishing poetry in numerous literary journals and anthologies. Amy is
the recipient of the prestigious Dylan Thomas Poetry Fellowship in Paris,
sponsored by the Paris Review. She
was also invited for a coveted residency at the artist’s retreat, the MacDowel
Colony, and was awarded a Wesleyan University poetry fellowship.
She
blogs often, including posts on Salon. She has been interviewed, in connection
with her branding company, by the New
York Times, Media Post, Daily Beast, and numerous business publications.
Better Than Chocolate by Sheila Roberts
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