Excerpts from An Illustrated Guide To An Unmarried Woman

This year I celebrate Jill Clayburgh's birthday a little more lightheartedly than last year with some sketches that commemorate what was arguably her best screen role as Erica Benton in Paul Mazursky's An Unmarried Woman. Collectively, and with tongue planted firmly in cheek,  I call them An Illustrated Guide To An Unmarried Woman.

I just remembered something sort of funny that happened the first two times I watched this movie. I was around sixteen when An Unmarried Woman came on network television. I was really enjoying the film, but I was tired and I fell asleep before the last scene. I was disappointed to have missed the end, but of course there were no VCRs or DVRs and so I had no choice but to wait until it came on TV again.

Several months later, in the middle of the summer, it was the Sunday night movie on ABC. I was sitting on my orange bean bag chair watching it with my mom in our living room. It was getting close to the end of the movie, and my mom kept pestering me to go get the laundry out of  the basement. I waited for the last commercial break before the final scene, and then I sprang up out of my vinyl covered tangerine atrocity and ran down the basement stairs as fast as I could. I scooped the load of laundry out of the dryer and into a basket, then bolted back up the stairs into the living room, dropping the basket on the floor. I made it back in plenty of time to finally see the end of the movie.

And I would have too,  I really would have, if only I hadn't passed out, knocking over my mother's Fresca and hitting my head on the floor. I thought I was bleeding from the back of my head, but of course my gushing wound turned out to be Fresca. Even so, my mom was so freaked out she made my dad get out of bed and take me to the emergency room.

We were in the emergency room until nearly 3AM just so they could tell me there was nothing wrong with me (well, that's subjective) and that I simply had had a vasovagal reaction from jumping up too fast. But what really mattered is that I missed the end of the movie again.

Since that night I've seen An Unmarried Woman many times, including the last scene (finally!) in which Jill Clayburgh lugs an enormous painting (a parting gift from her lover Alan Bates) through the streets of lower Manhattan. It's a funny, poignant story specifically about a woman who has to find her confidence and independence after the marriage she thought would last a lifetime crumbles at her feet, but really it speaks to anyone who is tentatively trying to rejoin the world after great heartache.

It's how viscerally Jill makes me feel that heartache, and ultimately the sense of hope she basks in that keeps me coming back to this American classic again and again.

#jillclayburgh

an unmarried woman...and me

August 26, 2007

I'm riding in a taxi cab on 57th Street with Jill Clayburgh. We're stuck in traffic in front of the Russian Tea Room. It's a sunny day, but we are bathed in the shadow of a large scaffolding that envelops the Tea Room and the sidewalk in front of it.

I can just make out the trees of Central Park a few blocks North as Jill begins to cry. She's upset about her career, fearing it hasn't turned out the way she had hoped.

"What are you talking about!" I say. "You're JILL CLAYBURGH! An Unmarried Woman...Starting Over. You're a two-time Oscar nominee. And all those great comedies in the 70's. You should be very proud of your career."

We're now in a hotel room overlooking the park. Jill is in a short nightgown covered by a silk robe. We kiss briefly, but somehow it doesn't feel right.

We go out for a walk along what is supposed to be Broadway, but which I actually recognize as the town where I grew up.

We come across a horde of bike riders blocking an intersection. They seem to be holding a demonstration of some sort, but it is decidedly non-violent. In fact, the bikers start to sing The Prayer of St. Francis (Make Me A Channel of Your Peace.)

So beautiful is the singing that Jill and I start to weep quietly in the soft rain that has begun to fall.