In
the absence of Juno, I turned again to a lady of Shakespearian
quality and forty-nine years my senior, she, being, as Aristotle
might have said in the evening of her life, although in the course of
our friendship she will rise and die repeatedly, and the gap in our
years will, over further stretches of time, diminish.
I
will grow nearer; she less far away.
I
will continue to hope I attain her maturity and cease to take sides;
she will continue to criss-cross her days, past with present, as each
new day allotted to her falls.
In
this lady, twilight is ever-present; whereas the evening of day is
ever extinguished by the rosy fingers of dawn and the noon sun.
Lady
Slane is a woman to be admired, not for years but for her audacity;
whereas the descent of night is a poet's delight, since a shepherd
only delights in a red sky.
Her
passion has been spent over many days, spread over eight, almost nine
decades; day's in a single day; and mine, never. Or hardly ever. I've
ceased to care about my inconsistencies and my failure to love as she
has ceased to take sides.
Calm
of mind, my passion is and has been spent in other ways, and I don't
think in old age, when my day turns to evening, I'll regret that I
didn't spend it with more abandon rather than with caution. But when
twilight comes to permanently rest on one, I may feel differently. My
eighty-eight year old mind's reflections may be more wistful: a what
could I have done, what could I have been; or perhaps memories will
merely visit as if they were shades from Hades' halls, and being
closer to shade I'll feel less connected to them, an impartial
observer, and therefore able to mutter: silly girl.
When
you look back you'll always a girl, regardless of status: wife,
mother, widow.
Widowed
Lady Slane will sit in her chair in a tiny house in Hampstead, bathed
in sunlight; or in the garden under the south wall and the ripened
peaches; or on a bench on the Heath with or without Mr. FitzGeorge.
Husband-less,
childless, I will sit in mine, placed by a window, with the sun's
dying light falling upon me.
Envy
enters not for those who have husbands still, nor for those who are
husband and child-free; envy enters not for those who have husbands,
have children, nor for those who have suitors that call. There's just
the one heart on which to depend. A heart that's borne pain, and may
bear more. A heart that says enough, I want to live for me.
Death
parts people – men from wives, women from husbands, children from
parents, parents from children. Although Death can also reunite them,
if you believe in the existence of an underworld, an afterlife.
Two
badly behaved women, then; two women behaving badly. Independent and
sometimes loose-tongued. Society shunned, as it might, should we
choose to associate with it rather than distance ourselves from it,
shun us in turn. Would Lady Slane have cared? Will I? if society,
according to the order of the day, thought of her, thinks of me in
this way?
Cease
to care; cease to take sides in debates, in arguments, yet be firm.
Do not acquiesce.
Women,
though, must have guardians in the form of men or children. Both
supposedly know better. The war of sex. The war of elders and
offspring.
The
ravens gather; as do the maggot-pies.
A
council forms. The question's asked: Youth or old age? Which is fair
and which a burden?
The
jackdaws and jays argue for youth, the ravens for old age. None are
indifferent. A bully-boy crow, however, stands up for bloom and
wisdom, but he is ignored. Visitors have no rights here.
Lady
Slane is amused, as am I, though we, unlike them reserve judgement.
We've ceased to care, have ceased or are ceasing to take sides.
Maturity beckons, with a crooked finger.
Ah,
and here comes Juno, looking more Elizabethan than Roman, to light
this path. May the earth, each time you pass, fall lightly upon you,
Lady Slane.
Book recommendation: All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West.
Picture credit: Juno, c.1662-c.1665, Rembrandt (source: WikiArt)
This post was penned in 2019.
