Observations: A Journal of Sorts: May 2009

So far this summer I have read Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome and Summer. For those of you who do not know me well, you may not be aware that I am seriously affected by whatever movies I see and books I read for weeks following the said art-form (I was pretty down for a good month after I saw Moulin Rouge the first time, for example. Now I tend to turn it off before anyone dies.) Well, after reading these two works, I was struggling to stay out of the sadness that surrounds them both. Sometimes I hate feeling too much. (Honestly, Ethan Frome was far worse to me than Summer was. Summer just seems like something that occurs all the time these days.) Sometimes I love feeling too much. It is during the portions of the stories that I fall in love with the happiness of the character's lives that cause me to become too emotionally involved with the text on the page. It was when I thought my heart might explode with delight when I thought that Ethan and Mattie may actually have a chance at love and happiness in Ethan Frome and while Charity Royall waited expectantly for Harney to keep his promise to her in Summer. It was the reality that neither of those things happened that saddens me for days. Couldn't she have written the ending that I wanted? The one that was easiest?

Of course she could have, but it wouldn't have been Wharton's. She reveals the fragility of human relationships in such a beautiful way that it is devastating (as it is in our lives) to witness them crumble, in the case of Summer, or explode, in the case of Ethan Frome. We never want these things to occur, but we can savor the sweetness of the potential that lay just waiting in the beginning.

Ok, on to more pleasant thoughts. I am three-quarters of the way through Howard's End, which is a book that I love (I think this will be the fourth time through). I love Forester in general though. I am also a chapter into Hawthorne's The Marble Faun, which is one of the few works by Hawthorne that I haven't had the opportunity to read yet (my copy is a really cool looking one from the 1950's).

On the non-reading front I have worked on the big illustrating project a bit, and have a first page done already. It was some of the most intense moments of pen to paper I've ever experienced. I was truly afraid, I think. Thinking about publishing and working for an author who isn't myself is just kind of freaky.

And I made a new dress, which I think is beautiful. The fabric is muted greens and rusts and creams shaped into roses and leaves. I sewed a perfectly delightful little pale sea green velvet ribbon from the back of the neck to the bottom of the bodice (where a zipper would normally be). I think it is a rather coy little velvet ribbon, but I'm not sure why I think that just yet.

Now I'll leave you all with a long over-due dose of Wallace Stevens, who is my favorite:

DEBRIS OF THE LIFE AND MIND

There is so little that is close and warm.
It is as if we were never children.

Sit in the room. It is true in the moonlight
That it is as if we had never been young.

We ought not to be awake. It is from this
That a bright red woman will be rising

And, standing in violent golds, will brush her hair.
She will speak thoughtfully the words of a line.

She will think about them not quite able to sing.
Besides, when the sly is so blue, things sing themselves,

Even for her, already for her. She will listen
And feel that her color is a meditation,

The most gay and yet not so gay as it was.
Stay here. Speak of familiar things a while.