Denise Duhamel and Julie Marie Wade

Open Book: 100 Secrets

1. I was self-conscious that I looked like crap in the hospital as I sucked on ice chips sans lipstick.

2. I never used a compact mirror because I was afraid to see my face up close.

3. I once had a white hair grow out of my forehead—an inch long!

4. My mother found and plucked my first gray hair at the breakfast table when I was just sixteen.

5. I once saw my husband watching porn. He didn’t see me entering our bedroom, and I quickly backed away.

6. I tried to watch porn—straight porn, gay porn, lesbian porn—yet still felt nothing but irritation and boredom.

7. I tried to watch porn—the women in it made me doubt my own body.

8. I have always loathed the taste of alcohol, even when I drank to appease other people.

9. Sometimes I miss being drunk, even after all these years, the feeling I could just float away.

10. I was always afraid of floating away, I think, which is why I never did shrooms or LSD or even opium when I had the chance. (Marijuana, though—my old, mellow friend.)

11. I left too many things to chance when I was afraid to make an unpopular decision.

12. Sometimes I miss being a child, trusting the grown-ups knew more than they likely did.

13. Sometimes I miss being a child, when someone else made the doctors’ appointments and paid the bills.

14. There’s a small, petty part of me that wants my doctors, whom I call “Dr.,” to return the favor. When they call me “Miss” or even “Ms.,” I bristle and try to work in (awkwardly) about my Ph.D.

15. I bristle when someone calls me “Ma’am,” which makes me feel old, but similarly bristle when someone calls me “Miss,” which I hear as “Dismiss.”

16. Sometimes I dismiss the voice in my head that says “This will end badly” the same glib way I click “dismiss all” in my Outlook calendar.

17. Sometimes I pretend I’ve read a novel I haven’t.

18. Sometimes I pretend I’m talking on my cell phone when I see someone I’d rather not deal with in person.

19. I’ve hidden in Walgreens, behind a Dr. Scholl’s display, to avoid a colleague.

20. Once, my ex walked into a teashop, and I bolted, leaving my partner and all our friends behind. Even when I realized no one was chasing me, I still kept running.

21. Once, I ran away—took myself to dinner, then a movie, then a late-night walk—and my husband didn’t even notice.

22. Once, Angie and I were fleeing a hurricane, and a call came through the Bluetooth in our car. It was my parents, concerned for my safety after 15 years. I let voicemail answer for me.

23. When I was a teenager, I had “heel protectors” put on my boots. The staple came loose and pulled up a long strand of my aunt’s new shag carpet. I took off the boot and tried to stuff the carpet string back where it came from. I never told anyone.

24. I once flushed a tampon down a restaurant toilet, then played it cool when a friend went in later and said the restroom had flooded.

25. In despair, I ate slabs of raw Pillsbury cookie dough I found in my friend’s vegetable drawer. In shame, I threw the rest away in a trashcan down the block. I went to the supermarket to replace it, but they were out.

26. For a while, in graduate school, I used to cry every time I went grocery shopping, and I never figured out why.

27. When I worked at the grocery store, I felt oddly disconnected from food—repulsed by it actually, especially wet things like chickens or cartons of milk that left the belt damp.

28. I didn’t want to eat meat as a child, but my parents made me. That habit took 40 years to break.

29. I don’t think I’ll ever be truly free of food’s power over me.

30. Aside from the doctor’s office, where I always look away, I haven’t stepped on a scale since I was 18. For some years before that, the number on the scale was more important to me than my own name. In fact, that number eclipsed my name completely.

31. I hate that I judge myself on everything, including my weight and blood work scores. Why must I pass every test? Why do I want an A+?

32. To be worthy of something, perhaps? Something elusive that can’t be named or (maybe even) attained? I want it, too: a huge gold star, a bright red stamp of approval.

33. I want to be the “best” writer, win every prize. It’s humiliating to admit, even to myself.

34. Sometimes I practice acceptance speeches in front of the bathroom mirror.

35. My friend Laura Kightlinger dated Jack Black. I was jealous—not of Jack Black, but of the fact that, in 2004, she got to go to the Oscars as his date!

36. If I got invited to the Oscars, or any big award show, I would wear a classic black tuxedo cut to fit my curves and my best pair of shiny vegan leather brogues. (Yes, I have given this some thought!)

37. I have given some thought to a biopic about my life! Or having the first Hollywood film based on a book of poetry be based on one of my books.

38. Sometimes when I’m walking down a pretty street, I pretend a theme song is playing, that I’m starring in the sitcom of my own life.

39. Just once I wished someone would recognize me! Hey, aren’t you that poet I love so much?

40. I recognized you instantly, perched on a tuffet in the lobby of a Louisville hotel. I almost turned and bolted, though, as the voice in my head cautioned, You can’t un-meet your heroes!

41. You’re right! How could I forget how you and James made my day? I was feeling particularly unloved, fresh from my divorce.

42. I wore a dress that night—and heels! I doubt I will ever wear a dress or a pair of heels again.

43. I had no idea you didn’t always look that way! Or that you wouldn’t always look that way.

44. I stopped dating men, wearing make-up, eating meat, dyeing my hair, wearing dresses and nylons and shoes that hurt my feet. I wonder what else I will stop doing in my lifetime, by choice or not by choice. I wonder if we ever finish becoming who we are.

45. I have always prided myself on being a lifelong learner, but lately I feel tired, like I have learned enough. I especially resent software updates.

46. You know, I never pulled an all-nighter in college. I guess I figured if I wasn’t ready by 10 PM, retention wouldn’t improve with eyestrain and Red Bull—which I’ve also never tasted.

47. I’ve never tasted oysters, which look so slimy and primordial to me.

48. I’ve always preferred oysters to pearls—and now that I struggle with anemia, I crave them.

49. Sometimes I crave solitude even when surrounded by people I love. But it’s hard to ask for solitude without sounding unkind.

50. Kindness reminds me of the ocean: vast, inspiring, unmasterable. I’m never sure if I’ve been kind enough or how I could be certain that I have.

51. I have been cruel. I have said things for which I can’t forgive myself.

52. I ruined a straight friend’s wedding because I couldn’t have one of my own. Years later, when the laws changed, I dreamed she came to my wedding and set all the chairs on fire. (I wouldn’t have blamed her if she did.)

53. I yelled at my mother at my wedding—and now I don’t remember why. I just remember the hurt look on her face.

54. When I’m angry, my stomach tenses like a rubber band pulled taut. If I release the anger, it snaps back hard, so I instantly regret it. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever expressed anger without also feeling guilt.

55. As a woman and activist and feminist, I’ve been told over and over it’s not what you say but how you say it. Now I think that was just a way to shut me up. And it totally worked.

56. I used to believe all the lies I’ve told were to spare other people’s feelings. Now I wonder if I’ve been lying to myself about this—if the feelings I actually wanted to spare all along were mine.

57. I sometimes brace myself for what “reversal” my life will spin into next.

58. I do this too! I expect serendipity will be followed by calamity, even as I try to resist this way of thinking. When C.D. Wright chose my poetry book for a prize, I thought, “Oh yes!” followed quickly by “Oh no!” Three weeks later, I broke my leg in a freak home accident. Only then could I truly savor my good news.

59. Exactly! When my doctor gave me good news about my bloodwork, that I could live until 90 if “I keep doing what I’m doing,” my first thought was, “But what if I run out of money before then?”

60. I don’t know what I’ll do if my parents leave me their money when they die. I’ve spent all these years refusing it—and the control they wield with it. Still, I can’t deny it would be nice to pay off my student loans before I

61. When I was 28, my Uncle Wil died. He and his late wife had no children. He left everything to my sister and me—a small house for her and $20,000 for me. I was so paralyzed with anxiety that I didn’t touch even one dollar until eleven years later, even though I was poor all that time. I used the money as a down payment on my very first home purchase.

62. I have never leased a car or bought a home. Most people I know, at this stage in my life, lease nice cars and own nice homes. Sometimes, when snide remarks are made about “renters,” I cringe—but I still dread the responsibility and permanence of owning something I can’t drive away in.

63. When I bought my first condo (I’ve only bought two—and neither one on my own!), the realtors were horrified that I was still a renter at 40. There was a lot of snickering. Truth be told, I still wish I rented. Every leak and repair sends me into a panic.

64. I find it’s difficult to express confidence in my choices without many acquaintances and even some friends assuming that I’m judging theirs. Not buying a home, not having a child—even smaller choices, like not drinking alcohol or hosting dinner parties—begin to feel like facts of my life I’m expected to hide or, at the very least, apologize for.

65. Even when people aren’t judging me, I’m judging myself. Sorry I’m not on Twitter. Sorry I’m not on Facebook. I say this even though I’m not particularly sorry.

66. I’ve tried to replace Sorry in my vocabulary with I empathize (that sucks, though I’m not responsible for it) and I apologize (that sucks, and it’s completely my fault). Trouble is, without Sorry as a go-to, I have no reliable trap door for slipping out of awkward situations anymore.

67. Sometimes, even as I am saying yes, I’m thinking of a way I can cancel later.

68. When I say no, I almost always second-guess myself. And third-guess. And fourth-. Ad infinitum.

69. I sometimes feel a twinge of shame when I see my writing in print, as though someone is pointing at me saying, “Fraud.” Or “Who do you think you are?”

70. When I watch my students fretting over whether to submit their work, anxious to protect families that have hurt them, betrayed them, I wonder why I didn’t have a crisis of conscience like theirs. Why was I so willing to stitch my “dirty laundry” into books?

71. I never thought anyone would read my work in the beginning—that was my naïve defense. And I remember Tom Lux telling us that when his wife was yelling at him, he thought, “Keep going—I’ll put this in a poem.” I took it to heart, even though Tom rarely wrote personal poems.

72. I worry sometimes, if all experience is “material,” is all art exploiting someone, at least in some way? Still, I can’t say I would change anything I have written or rescind anything I have published. I don’t know if this is cowardice, courage, both, or neither.

73. I worry that I’m telling more about myself than I mean to. By writing divorce poems, did readers think, “Yikes—I would have divorced her, too.” By writing about my mother’s temper, did readers think, “She’s lucky she wasn’t my daughter—I would have never put up with her.”

74. When people said, “Just wait till you’re a parent!”, I always felt like I was getting away with something, knowing I would never be. The truth is, if donating eggs were as easy as donating sperm, I would have done it years ago. I would have loved to meet a person all grown up who was carrying half my genes. (I just didn’t want to birth or raise them!)

75. When I was an undergraduate in the 1980s, posters in downtown Boston advertised couples would “pay $5000” for eggs. Of course I called! But when a receptionist explained how doctors had to “harvest” the eggs, I hung up.

76. When I was a child in the 1980s, I used to pretend my parents were not my “real” parents—that someday I would be reunited with the family I actually came from. I’m not sure when, but one day I reached for that wish like a door knob, only to discover the whole room of longing was gone.

77. I often dream I have an extra room in my apartment—a room I’ve forgotten all about! I love all the dream dictionary’s definitions of this discovery, but my favorite is: Your scope will be expanding, and you are more than you expected to be.

78. A professor once wrote in a recommendation letter for me: Nothing is ever wasted on her. It’s probably the best compliment of my life. That was 20 years ago, and every day I think of it. Every day I want to live in a way that makes it true.

79. I sometimes have to learn the same lessons over and over. I often feel like I am falling short of being my authentic self.

80. In the same day, I often feel wise and foolish, believe I’ve gained some real insight, then fret I’ve regressed to a clueless, self-centered child. A lot of people do seem palpably more enlightened than me, but then I wonder if that’s just another illusion. What if there really is no Square Two?

81. What if we only really become more and more ourselves, our shadow sides becoming bigger shadows?

82. My Social Psychology professor surveyed our class: Do you believe humans are more alike than different or more different than alike? I don’t remember how I answered then, and I don’t know how I would answer now.

83. My Social Psychology professor had us read a bunch of articles about infant mortality and childhood starvation in Africa. Then we had to write an essay supporting or condemning the sterilization of women. I wrote an impassioned essay in favor of sterilization. Then he had us read a bunch of articles about forced sterilization as a racist, anti-woman practice. The shame I felt! He made his point—how easily we can be emotionally swayed.

84. I have a quick tear-trigger. I often cry at Hallmark commercials, Folgers commercials, and every time I hear “The Star-Spangled Banner”—it’s embarrassing! Once, I wept openly in a Pittsburgh bar when the Steelers made the winning pass. If Sarah McLachlan is crooning while a camera pans the faces of sad dogs, I either have to change the channel or leave the room.

85. I was nearing the end of The Lovely Bones, reading by my sister’s pool. I started sobbing on the last page, my tears blearing the print. “Are you OK?” my niece asked. I was so engrossed I’d forgotten anyone else was there.

86. As a child, remembering often seemed more like Sometimes even now, I disappear into a memory, all my senses keened. When someone says “Snap out of it!” I blink hard at the present world like Sleeping Beauty or Rip Van Winkle.

87. When I listen to my meditation tapes to fall asleep, my mind ricochets into memory or an obsessive thought about the future. When I “come to,” it’s twenty minutes later and I’m still wide awake. This makes me ask, “Are my students this far away, too, when I talk to them?”

88. My mother was a teacher, beloved by her students. She even named me after one of them. True, I’ve never liked the name Julie—there are a hundred other names I’d prefer. But to be a teacher like my mother was, named for a student that my mother loved: it’s the only way I have of feeling close to her now.

89. I never wanted to be a teacher. I fell into it via poetry. My mother never wanted to teach either. When presented with the only two choices available to her in the 1950s—teaching or nursing—she chose nursing.

90. My mother was presented with those same two choices in the 1960s! She loved teaching but wagged her finger all my life: “Never be a teacher!” The only choices she offered me were physician or family drop-out.

91. I rejected suburbia and motherhood, making me a drop-out of sorts. During my mole check this week, I rejected Botox.

92. Cheers to us! I rejected fancy face cream from a vendor on South Beach and Restylane on a cruise.

93. During the pandemic, I became proud of my leg hair!

94. During the pandemic, I began to embrace my gray hair—which sometimes glistens in the sun like silver tinsel!

95. I didn’t wear mascara for over a year. Then I wore it on Saturday, and all it did was run and smudge. Who needs it?

96. I still plan to watch The Oscars on Sunday, even as awards have never seemed more dubious to me. Does anyone actually get what they deserve, and in what sense, and how could we know for sure?

97. When I was young, I wanted my dad to open a bakery called “Just Desserts.” Years later, there is such a bakery that serves vegan cupcakes.

98. I have tried to go vegan off and on, but it turns out I can’t drink coffee without half & half—and it also turns out I can’t not drink coffee.

99. I have tried to be spiritual off and on. Ditto—glamorous, fearlessly unglamorous. Ditto—sugar-free, meat-free, organic.  Ditto—a socially engaged do-gooder, a fatalist skeptic.

100. I have tried to be honest with myself, which means both interrogating and (often) accepting my many contradictions. I choose to believe contradictions connect me to the rest of humankind.

Author: Denise Duhamel and Julie Marie Wade

Denise Duhamel and Julie Marie Wade are the authors of The Unrhymables: Collaborations in Prose, published by Noctuary Press in 2019.  Their collaborative poems and essays have appeared in many literary journals, including Arts & Letters, The Bellingham Review, The Cincinnati Review, The Common, Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction, Green Mountains Review, The Louisville Review, Nimrod, No Tokens, PoemMemoirStory, Prairie Schooner, Quarter After Eight, So to Speak, Story Quarterly, and Tupelo Quarterly. Together they were awarded the 2017 Glenna Luschei Prize from Prairie Schooner for their co-written lyric essay, “13 Superstitions.” Duhamel and Wade both teach in the creative writing program at Florida International University in Miami.

Denise Duhamel is, most recently, the author of Pink Lady (Pitt Poetry Series, 2025), Second Story (Pittsburgh, 2021) and Scald (Pittsburgh, 2017). Blowout (Pittsburgh, 2013) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. In Which (2024) is a winner of the Rattle Chapbook Prize. She and the late Maureen Seaton co-authored five collections, the most recent of which are CAPRICE (Collaborations: Collected, Uncollected, and New) (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2015) and Tilt (Bridwell Press, 2025). Her other titles include Ka-Ching!; Two and Two; Queen for a Day: Selected and New Poems; The Star-Spangled Banner; and Kinky. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times and her book of lyric essays with Julie Marie Wade is The Unrhymables: Collaborations in Prose (Noctuary Press, 2019). A recipient of NEA and Guggenheim Fellowships, she also is a distinguished university professor at Florida International University in Miami.

 

Julie Marie Wade writes and publishes poetry, prose, and hybrid forms. Her most recent and forthcoming collections include The Mary Years (Texas Review Press, 2024), selected by Michael Martone for the 2023 Clay Reynolds Novella Prize, Quick Change Artist: Poems (Anhinga Press, 2025), selected by Octavio Quintanilla for the 2023 Anhinga Prize in Poetry, and The Latest: 20 Ghazals for 2020 (Harbor Editions, 2025), co-authored with Denise Duhamel. A finalist for the National Poetry Series and a winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir, Wade teaches in the creative writing program at Florida International University in Miami and makes her home with Angie Griffin and their two cats in Dania Beach.

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