Sallie Bingham

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You are here: Home / Women / How Do We Go on Living?

How Do We Go on Living?

July 17th, 2019 by Sallie Bingham in Women 2 Comments

Photo of my century plantOne of my most beloved writers, Colette, teaches me the answer to the above question with every word she writes. As I, and so many of us, become—legitimately—burned and devoured by the horrors of contemporary life, her rare wit and wisdom come again and again to my aid.

She was exceptionally close to her mother, whom she called Sido, the good genius of the Provençal garden where Colette grew to maturity, and where she returned from time to time from Paris, for refreshment. To my mind, a woman, and especially a woman writer, who is close to her mother has a treasure to draw upon. There she learns the first lessons of what it means to be a woman. Among many other things, Sido taught the great value of closeness to the soil and to everything that grows.

When I saw the Century Plant blooming in my dooryard garden yesterday morning, its ten-foot stalk having shot up almost overnight (we are having wonderful rains), I remembered the letter Sido wrote to her son-in-law, Colette’s husband, turning down his invitation to come for a visit.

“You ask me to come and spend a week with you in Paris, which means I would be near my daughter, whom I adore. You who live with her know how rarely I see her and how much her presence delights me.” Still, she is turning down the opportunity, because “my pink cactus is probably going to flower. It’s a very rare plant I’ve been given, and I’m told that in our climate, it only flowers once every four years. Now, I am a very old woman, and if I went away when my pink cactus is about to flower, I am certain I shouldn’t see it again,

When I saw the Century Plant blooming in my dooryard garden yesterday morning, I remembered the letter Sido wrote to her son-in-law, Colette's husband, turning down his invitation to come for a visit.

“So, I beg you, Sir, to accept my sincere thanks and my regrets.”

I can’t claim that my Century Plant is rare or even that it only blooms every four years, but I do believe it is blooming for me now so that, in the midst of many difficulties (none large), I will be reminded of the great, nourishing importance of living things.

[For more on my Century Plant, please see my post, The Century Plant]

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In Women New Mexico

A long and fruitful career as a writer began in 1960 with the publication of Sallie Bingham's novel, After Such Knowledge. This was followed by 15 collections of short stories in addition to novels, memoirs and plays, as well as the 2020 biography The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke.

Her latest book, Taken by the Shawnee, is a work of historical fiction published by Turtle Point Press in June of 2024. Her previous memoir, Little Brother, was published by Sarabande Books in 2022. Her short story, "What I Learned From Fat Annie" won the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize in 2023 and the story "How Daddy Lost His Ear," from her forthcoming short story collection How Daddy Lost His Ear and Other Stories (September 23, 2025), received second prize in the 2023 Sean O’Faolain Short Story Competition.

She is an active and involved feminist, working for women’s empowerment, who founded the Kentucky Foundation for Women, which gives grants to Kentucky artists and writers who are feminists, The Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture at Duke University, and the Women’s Project and Productions in New York City. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Sallie's complete biography is available here.

Comments

  1. John Warren Oakes says

    July 17th, 2019 at 11:24 am

    Words of wisdom Sallie. Thank you.

    Reply
  2. Wren Smith says

    July 17th, 2019 at 6:03 pm

    Thank you, Sallie for continual inspiration and wisdom…yes, so very needed in these dark times!

    Reply

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Spring is full of moods here in New Mexico... I keep waiting grumpily for a spell of warm, settled weather. But not my friends the ravens. This is the weather they adore. "My Friends the Ravens": https://buff.ly/a2YelNT #Birds #BirdWatching #Hiking #TheCityDifferent

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