Things that make me happy

1. The Torrential downpour we had this evening. Even though the weather has cooled to the mid-90's this week, it was so nice to have the rain cool us off even more!

2. Tick Spread. My husband is out running around the yard with the spreader right now to get rid of the little pests. It was getting bad. Jonah would point to the grass and say, "Ticks. Bite you!"

3. Cleaning out the vacuum bag. It always amazes me how much better my vacuum works when I've put in a new bag, or cleaned one out a little. It actually picks the rugs up and really sucks the Goldfish crumbs out of them.

4. My new bathing suit. The old one was (not so) affectionately referred to as the ugliest bathing suit on earth. Mostly because it looked like something you might see at the olympics. The new one makes me look like a girl. Yay.

5. Jonah knows his colors. We're still stumbling on white, and (on occasion) purple, but he had a quiz today at my mother's house, and (yes, I'm bragging) he's got them down.

6. The anonymous gift I received in the mail. After raving on my blog, facebook, and twitter about my new favorite book, someone bought it and had it mailed to me. No card.... Whoever you are- THANK YOU!

That's what's making me particularly happy today.

Chara

BlueBeard

I've been thinking a bit more about Bluebeard lately. I've been reading a book about it called "Secrets Beyond the Door" by Maria Tatar. I'm not very far in yet, but I found part of what she has said particularly interesting.

She quotes the movie, The Talented Mr. Ripley, (Josh and I watched this movie on our Honeymoon and I found it particularly disturbing at the time, since Mr. Ripley's talent seemed to be murdering close friends) in which Tom Ripley say's "Don't you put the past in a room, in a cellar and lock the door and just never go there? That's what I do. Then you meet someone special and all you want to do is toss them the key, say open up, step inside, but you can't because it's dark and there are demons and if anybody saw how ugly it was..."

It occurs to me that perhaps BlueBeard himself isn't the monster that the story makes him out to be, so much as he is the monster that we all are. Very few of us have murdered people the way Tom Ripley had, but we all harbor secrets of things we aren't proud of, or parts of ourselves that we instinctively know are not socially acceptable in some way. As in The Crane Maiden we might just be trying to protect the last private parts of ourselves from a spouse- to whom there are no longer any other private parts.

I find myself feeling sort of sorry for BlueBeard today. It seems he wanted to share all of himself with his wife, but the closest he could come was to trust her with the key to his secret.

Another option for your reading list

I've recently finished reading Joan Gould's "Spinning Straw into Gold: What Fairy Tales Reaveal About the Transformations in a Woman's Life"

Just so you all know, I'd like my own copy. This is the kind of book that I will probably go back to over and over again, especially as I get older.

To be honest, I was somewhat dissatisfied with some of my classes at ETSU that had to do with the structure of fairy tales. We spent time talking about the Hero's Journey, but that left me wondering... what about the Heroine? Instead, I was left with Disney movies, trying to make sense of the Grimm's versions, and still not understanding why women in fairy tales seemed so passive and dependant. I always got really excited about stories like Molly Whuppie where the girl in the story took charge of her own future and kicked the ogre's behind. Do you hear me cheering??

Margaret Meyers (one of the other students at ETSU with me) told a story Norse (?) story about a Bride who was secretly switched with a witch, that has perplexed me since I first heard it. And then there is the equally perplexing story of "The Seal Wife," which is the Scottish folktale of a Seal-woman who is captured by a fisherman who makes her his wife by hiding her seal skin. Years later she finds it and immediately abandons her husband and children.

What do stories like this mean about women? If the Grimm Brothers were right and women were passing these along to one another, what were they trying to say about the life of a woman? What do these stories mean about who I am and who I am becoming?

Joan Gould did an excellent job of connecting the dots... and explaining that what may look like passivity and dependence is often very purposeful. What I have essentially come to realize, after processing this book for the last few days, is that the life journeys of men and women are completely different. A man's journey leads him away from home, to pursue a quest, and to come home the conquering hero... probably just to find himself another quest. Men are rarely looking mainly to transition, with the exception of Beauty and the Beast. What they are more often looking for is the opportunity to prove themselves the hero, and claim what they see as rightfully theirs. A woman's journey leads her through multiple transitions in life- she is always changing, like a perpetual caterpillar, always evolving, always spinning herself a new chrysalis... meaning that Sleeping Beauty's sleep was purposeful, Cinderella's stint in service was necessary. The Seal wife's flight from her family is a normal desire of many women (no wonder I never would have agreed with this idea after reading "The Awakening," I was in high school!), and many women feel that their identity is split like the White Bride and the Black Bride after they become wives and mothers.

The most interesting part of this book was the discussion about "BlueBeard." She largely pulls form a version called Fitcher's Bird, that was originally published in the Grimm's version. In this version there are three sister's who are forced to marry the murderous husband and the youngest revives her murdered sisters and orchestrates justice. I've always seen "Bluebeard" and "The Crane Maiden" as stories that were linked, but until now, it didn't dawn on me that the difference between the stories was the gender of the individual with the secret, and how that changes their reaction to being caught, and how and why they hide it in the first place.

This book is an epiphany. It's changing the way I look at my marraige and my husband, and myself. It's no wonder that I feel so fractured at times- every metamorphosis splits and doubles and murders aspects of the one being changed. It's also a comfort to know that this is a natural part of life- it means that we are all capable of change and expected to change.

Choices Choices

Life is barreling along and there are some decisions that have to be made. Some things can't really be undone easily and some can, but this one is one that will be difficult. In a case like this it is important to really think through all of your options. Being risky could cost you big, but being too conservative might make you regret your choice even more.

What am I talking about?

Duh! Paint!

Josh and I are wanting to refinance the house, but before we have to go through another inspection we decided that it would be good to finish the interior as much as possible. That means paint. Lots and lots of paint.

Most of the decisions were easy. Ottertail in the bedroom, Vintage Map in the new bathroom. White on Jonah's ceiling... But the kitchen and living room have been a thorn in my side. I liked a dark blue-gree, and a rust red and maybe even a mustardy yellow. *

But the living room shares a wall with the kitchen and if you're going to choose colors, they have to go together. Otherwise it will look like a paint disaster.

Yesterday I kind of made a choice. What do you think of this color for my kitchen? I've heard that it should make the outdoors come in, and it's a happy color, don't you think? In contrast we'll probably do the living room in a boring beige. Josh says he doesn't want to ever have to redo it so I'm hoping it all works well. Cross your fingers.