"Whenever in my timid life I have shown some courage and originality it has been because of my skin.” (-John Updike)

I was so sad to learn, on Tuesday, of the death of the writer John Updike, from lung cancer.

Long ago, I read Updike’s "At War with My Skin," his description of his lifelong battle with the skin condition psoriasis, and I have never forgotten it. While it was a huge burden to him, to a large degree, he came to realize that it had played a major role in shaping him as a person, and it ultimately helped him to become the writer he was.

I think it’s often the things we feel self-conscious about, or the adversities we face in our lives that push us to be creative, or outgoing, or brave. Updike's psoriasis, and the stutter he suffered from as a young man, greatly impacted him as an individual.

"Because of my skin," he maintained, "I counted myself out of any of those jobs - salesman, teacher, financier, movie star - that demand being presentable. What did that leave? Becoming a craftsman of some kind, closeted and unseen - perhaps a cartoonist or a writer, a worker in ink who can hide himself and send out a surrogate presence, a signature that multiplies even while it conceals."

“My war with my skin had to do with self-love, with finding myself acceptable, whether others did or not.”

I think we can all relate to that.

Best known for his novels, I always preferred his poetry. I would watch for his poems in the New Yorker, where they frequently appeared, and I'm saddened by his death.