1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:00,167 Take a look. SEGMENT:E3 2 00:00:00,167 --> 00:00:01,968 S4 "Autobiography of a Face'' 3 00:00:01,968 --> 00:00:03,834 Lucy Grealy is here. 4 00:00:03,834 --> 00:00:05,834 She has an extraordinary story. 5 00:00:05,834 --> 00:00:07,834 It has been told in two places of importance: First, to note 6 00:00:07,834 --> 00:00:09,834 that she is an award-winning poet, and now she will probably 7 00:00:09,834 --> 00:00:11,834 be an award-winning writer. 8 00:00:11,834 --> 00:00:13,834 She won a National Magazine Award for a piece in Harper's 9 00:00:13,834 --> 00:00:15,834 magazine calling ``Mirrorings: To Gaze upon My Reconstructed 10 00:00:15,834 --> 00:00:16,834 Face.[sp? 11 00:00:16,834 --> 00:00:18,868 ] '' She has a book called Autobiography of a Face, and I 12 00:00:18,868 --> 00:00:20,868 am very very pleased to have her on this broadcast. 13 00:00:20,868 --> 00:00:21,868 Welcome. 14 00:00:21,868 --> 00:00:23,868 LUCY GREALY, Poet/Author: Thank you. 15 00:00:23,868 --> 00:00:25,868 Thank you for coming. 16 00:00:25,868 --> 00:00:28,834 Thank you very much. 17 00:00:28,834 --> 00:00:31,200 Tell me about when you were 9 and, and what 18 00:00:31,200 --> 00:00:34,000 you remember about that time, to begin with. 19 00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:35,934 I remember it quite clearly. 20 00:00:35,934 --> 00:00:38,634 I had-- I came down with a toothache. 21 00:00:38,634 --> 00:00:41,634 I got knocked at school playing on the playground, and I thought 22 00:00:41,634 --> 00:00:44,634 it was a toothache, and the next day, it was all swollen so my 23 00:00:44,634 --> 00:00:47,634 mother took me to the doctor. 24 00:00:47,634 --> 00:00:50,634 And after a very long, you know, weeks and weeks of misdiagnoses 25 00:00:50,634 --> 00:00:53,634 and different doctors, it was discovered I had this very rare 26 00:00:53,634 --> 00:00:56,634 form of cancer called Ewing sarcoma [sp? 27 00:00:56,634 --> 00:00:59,634 Mm-hm. 28 00:00:59,634 --> 00:01:02,634 And from there, they removed about a third, 29 00:01:02,634 --> 00:01:05,634 almost half, of my jaw on the right side, and then I went on 30 00:01:05,634 --> 00:01:08,634 to have two and a half years of chemotherapy, several years of 31 00:01:08,634 --> 00:01:11,634 radiation, and many-- numerous, numerous, numerous 32 00:01:11,634 --> 00:01:14,634 reconstructive operations that ended-- CHARLIE ROSE: Some 30, 33 00:01:14,634 --> 00:01:17,634 as I remember. 34 00:01:17,634 --> 00:01:20,667 Something like that. 35 00:01:20,667 --> 00:01:23,667 I sort of lost track somewhere along the way. 36 00:01:23,667 --> 00:01:27,634 What's extraordinary about it is how 37 00:01:27,634 --> 00:01:29,634 you came to view yourself. 38 00:01:29,634 --> 00:01:31,634 Mm-hm. 39 00:01:31,634 --> 00:01:33,634 I mean, this is a book not just about what you 40 00:01:33,634 --> 00:01:35,634 just talked about -- chemotherapy and, and, and 41 00:01:35,634 --> 00:01:37,634 reconstructive surgery -- it is about pain; it is about 42 00:01:37,634 --> 00:01:39,634 self-esteem; it is about image-- LUCY GREALY: I think 43 00:01:39,634 --> 00:01:41,634 ultimately-- CHARLIE ROSE: --it is about what else? 44 00:01:41,634 --> 00:01:43,634 --it's a book about identity and forming your 45 00:01:43,634 --> 00:01:45,634 identity, your, your idea of who you are, how you act in the 46 00:01:45,634 --> 00:01:47,634 world, you know, and the innate sense we have of who we are and 47 00:01:47,634 --> 00:01:49,634 then that somewhat less innate, more mysterious, sense of who we 48 00:01:49,634 --> 00:01:51,634 are-- where our borders meet other people's borders, and how 49 00:01:51,634 --> 00:01:53,634 other people perceive us, and how we perceive them perceiving 50 00:01:53,634 --> 00:01:55,634 us. 51 00:01:55,634 --> 00:01:57,634 I think it's really a book about being looked at and being seen 52 00:01:57,634 --> 00:01:59,667 and seeing yourself, both through your own eyes, other 53 00:01:59,667 --> 00:02:01,667 people's eyes, and learning to tell the difference between 54 00:02:01,667 --> 00:02:03,667 those two sets of eyes. 55 00:02:03,667 --> 00:02:06,634 How did it change for you? 56 00:02:06,634 --> 00:02:08,634 How did it change? 57 00:02:08,634 --> 00:02:10,634 Very slowly and gradually. 58 00:02:10,634 --> 00:02:12,634 There was no one moment of revelation, where I thought, 59 00:02:12,634 --> 00:02:14,634 ``Hallelujah! 60 00:02:14,634 --> 00:02:16,634 I'm cured.'' CHARLIE ROSE: ``Cured'' meaning accepting 61 00:02:16,634 --> 00:02:18,634 yourself. 62 00:02:18,634 --> 00:02:20,634 Yeah, exactly. 63 00:02:20,634 --> 00:02:22,634 And, and, and-- LUCY GREALY: It's funny. 64 00:02:22,634 --> 00:02:24,634 I, I say in the book, you know, I, I had cancer. 65 00:02:24,634 --> 00:02:26,634 I had this horrific physical thing happen to me-- CHARLIE 66 00:02:26,634 --> 00:02:28,634 Right. 67 00:02:28,634 --> 00:02:30,634 --with the, you know, the story is about looking 68 00:02:30,634 --> 00:02:32,634 different. 69 00:02:32,634 --> 00:02:33,667 Yeah. 70 00:02:33,667 --> 00:02:36,667 You know, it was the emotional trauma, and there, 71 00:02:36,667 --> 00:02:39,601 there was no moment when I sort of overcame that, where I, I saw 72 00:02:39,601 --> 00:02:41,734 the blinding light. 73 00:02:41,734 --> 00:02:45,467 It was more that all along I had, I possessed the capability 74 00:02:45,467 --> 00:02:49,200 to have moments of understanding and I guess you could call them 75 00:02:49,200 --> 00:02:53,167 transcendence -- moments of joy versus many moments of sorrow. 76 00:02:53,167 --> 00:02:56,167 And it's really more a case that over the years, I've learned to 77 00:02:56,167 --> 00:02:59,167 exchange the balance so that now I have more moments of joy and-- 78 00:02:59,167 --> 00:03:02,167 with less moments of sorrow. 79 00:03:02,167 --> 00:03:05,167 Let me go back to-- I mean, this is a quote 80 00:03:05,167 --> 00:03:08,167 from you. 81 00:03:08,167 --> 00:03:11,167 ``When I thought of beauty, I thought of acceptance in walking 82 00:03:11,167 --> 00:03:14,167 through the world and through a room with grace and fluency that 83 00:03:14,167 --> 00:03:17,167 I couldn't imagine, and I wanted to be beautiful. 84 00:03:17,167 --> 00:03:20,167 At least, that's what I thought. 85 00:03:20,167 --> 00:03:23,167 What I really wanted to do was to walk through a room with 86 00:03:23,167 --> 00:03:26,167 grace and fluency, and it took me an incredibly long time to 87 00:03:26,167 --> 00:03:29,167 realize that I could do that, that that's what I wanted and 88 00:03:29,167 --> 00:03:32,167 that's what I had to go after. 89 00:03:32,167 --> 00:03:35,167 And a lot of women who want to be beautiful, what they really 90 00:03:35,167 --> 00:03:38,167 want to be is loved and accepted, you know, and there 91 00:03:38,167 --> 00:03:41,167 really is a distinction between the two things.'' LUCY GREALY: 92 00:03:41,167 --> 00:03:44,200 Beauty is, you know, it's a word of a few letters that really is 93 00:03:44,200 --> 00:03:47,200 a label for all those other things. 94 00:03:47,200 --> 00:03:51,167 And we mistakenly identify it as being equal to all those things 95 00:03:51,167 --> 00:03:54,167 that you just listed -- just, ease of being, grace and 96 00:03:54,167 --> 00:03:57,167 fluency. 97 00:03:57,167 --> 00:04:00,167 We forget that so we, we go after beauty. 98 00:04:00,167 --> 00:04:03,167 It's just-- you know, you could take this same dynamic and apply 99 00:04:03,167 --> 00:04:06,167 it to money, you know, wealth, you know. 100 00:04:06,167 --> 00:04:09,167 Really what you-- ``we'' meaning, using the universal 101 00:04:09,167 --> 00:04:12,167 ``we'' here -- you want that sense of belonging and 102 00:04:12,167 --> 00:04:15,167 acceptance and security, and you somehow think that, that wealth 103 00:04:15,167 --> 00:04:18,167 will give that to you. 104 00:04:18,167 --> 00:04:21,167 It will give you many things, but it doesn't necessarily give 105 00:04:21,167 --> 00:04:24,167 you those things. 106 00:04:24,167 --> 00:04:27,167 They're, they're independent, and wealth and beauty are 107 00:04:27,167 --> 00:04:30,167 separate. 108 00:04:30,167 --> 00:04:33,167 They're labels that those other things exist in the category of. 109 00:04:33,167 --> 00:04:36,167 Yeah. 110 00:04:36,167 --> 00:04:38,167 This is an easy shot, but is it-- who determines beauty, do 111 00:04:38,167 --> 00:04:40,200 you think? 112 00:04:40,200 --> 00:04:42,200 It's-- that's not an easy shot at all. 113 00:04:42,200 --> 00:04:45,167 I don't know why you would think it was an easy shot. 114 00:04:45,167 --> 00:04:47,167 Well, I'll tell you why. 115 00:04:47,167 --> 00:04:49,167 Because a lot of people will say-- you know, want to say-- 116 00:04:49,167 --> 00:04:51,167 it's easy to just say, ``Well, the problem in America is that 117 00:04:51,167 --> 00:04:53,167 we hold up -- the media -- holds up--' LUCY GREALY: Mm-hm. 118 00:04:53,167 --> 00:04:55,167 ``--holds up this -- some kind of ideal as to what 119 00:04:55,167 --> 00:04:57,167 beauty means. 120 00:04:57,167 --> 00:04:59,167 And if you don't fit that definition of beauty, then 121 00:04:59,167 --> 00:05:01,167 you're ugly.'' LUCY GREALY: Uh-huh. 122 00:05:01,167 --> 00:05:03,167 ``You're not beautiful.'' You know, some 123 00:05:03,167 --> 00:05:05,167 arbitrarily determined-- and that therefore, that's the 124 00:05:05,167 --> 00:05:07,167 problem, many people will say, is that you have to be slim; you 125 00:05:07,167 --> 00:05:09,167 have to be-- LUCY GREALY: It, it's-- CHARLIE ROSE: 126 00:05:09,167 --> 00:05:11,167 --beautiful; you have to be all this stuff that creates 127 00:05:11,167 --> 00:05:13,167 enormous, enormous problems of self-esteem. 128 00:05:13,167 --> 00:05:15,167 It, it's definitely part of the problem, 129 00:05:15,167 --> 00:05:17,200 but it's also more-- it's like a common language or a rhetoric 130 00:05:17,200 --> 00:05:20,167 that we all use to talk about, ``Well, this is how should be,'' 131 00:05:20,167 --> 00:05:22,167 and we forget that things really exist in dialogue, you know, and 132 00:05:22,167 --> 00:05:24,167 if somebody says it should be this way, then there are going 133 00:05:24,167 --> 00:05:26,167 to be an equal number, if not more people saying, ``Well, no. 134 00:05:26,167 --> 00:05:28,167 Actually, maybe it should be this way.'' And it's far too 135 00:05:28,167 --> 00:05:30,167 easy to say that the media, the fashion industry-- CHARLIE 136 00:05:30,167 --> 00:05:32,167 Right, right. 137 00:05:32,167 --> 00:05:34,167 --the [unintelligible] are the enemy. 138 00:05:34,167 --> 00:05:36,167 And that, that subjugates women into this like pathetic, you 139 00:05:36,167 --> 00:05:38,167 know- CHARLIE ROSE: Right. 140 00:05:38,167 --> 00:05:40,167 --role of the-- CHARLIE ROSE: Victimization of 141 00:05:40,167 --> 00:05:42,167 women. 142 00:05:42,167 --> 00:05:44,167 --victim. 143 00:05:44,167 --> 00:05:46,167 And it's really not true. 144 00:05:46,167 --> 00:05:48,167 Also, a lot of people really want me to say, ``You know, it's 145 00:05:48,167 --> 00:05:50,167 not important. 146 00:05:50,167 --> 00:05:52,167 It's not-- beauty and this ideal, you know -- slim, 147 00:05:52,167 --> 00:05:54,167 whatever -- it's not ideal.'' That's entirely not true. 148 00:05:54,167 --> 00:05:56,167 It's very important. 149 00:05:56,167 --> 00:05:58,200 The truth lies somewhere in between. 150 00:05:58,200 --> 00:06:00,200 It's very important and it's utterly irrelevant at the same 151 00:06:00,200 --> 00:06:03,167 time. 152 00:06:03,167 --> 00:06:05,167 They're both paradoxically true at the same time, and it, it's 153 00:06:05,167 --> 00:06:07,167 much more a very personal journey. 154 00:06:07,167 --> 00:06:09,501 I could never claim that this-- that I want to start some kind 155 00:06:09,501 --> 00:06:11,501 of a revolution. 156 00:06:11,501 --> 00:06:13,534 It's amazing how people want to put that onto me, and it's just 157 00:06:13,534 --> 00:06:15,534 not true. 158 00:06:15,534 --> 00:06:17,534 It-- this is a very personal journey of finding your own 159 00:06:17,534 --> 00:06:21,200 meaning, you know, in contrast and, and coming into conflict 160 00:06:21,200 --> 00:06:23,200 with all these ideals. 161 00:06:23,200 --> 00:06:26,367 In my particular case, I think the reason people are attracted 162 00:06:26,367 --> 00:06:29,467 to my story is it's almost mythic. 163 00:06:29,467 --> 00:06:32,167 You know, what happened to me is I had the, the one thing that we 164 00:06:32,167 --> 00:06:35,734 just all take for granted, which is, you know, our basic sense of 165 00:06:35,734 --> 00:06:38,267 identity, wrested away from me. 166 00:06:38,267 --> 00:06:41,834 And the, the things I went through were so sort of blown 167 00:06:41,834 --> 00:06:45,133 out of proportion that I was allowed to, you know, in a 168 00:06:45,133 --> 00:06:47,100 strange way, see past them. 169 00:06:47,100 --> 00:06:52,701 But I think the, the story is actually applicable to any, any 170 00:06:52,701 --> 00:06:55,834 thing that comes along and tries to tell you, ``This is how 171 00:06:55,834 --> 00:06:57,000 reality works. 172 00:06:57,000 --> 00:06:58,167 This is how you work. 173 00:06:58,167 --> 00:07:02,200 This is how you work in relation to reality.'' And so many things 174 00:07:02,200 --> 00:07:06,033 don't offer us the space in which to just say, ``No, wait a 175 00:07:06,033 --> 00:07:09,367 minute.'' We don't even necessarily have to know exactly 176 00:07:09,367 --> 00:07:14,601 what the answer to the no is, but just the act of saying, 177 00:07:14,601 --> 00:07:15,601 ``No. 178 00:07:15,601 --> 00:07:17,601 I, I have a reservation about this. 179 00:07:17,601 --> 00:07:20,033 It might actually be something else,'' is an enormous step, 180 00:07:20,033 --> 00:07:23,801 which very few people feel allowed to make, mostly because 181 00:07:23,801 --> 00:07:25,801 they don't have the language to do it. 182 00:07:25,801 --> 00:07:28,467 They don't possess the language of rhetoric in order to 183 00:07:28,467 --> 00:07:31,968 recognize when people are telling them something that's a 184 00:07:31,968 --> 00:07:34,934 label, like ``beautiful'' or ``ugly.'' Those are labels; 185 00:07:34,934 --> 00:07:36,501 they're not actual things. 186 00:07:36,501 --> 00:07:39,334 Let me go back to the chemotherapy. 187 00:07:39,334 --> 00:07:46,100 It's, it's painful just to read what you went through. 188 00:07:46,100 --> 00:07:47,234 It is. 189 00:07:47,234 --> 00:07:52,968 I kno-- it's funny. 190 00:07:52,968 --> 00:07:55,667 Chekhov, when he wrote the-- I think it was The Seagull-- 191 00:07:55,667 --> 00:07:56,667 Yes. 192 00:07:56,667 --> 00:07:59,267 --baffled everybody -- this is like this, 193 00:07:59,267 --> 00:08:02,267 you know, tsarist drawing room drama in which everybody thinks 194 00:08:02,267 --> 00:08:05,267 about killing themselves all the time -- he baffled everybody by 195 00:08:05,267 --> 00:08:07,267 saying, ``It's a comedy,'' you know. 196 00:08:07,267 --> 00:08:10,000 And nobody really quite understood what he meant, and I 197 00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:12,734 never really understood until I wrote this book. 198 00:08:12,734 --> 00:08:16,734 And what happened to me was a life, and what I did is I took 199 00:08:16,734 --> 00:08:18,734 that life and I put into a book. 200 00:08:18,734 --> 00:08:19,734 A book didn't happen to me. 201 00:08:19,734 --> 00:08:20,734 My life happened to me. 202 00:08:20,734 --> 00:08:24,033 And thing was, is that when you read a book, it, it becomes 203 00:08:24,033 --> 00:08:26,934 representational of that life, which is very easy when you're 204 00:08:26,934 --> 00:08:28,767 reading somebody else's book. 205 00:08:28,767 --> 00:08:32,667 But as I was reading my own book, which was an abstraction 206 00:08:32,667 --> 00:08:37,601 of my own life, I began to see the absurdity of, of the entire 207 00:08:37,601 --> 00:08:38,767 situation, really. 208 00:08:38,767 --> 00:08:42,467 The-- not even the, the moments when I suffered. 209 00:08:42,467 --> 00:08:44,701 I suffered genuinely; I'm not discounting that. 210 00:08:44,701 --> 00:08:49,000 But other people's interpretation of it, I ha-- you 211 00:08:49,000 --> 00:08:51,868 know, I, I've been on all these talk shows and people describe 212 00:08:51,868 --> 00:08:54,901 my life back to me and to the camera in the most tragic terms, 213 00:08:54,901 --> 00:08:56,901 and I just want to giggle the entire time. 214 00:08:56,901 --> 00:08:59,534 Well, but do you giggle when you stood outside in 215 00:08:59,534 --> 00:09:01,968 the cold trying to get pneumonia because you didn't want to-- 216 00:09:01,968 --> 00:09:02,968 Oh, no. 217 00:09:02,968 --> 00:09:05,267 I-- CHARLIE ROSE: You don't giggle when you say that, do 218 00:09:05,267 --> 00:09:06,267 you? 219 00:09:06,267 --> 00:09:08,267 I didn't giggle then. 220 00:09:08,267 --> 00:09:10,234 You don't giggle when all the things you did to 221 00:09:10,234 --> 00:09:12,234 yourself and to your body in order to get sick so you 222 00:09:12,234 --> 00:09:14,234 wouldn't have to take chemotherapy. 223 00:09:14,234 --> 00:09:15,234 No. 224 00:09:15,234 --> 00:09:17,234 I, I don't giggle about those things, but it, it's 225 00:09:17,234 --> 00:09:19,267 interesting, again, because it's, it's a book and then this 226 00:09:19,267 --> 00:09:20,267 is an-- CHARLIE ROSE: Right. 227 00:09:20,267 --> 00:09:22,267 --interview about the book, and it all becomes 228 00:09:22,267 --> 00:09:24,267 very abstract, which is very dangerous, too. 229 00:09:24,267 --> 00:09:26,667 It's very helpful and I think in some ways true for me to have 230 00:09:26,667 --> 00:09:29,033 that distance about it, and it's also very dangerous-- CHARLIE 231 00:09:29,033 --> 00:09:30,033 Yeah. 232 00:09:30,033 --> 00:09:32,033 --if I tried to get it at the time. 233 00:09:32,033 --> 00:09:34,033 Okay, but I mean, we have to deal with your life, 234 00:09:34,033 --> 00:09:36,033 and this book-- LUCY GREALY: Uh-huh. 235 00:09:36,033 --> 00:09:38,033 --is a reflection of your life. 236 00:09:38,033 --> 00:09:40,033 It is the notion that-- I mean, you somehow your parents 237 00:09:40,033 --> 00:09:42,033 instilled in you, you had to suffer this in silence. 238 00:09:42,033 --> 00:09:43,033 Somehow-- LUCY GREALY: Mm-hm. 239 00:09:43,033 --> 00:09:44,033 --you got that. 240 00:09:44,033 --> 00:09:45,033 Yeah. 241 00:09:45,033 --> 00:09:47,033 That was the message you received, wherever 242 00:09:47,033 --> 00:09:48,033 it came from. 243 00:09:48,033 --> 00:09:49,033 Yeah. 244 00:09:49,033 --> 00:09:51,033 You know, you, you don't cry. 245 00:09:51,033 --> 00:09:52,033 Yeah. 246 00:09:52,033 --> 00:09:54,067 It, it was very early equated [sp? 247 00:09:54,067 --> 00:09:56,067 ] on to me that silence equals bravery-- CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. 248 00:09:56,067 --> 00:09:58,067 --and bravery equals goodness. 249 00:09:58,067 --> 00:10:00,067 And by being, by enduring chemotherapy, you were 250 00:10:00,067 --> 00:10:01,067 worthy of love. 251 00:10:01,067 --> 00:10:02,567 So I thought. 252 00:10:02,567 --> 00:10:04,467 So you thought. 253 00:10:04,467 --> 00:10:05,467 Yeah. 254 00:10:05,467 --> 00:10:07,467 And then when you didn't-- no longer needed 255 00:10:07,467 --> 00:10:08,767 chemotherapy-- LUCY GREALY: Mm-hm. 256 00:10:08,767 --> 00:10:11,000 I re-- CHARLIE ROSE: --your mind said to you, your head said 257 00:10:11,000 --> 00:10:13,467 to you, ``Maybe I'm not doing anything worthy of love''? 258 00:10:13,467 --> 00:10:17,334 I think it was more that I, I was faced with 259 00:10:17,334 --> 00:10:18,367 this crisis. 260 00:10:18,367 --> 00:10:20,367 I know how to-- LUCY GREALY: I, I knew- 261 00:10:20,367 --> 00:10:23,100 chemotherapy, as horrible as it was, was what gave meaning to my 262 00:10:23,100 --> 00:10:24,100 life. 263 00:10:24,100 --> 00:10:26,534 It was the arena in which I was like-- CHARLIE ROSE: It was a 264 00:10:26,534 --> 00:10:28,601 battle for you-- LUCY GREALY: --trying to-- CHARLIE ROSE: 265 00:10:28,601 --> 00:10:29,767 --to join, in a sense. 266 00:10:29,767 --> 00:10:30,767 Yeah. 267 00:10:30,767 --> 00:10:34,467 And when it was taken from me, you know, as in, when it ended 268 00:10:34,467 --> 00:10:36,467 -- you know, even the language-- CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. 269 00:10:36,467 --> 00:10:38,467 --that I use to say, ``It was taken from me'': 270 00:10:38,467 --> 00:10:40,467 It, it ended, as it should have and as I'd wanted it to all 271 00:10:40,467 --> 00:10:41,467 along. 272 00:10:41,467 --> 00:10:44,501 I was suddenly faced with realizing I was going to miss 273 00:10:44,501 --> 00:10:45,501 it. 274 00:10:45,501 --> 00:10:48,467 I was so afraid that I would no longer be special, and that 275 00:10:48,467 --> 00:10:51,267 nobody would love me because of that, you know, which is a 276 00:10:51,267 --> 00:10:54,200 little ironic considering what happened next. 277 00:10:54,200 --> 00:11:01,300 But at the time I, I was so bereft of any identity or sense 278 00:11:01,300 --> 00:11:05,334 of-- that I could do anything to make anybody love me. 279 00:11:05,334 --> 00:11:08,200 It, it was a very lonely moment in my life. 280 00:11:08,200 --> 00:11:10,701 And clearly you found out there were many things 281 00:11:10,701 --> 00:11:13,534 that were worth loving about you, and you found it in 282 00:11:13,534 --> 00:11:16,067 sexuality; you found it in a lot of other things in terms of 283 00:11:16,067 --> 00:11:18,734 relationships and-- LUCY GREALY: Mm-hm CHARLIE ROSE: 284 00:11:18,734 --> 00:11:21,667 --how you-- mainly how you perceived yourself. 285 00:11:21,667 --> 00:11:24,067 But you, you think that the feelings of self-doubt you may 286 00:11:24,067 --> 00:11:26,868 have had came from somewhere other than-- LUCY GREALY: 287 00:11:26,868 --> 00:11:27,868 Mm-hm. 288 00:11:27,868 --> 00:11:29,868 --how you looked. 289 00:11:29,868 --> 00:11:31,868 It took me a long time to figure that one out. 290 00:11:31,868 --> 00:11:32,868 Yeah. 291 00:11:32,868 --> 00:11:33,868 That was a big one. 292 00:11:33,868 --> 00:11:34,868 Yeah. 293 00:11:34,868 --> 00:11:36,868 I mean, my, my face was like the thing that was wrong with my 294 00:11:36,868 --> 00:11:37,868 life. 295 00:11:37,868 --> 00:11:39,868 Obsessed with it. 296 00:11:39,868 --> 00:11:41,868 I was totally obsessed with it, you know. 297 00:11:41,868 --> 00:11:43,868 It was the thing that I pointed to. 298 00:11:43,868 --> 00:11:44,868 What's wrong with your life? 299 00:11:44,868 --> 00:11:45,868 This. 300 00:11:45,868 --> 00:11:46,834 Face. 301 00:11:46,834 --> 00:11:47,834 Yeah. 302 00:11:47,834 --> 00:11:49,834 And as, you know, sort of-- I think, and this may 303 00:11:49,834 --> 00:11:51,834 sound strange, but in a lot of ways I think I was lucky, and I 304 00:11:51,834 --> 00:11:56,334 say that only with a great deal of retrospect, because it's, 305 00:11:56,334 --> 00:11:59,701 it's like everything became so focussed down to it, and at some 306 00:11:59,701 --> 00:12:02,734 points, I could actually brush it away and recognize that 307 00:12:02,734 --> 00:12:05,534 actually I existed separate of my face. 308 00:12:05,534 --> 00:12:09,267 My, my face was alternately the thing that kept me from the rest 309 00:12:09,267 --> 00:12:10,267 of the world. 310 00:12:10,267 --> 00:12:13,300 People couldn't know who the real me was, they couldn't 311 00:12:13,300 --> 00:12:16,100 understand what I was really thinking or feeling, and I, I 312 00:12:16,100 --> 00:12:20,133 would feel like, if only you knew, if only it weren't for my 313 00:12:20,133 --> 00:12:22,100 face then everything would be different. 314 00:12:22,100 --> 00:12:25,334 It was the famous if-then: If only this, then everything else 315 00:12:25,334 --> 00:12:26,367 would be fine. 316 00:12:26,367 --> 00:12:28,734 And then other times, I identified so, you know, 317 00:12:28,734 --> 00:12:30,734 intimately with my face, especially during adolescence, 318 00:12:30,734 --> 00:12:37,968 you know, I thought, ``I am ugly,'' you know, ``therefore I 319 00:12:37,968 --> 00:12:47,501 am unlovable.'' When people made fun of me, I thought it was 320 00:12:47,501 --> 00:12:50,200 their right to do so, and that I just simply had to accept it 321 00:12:50,200 --> 00:12:51,200 because I'm ugly. 322 00:12:51,200 --> 00:12:53,200 That was, that became the explanation. 323 00:12:53,200 --> 00:12:55,200 And now you say what? 324 00:12:55,200 --> 00:12:56,200 Now I say what? 325 00:12:56,200 --> 00:12:58,200 Some days I say I'm ugly; some days I say I'm okay. 326 00:12:58,200 --> 00:13:00,200 You know, which is the way everybody is. 327 00:13:00,200 --> 00:13:02,200 It took me a long time to understand that my thought 328 00:13:02,200 --> 00:13:04,234 processes -- thought procii [sp? 329 00:13:04,234 --> 00:13:06,234 ], whatever the word is -- is actually just like everybody 330 00:13:06,234 --> 00:13:07,234 else's. 331 00:13:07,234 --> 00:13:09,234 I, I thought it was aberrant because there is something 332 00:13:09,234 --> 00:13:11,234 physically aberrant about me, or, or was very aberrant for a 333 00:13:11,234 --> 00:13:12,200 long time -- less so now. 334 00:13:12,200 --> 00:13:14,200 Just like realizing that I was like everybody else was the 335 00:13:14,200 --> 00:13:15,200 great -- I don't know. 336 00:13:15,200 --> 00:13:17,200 I hate to use the word ``healer.'' It's so New Agey, 337 00:13:17,200 --> 00:13:18,200 but-- CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. 338 00:13:18,200 --> 00:13:19,200 New Agey. 339 00:13:19,200 --> 00:13:20,200 Right, right, I agree. 340 00:13:20,200 --> 00:13:21,200 I agree. 341 00:13:21,200 --> 00:13:23,200 What did people like Elie Wiesel mean to you? 342 00:13:23,200 --> 00:13:28,467 What did-- LUCY GREALY: I was a big Elie Wiesel fan when I was 343 00:13:28,467 --> 00:13:29,701 in junior high school. 344 00:13:29,701 --> 00:13:32,834 I used to read a lot of him, Primo Levi [sp? 345 00:13:32,834 --> 00:13:33,834 ]-- CHARLIE ROSE: Right. 346 00:13:33,834 --> 00:13:36,567 --as a way of-- CHARLIE ROSE: Some sense of 347 00:13:36,567 --> 00:13:39,000 nobility about being alienated. 348 00:13:39,000 --> 00:13:40,000 Yeah. 349 00:13:40,000 --> 00:13:43,033 I, I thought, you know-- and bec-- I sort of gave up on like 350 00:13:43,033 --> 00:13:47,067 the junior high school world of boys and cars and makeup and 351 00:13:47,067 --> 00:13:48,634 malls. 352 00:13:48,634 --> 00:13:50,634 So I was going to have this deep inner life. 353 00:13:50,634 --> 00:13:52,634 I just, I just decided this one day. 354 00:13:52,634 --> 00:13:54,000 I'm going to be deep. 355 00:13:54,000 --> 00:13:57,267 And I went about reading and, and I actually learned some 356 00:13:57,267 --> 00:13:58,567 very, like, true things. 357 00:13:58,567 --> 00:14:03,100 One is that the world that I was living in was really very small, 358 00:14:03,100 --> 00:14:06,334 you know, like, you know being like, like people who are 359 00:14:06,334 --> 00:14:09,133 well-fed and employed, we like to think that, you know, 360 00:14:09,133 --> 00:14:10,634 everybody else is like that. 361 00:14:10,634 --> 00:14:14,400 And a lot of people immediately around us are, but in terms of 362 00:14:14,400 --> 00:14:17,801 global, you know, events, it's, it's very rare. 363 00:14:17,801 --> 00:14:19,167 We're incredibly fortunate. 364 00:14:19,167 --> 00:14:21,634 And just because we don't often step outside of those 365 00:14:21,634 --> 00:14:23,834 definitions, we don't get to see that. 366 00:14:23,834 --> 00:14:29,701 And I, I used to hear people all the time wishing that they could 367 00:14:29,701 --> 00:14:33,300 have something other than, the lot that they had. 368 00:14:33,300 --> 00:14:35,501 And I would sort of castigate them and think, you know, you 369 00:14:35,501 --> 00:14:37,501 don't know how good you've got it. 370 00:14:37,501 --> 00:14:39,501 You know, you-- CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. 371 00:14:39,501 --> 00:14:41,467 --you've got clothes, and nobody's like 372 00:14:41,467 --> 00:14:43,501 beating you over the head with a stick. 373 00:14:43,501 --> 00:14:44,501 Yeah. 374 00:14:44,501 --> 00:14:46,501 Nobody's like torturing your family in front 375 00:14:46,501 --> 00:14:47,501 of your eyes. 376 00:14:47,501 --> 00:14:49,501 But then somewhere along the line -- I don't really know how 377 00:14:49,501 --> 00:14:51,133 -- I asked the same question of myself. 378 00:14:51,133 --> 00:14:53,200 ``Am I doing that?' 379 00:14:53,200 --> 00:14:57,200 ' Like, who, who would willingly trade their lot for my lot? 380 00:14:57,200 --> 00:15:01,000 And so I was forced to look outward and realize that in my 381 00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:04,801 immediate circle, not a lot of people, but in, in a much larger 382 00:15:04,801 --> 00:15:06,801 circle, quite-- CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. 383 00:15:06,801 --> 00:15:07,801 --a few people. 384 00:15:07,801 --> 00:15:08,801 Yeah. 385 00:15:08,801 --> 00:15:09,801 Autobiography of a Face. 386 00:15:09,801 --> 00:15:11,801 Lucy Grealy, thank you very much. 387 00:15:11,801 --> 00:15:12,801 Thank you. 388 00:15:12,801 --> 00:15:14,801 Thank you for joining us. 389 00:15:14,801 --> 00:15:15,667 We look forward to seeing you next time. 390 00:15:15,667 --> 00:15:16,367 See you then.