Liz Perle — Good to See Her Smile

Liz Perle, authoress of Money: A Memoir, was recently quoted in Oprah's February 2006 issue as saying, "My divorce left me homeless with a 4-year old in tow—I needed to figure out how I ended up there."

She confessed that she had married a man who liked to control the money. I must confess, I love to earn the money, but I am terrible at controlling it. I just always (so far) had more than what I owed, so I am living a rather debt-free existence. However, I am a terrible "money manager," in terms of microeconomics. I suppose there are some men and some women who love to balance the checkbook. I suppose I just like to earn X and spend Y, where Y is less than X by some nice Z value.

Liz Perle was guardedly smiling in her photo in "O" magazine. Her face was turned slightly to the side. She admitted later in the brief interview "Just the other day I bought a $350 coat. And when I showed it to my husband, I told him it cost $300. It was completely involuntary, and I just laughed."

First of all, congratulations Liz! Inferentially you weathered the homelessness and are now remarried. Huzzah! That's great! It should give some comfort to other women in such a predicament that there's hope for great things to come. Remarriage. Celebrating the flowers blooming again after seeing so much of the hard pavement.

When people ask me "What is Flowers in the Cracks?" it reminds me of the basic questions of aesthetics. What is beauty? And from that, what is art? Does art need to be beautiful?

Flowers in the cracks celebrates the renewal of organic growth, yet also recognizes the organic structures of the inorganic. Rocks crack in organic shapes from pressures of water and wind and temperature change from sunlight and snow. Flowers spring up through them.

Each of us is a Flower in the Crack. Today, I celebrate Liz Perle's flower blooming in the crack. Even if she seems set enough now to bloom in Bloomingdales! We should all be so lucky, yes?

Liz lives just north of here in San Francisco, California, according to her biography. She is working for the non-profit Common Sense Media where you are allowed to make family-friendly reviews for parents, and where you can read parenting tips. She is married and living with her two children. So things definitely have improved since she was homeless with one four-year-old child.

Liz' bio photo on her site still has a sideways glance to it. A bit of a coyness. Still the "Can you believe it?" implicit question. A wryness in the tilt of her head. It's softer than her crisp, wintery air photo in "O," and I am glad to see it. It is more relaxed. I like all the books behind her.

However Liz Perle manages to find her smile, that's great. That's the flower in the crack. The upward curl of her lips. For the other Liz Perles of life, I hope you find your own way to navigate through life and find that smile at the end of the day.