You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir

A Friend Says Every Book Begins with an Unanswerable Question

In this chapter, Smith asks “how to change” (252).

Some People Ask

When others ask Smith whether she will marry again, she does not tell them about her promise to her children that she will not add any other major changes to their lives in the near future, nor does she explain how she desires to find someone who loves her. Instead, she says that it is possible.

Punching Bag

Smith’s therapist challenges her to think more about setting boundaries. Smith responds that she thinks it is time to stop thinking about her connection to her husband as a relationship, because there is no reciprocity from him.

One Small Step

As her first step in setting boundaries, Smith sets up a new email account and asks her husband to use it. She only accesses the new email account on her laptop, so that she is not confronted with communication from him at all hours of the day and night.

Birds

A friend tells Smith that birding helped her get through her divorce. Smith considers how birds in trees are invisible to people but fill the air with song. She wonders whether she would see her life as rich and full of song if she could look at it now without thinking about what was missing.