First Person Singular by Wendy Braitman

The Black Dress

About a year ago, while browsing in my favorite card store, I discovered a postcard of Alex Katz’s “The Black Dress,” and thumbtacked it to the cork bulletin board beside my desk. Mr. Katz employed his beloved wife Ada as a model for the painting, which he created in 1960, almost a half century ago. I suppose some might consider this image, painted in loving tribute to the artist’s spouse, an odd inaugural emblem for “Notes from an Unmarried Life.” I find it a timeless representation of the ways we single women can be similar and different (while chic and fabulous) all at the same time.

(Check out a recent interview with Alex Katz, from Women’s Wear Daily.)

Inaugural poem

“What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light.”

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Fannie Merritt Farmer

Fannie Merritt Farmer is on my mind this week. 112 years ago, she published her first book, The Boston Cooking-School Cookbook, and it catapulted her to fame. It also made her rich. When a publisher wasn’t willing to take a risk on an unknown, she ponied up the initial printing costs and retained the copyright. With over 4 million copies sold, it is one of the best-selling cookbooks of all time. Continue reading »

Goodbye to the Spinster

I first glimpsed unmarried life while watching my great aunts, Ruth and Evie, my grandmother’s single sisters who, coupled by default, became a pair. Ruthandevie. Names said in tandem, as if they were a unit, with no identity apart from that as spinster. After the family deposited them at holiday gatherings, they would sit around the table, gab and eat like the rest of us. But they were not the same. No husband, no kids. No status. Not for me. Continue reading »

A Saturday Night, Out

I used to need courage to go to a movie alone on a weekend. If there was a film I wanted to see and friends weren’t available, I refused to succumb to the shame of sitting alone when everyone else was paired off. I made myself go. But it wasn’t easy. Each time, I had to psych myself up. Continue reading »

Single Diaries

JAN. 23: 
Felt like a spinster today. Took off my sun hat and caught a glimpse of my hair. Flat. The way I wear the hat, with its wide brim, pulled low over my face is in itself a little spinster-y, especially on a windy day, when I secure it with a cord braced tight against my chin. I’m sure no man walking by me in this getup, would consider asking me out on a date. 

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