Stories of marriage

Jenny Offill's Dept. Of Speculation was an interesting read. That statement seems a tad, what? Lacking in sincerity? I'm trying to be nice here which is one of my faults - the don't hurt others dictum.  No offense Ms. Offill, but the story depressed me. I've read so many books lately about marriages that break up for one reason or another. No one seems to be writing stories of happy marriages or marriages that have stood the test of time. I suppose because they would be boring. Where's the angst? Where's the literary challenge? People don't want to read about how life is boring and the day to day details of life are just that, details. Everyone wants excitement. Life isn't that way. Maybe that's why so many turn to alcohol or drugs to dull the pain, or affairs.

Marriage can be hard. Marriage can be fulfilling. Mine for example is readying itself for the next phase - the empty nest. Our youngest goes off to college in the fall. I'm looking forward to life being just the two of us again. It has been a long time since we were free to do as we pleased without thinking about the kids and their needs and schedules. However, in the last week it has begun to hit me that another phase of our lives is closing - parenthood. The parenthood of school age children. We are now the parents of college age children and before we know it of young adults. The old cliche of when a door is closed another one opens is upon us. 

Part of life is acknowledging and accepting change. Perhaps that's why so many others struggle within their marriage, they don't realize that marriage isn't static it too changes and grows and the partners must change along with it. Marriage is a living thing because it is a human construct and we are living beings. All living things evolve and so does marriage over the course of its life time. Evolution is all about the organism that is best able to adapt to the environment is the one who survives. Those who are best able to adapt to the ever changing environment of marriage are those that survive. I think Darwin would be shocked to read this but at heart I think he would agree, didn't he work hard to adapt his work to fit within his marriage? He knew that his life's work when published would hurt the one he loved most, but he did it anyways. And Emma Darwin who loved her husband may have argued with him but accepted in the end because she loved him. 

A self help book of a different kind

Photo source

How often have I (or you dear reader) picked up a self help book at the library or the book store looking for advice or a cure for what ails? Too any, enough for me to resolve not to pick them up anymore. Why? Because the answers are not going to be found in a book but rather in my own experiences of life and the many trials and errors that daily life brings my way. Grant I've found a few good tidbits of advice over the years but nothing so profound as to change it radically. So you might be asking yourself where is this all heading? The answer is to How to Hepburn: Lessons on Living from Kate the Great written by Karen Karbo.

This is a very different type of "how to" book than others, it's more of a biography with insights into a philosophy for living gleaned from a very well lived life. In fact Karbo even points out mistakes that Hepburn made during her life time and suggests ways to avoid them, most notably to wear sunscreen. Hepburn showed her age early in life as her fair skin often burned from the time she spent outdoors with no protection.

I think the most important lesson learned from this book is to be myself. Hepburn did not fall prey to the Hollywood expectations for actresses of her day. She was her own character, she worked hard, she spoke her mind, she dressed as she pleased, she thought her own thoughts, and she valiantly strode through life in spite of its challenges. I like that because all too often I have allowed myself to "go along to get along." Fell in with what "society" thinks is appropriate. Did what I thought would please people who are important to me. No wonder I don't feel like I know myself at times because I'm spending too much time trying to be someone else. Luckily I'm learning to stop this behavior. Now in middle age I no longer want to live that way. I've begun to discover what it is that I truly love to do and I'm pursuing that. Life has become so much more pleasurable as a result. One thing I have experienced is the struggle that women face between the choice of motherhood and career something that Hepburn chose to avoid. She chose career. For me I chose motherhood for a time and once my children reached middle school I entered into a career. I've learned for me that I can have both just not at the same time. Was it a struggle? Yes! There have been many times over the last few years that I felt that I let my children down when the focus of getting a new career path off the ground got in the way. I also had to learn that the job needs to come second. Not an easy lesson for me. Most importantly, I think it is up to each woman to figure out her own pathway, I can only share with you my experience and Karbo shared what she thought Hepburn's life can teach us. In the end we each make our own lives the unique experience and we must make it genuine - you can't copy someone else's.

Ever feel like you're tied up in knots

Charlecote Park: Warwick CV35 9ER, UK

The library had a spring book display with the whimsical name of: The Cover Was Green, and from it I chose Geoff Nicholson's A Knot Garden.(By the way this link does not show the cover of the paperback edition that I got at the library.) This is a mystery story centering on the death of Richard Wisden a garden designer and minor TV celebrity. The biggest challenge in reading this story was that ever changing first person narration. A collection of characters who each tell their stories all interconnect to form the "knot" of the plot. Imagine a time when you have tried to pull apart a tangled necklace chain or wayward ball of yarn and just when you think you have got the right part to pull and unravel the whole mess you discover that you seem further from the solution than when you started. No spoilers here except to say that by the end all is revealed.

Knot garden as viewed
from the dining room.

I had the opportunity to visit in Warwickshire county at the end of April and visited the National Trust property of Charlecote Park. There in the rear of the property on the edge of the river Avon was a beautiful knot garden as pictured here glimpsed out of the dining room window. The grounds were lovely and everything was blooming. A far cry from the slow start to spring back home in New England.

Primroses in a container garden
lining the entryway. 

Thatched cottage outbuilding.