You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir

“She wants to reach her hand out, palm open, and take it—even though she knows it will burn her hand.”

Smith struggles to make sense of her experience and to process the grief she feels because of her husband’s failure to tell the truth. Throughout the memoir, Smith wonders if she will ever gain clarity so long as part of her story remains a mystery. In this quotation, she explains that she wants her husband to offer her the truth, to be vulnerable with her. Instead, he continues to deny the affair.

“The play is about a woman who loses her husband, and in losing her husband loses her knowledge about the future.”

When Smith’s husband cheats on her, she loses her knowledge about what her future holds. Smith develops the theme of Divorce as Loss by including the loss of security that comes with this life-altering change. When she was married, Smith knew what her future held. Now that she is divorcing her husband, her future is a question mark, full of uncertainty.

“We knew, eventually, we would want / different things. Then / we started wanting them too.”

Smith points out several examples of foreshadowing in her early relationship, including these lines in a poem she wrote when she and her husband were not yet married. She argues that people cannot see the foreshadowing in their own lives in the same way they can in books or films.

“Being married isn’t being two columns, standing so straight and tall on their own that they never touch. Being married is leaning and being caught, and catching the one who leans toward you.”

This definition of marriage comes from John Ciardi’s poem “Most Like an Arch This Marriage.” It juxtaposes Smith’s marriage, in which Smith is the primary caregiver and supports her husband and children without reciprocal support. Smith’s experience is more closely aligned with Patriarchal Expectations in Contemporary Marriage, in which the wife is expected to take on both the invisible labor of the household and the work of a professional career, maintain traditional roles while fulfilling contemporary expectations of womanhood.

“Sometimes I wonder: If there had been no postcard, no notebook, would our marriage have survived?”

This question, like many others, haunts Smith. Divorce and Self-Discovery has created space for her to reacquaint herself with her own wants and needs and her identity outside of her marriage. While the process is difficult and damaging, Smith finds liberation, beauty, and strength. At the end of the work, she determines that their marriage would have ended, postcard or no postcard.

“We all come into the world less than done, unfinished, our skulls still stitching themselves together.”

Smith emphasizes that self-discovery is a process. The myth is that humans reach adulthood as fully formed humans, but Smith explains that they are not unlike babies. Humans are always in search of themselves, discovering and developing over time.

“This book is my torma, my offering. Please take it.”

The memoir functions as a part of the motif The Material. When Smith miscarries, she does not know what to do with the tissue and material left behind. The same is true of her experiences in her divorce. She can only offer them to the reader, hoping that the reader will find something instructive or useful to take away.

“I feel like I go into a phone booth and I turn into a poet sometimes. Most of the other time, I’m just Maggie who pushes the stroller.”

In this quotation, Smith grapples with her identity as both a poet and a mother. Contemporary womanhood means that she is constantly pulled in different directions. To some, she is defined as a mother or wife. To others, she is a world-renowned poet.

“I don’t think fathers are asking themselves these questions. Fathers don’t feel guilt for wanting an identity apart from their children.”

Here, Smith highlights another element of Patriarchal Expectations in Contemporary Marriage. While she wrestles with the question of her identity post-divorce, she also recognizes that her husband will not face this same dilemma. His identity is preserved in his marriage. His career matters and is prioritized. His music and taste pervade the home. When their marriage ends, Smith’s husband simply picks up and carries his identity—one that is not defined by his relationship with his children—to another state. Smith is left behind to care for her children and attempt to carve her own identity when she can.

“No wonder so many divorced men get remarried right away and so many divorced women stay on their own.”

After her divorce, Smith reflects on how much more invisible labor she performed as a result of her marriage. She went out of her way to care for her husband and to ensure that his life was easier when he traveled for work. He never exhibited the same type of care for her.

“He didn’t need permission to do his work. He didn’t have to ask me to ‘cover for him’ while he worked, since that is precisely what I’d done all along.”

Smith presents an important element of the theme of Patriarchal Expectations in Contemporary Marriage in this quotation. She exposes how she is forced to ask her husband to fill in for her roles as parent and primary caregiver whenever she needs to work. Her career is an inconvenience to her husband because he does not share equal labor in the home. Smith’s husband does not need to ask for permission to have his own identity, but Smith is made to feel guilty for pursuing an identity of her own.

“The best things to happen to me individually were the worst things to happen to my marriage. And then, this: But the best things remain.”

When Smith’s poem “Good Bones” goes viral, it has a major impact on her marriage. She and her husband met in a writing workshop, and she notes how her success as an author makes her husband jealous and mean. Although her sudden fame as a writer has a negative impact on her marriage, it also clarifies the problems in her marriage and gives Smith respite when her marriage is over.

“Maybe this isn’t a tell-mine. It’s a find-mine. I’m out with lanterns, looking.”

Smith repeatedly refers to a line by Emily Dickinson stating that she is looking for herself with lanterns. She insists that the memoir is not a tell-all about her husband and his mistreatment of her. Instead, it is an examination of the process of Divorce and Self-Discovery.

“I was remembering how to be. Not a mother, not a teacher, not even a writer. Just me.”

This moment of self-discovery occurs while Smith is in LA for a writing workshop. During this same trip, her husband criticizes her for traveling and demeans her work. Her marriage is juxtaposed with her experiences in California, where she begins to feel freedom and self-acceptance.

“My husband’s lawyer used air quotes when she talked about my work. When you were ‘working,’ she said.”

Smith shows how the influence of Patriarchal Expectations in Contemporary Marriage extends beyond her relationship with her husband. His lawyer diminishes her work in comparison to her husband’s career as an attorney. In the chapters titled, “Some People Ask,” Smith faces questions that face many women of divorce. The culture of patriarchy permeates society, forcing Smith to confront its misconceptions and lies at every turn.

“I closed the door and locked it. If I had chains to rattle, I would have rattled my chains.”

The ghost is another important motif in the work. Immediately after her separation from her husband, she feels as though she is haunting her own home. She has been rendered invisible by her marriage and her role as mother, but she is also invisible to herself.

“He packed everything he owned. He left us plenty of material.”

This quotation contributes to the motif of the material. Smith uses the word “material” to refer to things she does not know what to do with. In this instance, it refers to her husband’s leaving and his many damaging choices.

“I keep thinking about what I know and what I don’t, what I remember and what I’ve lost.”

One of the many difficult parts of Divorce as Loss is determining what to do with memory. Smith feels her memories have been tainted by her divorce and her husband’s leaving. She does not know what to do with the record of her memories, including the joyous ones.

“This is something I grieve: the severed tie to someone who knew me since college, the cokeeper of our memories.”

This quotation carries the throughline of the theme Divorce as Loss. Smith highlights how divorce presents a collection of losses, each requiring its own process of grieving. Smith’s husband is the only person who was with her when their children were little with whom she could discuss what they looked like and the silly things they did and said when they were young. Now, that, too, is gone.

“It is a story about trying to save someone far away and losing parts of yourself in the process.”

Smith’s son loves a book series that tells a story of a boy trying to save his father who has moved to a faraway land. As he completes tasks to help his father, he loses parts of himself. Smith is angry about the choices her husband has made and the impact they are having on their children. However, the metaphor of her son’s favorite book series reaches beyond Rhett and Violet. As Smith tries to save her marriage, she turns down career opportunities and puts her own needs on the backburner, losing herself in the process.

“Reader, I wanted to hand you something you could use. This story is something I carry, but somewhere inside me, I believe this: If this story is at all useful, it’ll carry itself.”

This quotation comprises the entire chapter. Smith references the motif of the material, referring here to the memoir. She hopes the reader will be able to glean something from the book, even if she is not yet in a space where she can clearly define the meaning of her experiences. She trusts that the reader will know what to do with her offering.

“We both get everything and nothing at all, and that, I tell her, is the saddest damn thing.”

Divorce is full of dichotomies. The reader is introduced to the dichotomy of Patriarchal Expectations in Contemporary Marriage and the difference in expectations for Smith and her husband. The dichotomies of how she and her husband handle the divorce, how their careers are perceived, and the choices they make after the divorce contribute to the theme. Here, Smith explains that the contradictions are inescapable.

“The play continues, but The Finder still has no script.”

Smith rejects a traditional plot structure. Her story toggles between past and present, showing how the two are intrinsically connected. She refuses the idea that her story should have a natural climax or resolution: Real life does not adhere to traditional plot structures. Instead, she keeps moving, piecing together a life full of many highs and many lows.