In the Company of Strangers

This book by Mary Meigs is a wonderful companion to the wonderful film "The Company of Strangers" (American title: "Strangers in Good Company"). In 1988, seven women aged 65 - 88 and one younger woman were brought together in an old farmhouse in Quebec to film a movie. One of these women, Mary Meigs, wrote this account of the filming, which includes portraits of the other cast members, as well as members of the production crew. But this is more than a companion volume to a film. It is also a deeply moving reflection on being old, being joyful against great odds, facing death, not without fear, but courageously. It reminds me of my grandmother's admission: "Every morning, I get up feeling eighteen and then look into the mirror and am surprised to see an old woman staring back." This book reminds us that our skin wrinkles, our hair turns gray (or falls out!), our joints stiffen, but we are our young selves in our minds. Mary Meigs, who passed away in 2002, was known as a writer and artist long before she was persuaded by Scott and Demers to be the lesbian in their film. [...]. Out of the closet long before this was acceptable, Mary taught English literature and creative writing at Bryn Mawr College, emigrated to Canada for love, and published three books prior to "In the Company of Strangers." "In the Company of Strangers" is a gift to all of us who are or will grow old.

_The Company of Strangers_ (American title: _Strangers in Good Company_) is a Canadian docudrama featuring 7 elderly women and 1 younger in contrived desperate straits. When their tour bus breaks down, they're forced to fend for themselves in an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere. A sort of "reality series" precursor, coming several years before MTV's Real World, the film is not in the least suspenseful. We're not worried about whether or not these women will survive. We're just interested in watching them get to know each other and getting to know them better. It's a purely magical look into the histories and minds of these women. This book is a look by one of those women into the process and the experience of making that film. Selected by the associate director to represent Lesbian, septuagenarian Mary Meigs insisted on remaining an individual--and a fascinating individual at that. Writer, painter, activist and former professor of creative writing at Bryn Mawr, Meigs trains her artist's eye on her surroundings. The book she created is an interesting artifact in its own right. Meigs muses about age and gender and sexual identity, but in an unobtrusive way, wrapped up in a descriptive prose style that reminded me somewhat of a more grounded Annie Dillard, as when of the filming process she says: "We are spectators and recipients in the great magic show. Disembodied hands holding Styrofoam cups appear just as the words -water- or -coffee- form in a head; invisible spirits place chairs under our bums (Cissy's word) just before we fall backward into space, or coats on our backs, or scarves around our necks on a nippy morning. The same hands are also held out to be draped with the same coats, scarves, extraneous handbags and hats, to be hidden in secret places, away from the camera's prying eye. Umbrellas, parasols, bee helmets materialize, according to the weather. On hot, still days we stand knee-deep in meadow grass, looking like extraterrestrials, helmeted in green gauze while the black flies peer in greedily from outside. Through a green mist I see us lined up, eight mediaeval women warriors, waiting for our marching orders." The magic for Mary is in the mundane--the smile of this woman, the smell of that place. Meigs does an outstanding job of conveying that and, with her self-effacing manner, hinting at its relevance. But while _In the Company of Strangers_ can stand on its own, it really shouldn't. It is a magnificent companion piece to the film. To those who have fallen in love with the women in the movie, it offers an opportunity to see a little more, to find out what happens next. In the process, it reveals a few secrets, demystifies a scene or two. But it doesn't diminish the magic. It completes it. If academia has not already embraced the pair, I believe it will. Women's Studies. Gay and Lesbian Studies. Canadian Studies. Whatever they are calling or will someday call the culture of aging. These have