A LITTLE TOO CLOSE TO HOME

Another royal week for me!  With Will and Kate coming state side next month, Kate was on the cover of People magazine so I picked one up at the grocery store to enjoy with my salad at lunch on Friday.  I love looking at her fabulous outfits and beautiful fascinators.  Since I have been able to travel to England I have been relishing in the recent focus on the royal family and London.  And People magazine has one of the few cross-word puzzles I can actually finish.

            Even though in my Jane Eyre readings this week the story took a bittersweet turn I couldn’t help, but laugh.  I love Jane’s perspective on things and how she talks to the reader.  It kind of reminds me of myself except older English.  Jane writes, “Have I not described a pleasant site for a dwelling, when I speak of it as bosomed in hill and wood, and rising from the verge of a stream?  Assuredly, pleasant enough: but whether healthy or not is another question.” Reading this passage is not funny per say, but when I relate it to myself it’s pretty accurate.  It’s like when I go into great detail to tell my husband a story about something that has happened to me and he gives me the “Get to the point” look.  Then I get hurt feelings and say something like, “I am trying to make you feel as if you’re there so you can appreciate my story.”  And we agree that we’re just at an impasse in our storytelling.

In this chapter Jane started to speak more directly to the reader than in previous chapters.  When I was in college I took a creative writing class.  And although I loved my class and we called ourselves “The Piranhas of Love” the class just made me realize my limited writing abilities.  I had a difficult time writing stories in third person; and truly being descriptive from an outside perspective.  Jane talks directly to the reader and I kind of love it.  It makes me sort of believe if I want to write a great novel I could write it in first person and be descriptive.  At least the girls would like it! 

PASS THE ALOE!

                I guess I could say today’s readings were literally burned into me! This week my husband and I found ourselves pool side and when I am at the pool I like to catch up on my magazine happenings. I was able to get a lovely sunburn and magazine shadow outline on my thigh from my pool side lounging.  Reapply, Reapply, Reapply!  Anyhow, Vanity Fair, featured William and Kate or formally known as The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, catching me up on insider royal wedding details and how they are adding Kensington to their list of homes to be used when they are in London. 

                This week Jane Eyre befriends Helen Burns.  Helen is an older girl at school and Jane looks up to her because of her self-discipline and quick comprehension of lessons.  One teacher is constantly scrutinizing Helen and often publicly humiliates her or gives her lashings across the neck with a switch.  Helen does not cry or blush with embarrassment during these public displays embarrassment.  When Jane questions Helen about how she feels about this her response is, “it is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you; and besides, the Bible bids us return good for evil.”  Both Jane and I are perplexed and did not see this response coming.  Where will Bronte take this character?  Helen is opposite of Jane at this point, Jane resents her cruel aunt whereas Helen endures her injustices.  From where I am at right now in the novel, the question that comes to my mind is when to stand up for injustice and when to endure? 

OUR REALITIES

                I wouldn’t say I had a bad week, but I would say I spent much of it wishing things were different, maybe that I lived somewhere else or that I would not have to work so hard.  In other words I was feeling sorry for myself and even though I am really into my Jane Eyre novel I would read the same page a couple of times before I would finally be able to let go of my daily grind and fall into Jane’s.  This week Jane finally stands up to her aunt and is sent away to a boarding school for girls.  The school is very rigid and the girls are dressed very plainly with terrible burnt porridge, and lots of bible reciting.   I can almost hear Pink Floyd in the back ground singing, Another Brick in the Wall.  Still it is comfort and stress release to be a fly on the wall in Jane’s world rather than my own.

            My co-worker gives me all of his newspapers and magazines after he is finished reading them, and this week I got, National Geographic.  I was excited to open it because the headline this month was, “The Birth of Religion: The World’s First Temple.”  Upon opening the magazine my eyes caught a picture of a young Indian girl looking into the camera being carried by an older man, a very sweet image.  However the sweetness of the picture was quickly changed once I read the caption, “Long after midnight, five year old Rajani is roused from sleep and carried by her uncle to her wedding.  Child marriage is illegal in India, so ceremonies are often held in the wee hours of the morning.  It becomes a secret the whole village keeps, explained one farmer.”  The article went on to explain the lack of education among these young women and so the cycle continues.  I must also include that there are some girls breaking free of this tradition and going to the police and the court systems to get divorces or tell on their parents before they are married under age.  In some areas even though it is illegal it is still considered somewhat acceptable for girls of puberty age to be eligible to get married.  The reason for these young marriages is for families to get out of debt from other families or to be guaranteed into a good family (such as Rajani, “By tradition, the young bride is expected to live at home until puberty, when a second ceremony transfers her to her husband.”)  This really puts things into perspective because my life is quite the opposite of these young girls and yet I expect and want so much more.