Today's work of the day comes from Dragonfire, an online effort that I'm still learning a bit more about. The work is a short memoir, written by Elizabeth Ellen. It is titled: Breathing Lessons, and the first thing I can say about it is how surprised I was that Elizabeth was able to be so honest in her writing.
There is no great braggadio here, nor any emotional struggle Elizabeth has overcome. That is, in my mind, this is something that was important to Elizabeth to put on paper, but not what seems to be the typical memoir fare these days.
Instead, Elizabeth discusses the beginnings (and endings) of a post-divorce relationship in which things got a little more out of the ordinary than she was used to. Note, I didn't say than she cared for them to, just more than she was used to.
The thing Elizabeth was able to do for me, the reader, was capture my attention, sprinkle in both some humor and intrigue and never had me doubting for even a moment whether or not I enjoyed the piece.
This memoir is great! As an EMT, I'm aware that applying pressure to the throat in a sexual situation, as described here, is an extremely dangerous thing to do. As thrilling as the memoir makes it seem, I hope readers won't feel compelled to "try it." If possible, I would hope the writer might consider stating in some way how dangerous this is and that sudden death can be the result.
Posted by: A. Sanders | March 01, 2006 at 04:57 AM