by Lori Smith
I heard writer Sue Monk Kidd talk once about the defining choice every woman makes between love and independence. There's no doubt in my mind right now what I would choose. I want to write, and I want to have a family. I want to go to grad school as well and travel and all other sorts of things, but if I have a chance at love, I would choose that. I know that now, at this moment in my life.
Some of us do get to make the choice between love and independence, but for many of us the choice simply happens—having found no one, having had no one find us, we land squarely and often sur-prisedly on the side of independence.
We may alternately long for it and turn from it, the question of the choice between independence and love not being a simple one, as it wasn't for Jane. We recognize the value of what we lose if we marry— and not merely the simple if significant ability to spend all of our time and money completely on ourselves, but the value of the completely self-directed life (although as a Christian I don't view my life as self-directed but God-directed, there is still an essential freedom here).
I love that freedom. And convolutedly long for someone to share it with. I long for someone to care about the quotidian things, to know about the daily turmoil and disruptions. I long for a sense of family. I find myself carrying on ten wonderful, in-depth discussions with ten excellent friends who rarely know one another, feeling incredibly grateful and incredibly stretched. So I long for someone to make a home with.
I long to be cherished.
And I realize that all marriages have their dark days—perhaps all come close to fissure at some point. I know that many women who choose love lose out on both scores, losing independence only to have love drain slowly away over the years. The longer I continue in my single life, the more determined I become that only something great could lure me away.
I wonder if Betty Lords great love lasted, if it was worth her risk. How dashing was the real Captain Wentworth? Betty—and Jane as well— could only ever have limited independence, could never entirely get away from their families. So Betty chose love, against every prohibition, perhaps planting the grain of the story that would become dear Anne.
Twenty
Evensong
Give us Grace Almighty Father, so to pray,
as to deserve to be heard, to address thee with our
hearts, as with our lips. Thou art every where present.
—JANE AUSTEN, EVENING PRAYER I
I sat at the café at St. Mary's in Oxford, at the same table Jack and Spencer and I ate at on our last day there, eating the best omelet I have ever had—over toast, with a little balsamic vinegar on it, accompanied by a fresh salad with herbs. I was full of joy. I sat there outside just remembering, at this wooden table on the stone, watching the gray clouds over the dome of the Radcliffe Camera with the bright sun behind, praying the sun would win, and enjoying the weightiness of Oxford. Just as I sat there eating and drinking my almost-decent coffee, the sun did win. It stayed out all the rest of the day.
I went into the Ashmolean Museum, just for a few minutes, to see some sketches from da Vinci and Rembrandt, but I'm afraid I've lost all my patience with museums, so I walked down to Magdalen College again (once again, buying cigars en route) and sat in front of Lewis's New Building to wait while they finished moving the college flock of deer so I could walk around quiet Addisons Walk. Big groups of people were out punting on the river in the sun—or, more accurately, trying to learn to punt—but the walk itself was almost empty. Jack said there was a wonderful view of the city here, but I couldn't find it and was too tired to look much and, honestly, too tired to do much thinking.
I walked the wide path all the way down the banks of the River Cherwell, manicured lawns on one side and manicured river on the other, with the occasional bevy of swans. I lay on the grass in the sun. I wanted to turn over again the things in my heart, every goodness from the trip, to prepare for whatever might meet me when I got home.
I went back to Christ Church Cathedral for Evensong. It seemed like a perfect little bookend for the end of the trip since that's how it began.
The choir was there. I was so glad. There is something about hearing the psalms sung as opposed to just having them read. I sat in a pew on the south side in the late afternoon light, facing one of the large stained-glass windows. My heart fully participated, in spite of my exhaustion—maybe in some ways because of my exhaustion. And then they started to sing, the glorious choir.
I didn't hear which psalm they were starting with, so I couldn't follow along, but the three they sang are closely familiar.
“The Lord is my light and my salvation,” they sang, “whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 27:1).
Yes,my heart responded. Yes.
There are so many uncertainties, but this I know. This is what I seek, to dwell in the house of the Lord, to gaze upon his beauty. He will keep me safe; he will shelter me and set me high upon a rock. He will hear my voice, be merciful to me, and answer me.
My heart says, Seek his face.
He will teach me his way and lead me in a straight path.
To the Lord I call, praying that he will not turn a deaf ear to me. If he is silent, it will be like death itself. He will hear my cry for mercy. I will lift up my hands.
The Lord is my strength and shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy.
Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Give him the glory due his name. The voice of the Lord thunders over the waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is majestic. He is enthroned forever.
I am confident of this, that I will see the goodness of the Lord in the hnd of the living. He will give me strength. He will give me peace.1
I do not know why, but I know these things more than anything else. They are dear to me, and in that moment in Christ Church Cathedral—with the stained glass and the choir and the prayers, the strong old hymns, all the blessings I have been lavished with and all the deep questions—I knew them to be true.
At thirty-nine thousand feet, somewhere south of Newfoundland, my pen exploded and I got ink on my jeans. Its truly a lost day. My eyes looked horrible—bloodshot and puffy—and I was beyond tired. I couldn't concentrate on anything for more than an hour, and that was a very bad, reading-incredibly-slowly kind of concentration. I could not abide the thought of a movie when I got on board, so I tried to read the new Harry Potter book but didn't have enough energy for that either. I slept a bit but kept waking up with that jarring, falling, jumpy sensation that comes from trying to sleep on an airplane and not being entirely sure you wont fall out of the sky as a result. I had some minipanic attacks before lunch and knew that when you get this tired, fear overwhelms—irrational fears of very small things, like, You want me to do what? You want me to eat lasagna? You want me to sit here in this metal tube hurtling through space while it fills up with dinner smells, people just eating and pretending that everything is normal?
My psyche wasn't entirely capable of that, so I ate my lasagna in very small bites and prayed I wouldn't pass out or somehow fall through the bottom of the plane.
Heathrow was nightmarish. There were masses of people everywhere, everyone going in different directions, so that it was impossible to move anywhere in a straight line. My incredibly long check-in line included insane French circus people carrying stuffed animals, making loud chicken noises, and wearing various fake noses—one of which was made to look like a man's private anatomy—and generally making themselves as obnoxious as possible. And then there was the French couple behind me kissing passionately the entire time we were in line.
In that moment, completely exhausted, hungry, trying to manage my suitcase, my ridiculously heavy backpack, and a carrier bag full of odds and ends that was now beginning to rip, surrounded by a sea of humanity and annoying French circus kissing people, I came to several stark realizations:
I do not like French people.
I do not want a
nyone to kiss me. Ever.
I am sure that Jack has no intentions whatsoever, and how could I not have seen that before?
This is what I have come to know as my downward spiral. In such a descent, everything is bad, everything around me, and I cannot pull myself out of the emotional morass.
The airline didn't announce my gate for another hour then made a special point of noting that said gate was the absolute farthest one from the main terminal and that all passengers should be aware of the fifteen-minute walk. The air smelled like toast, which made me gag; even now I'm convinced that if there were a national smell in England, it would be the smell of toast. Forget English breakfasts, everyone eats charred white bread they've scraped with butter or maybe Marmite.
When I had finally checked my e-mail the night before, the late news was on. It had been nearly an entire week, which was killing me because the last time I'd been able to check was Saturday in Bath, so I was intrigued to find that I had an e-mail from some William Denby person with the subject line AUSTEN AND JORDAN.
I didn't recognize the name, but I thought it sounded legit, so I opened it and realized (duh) it was from Jack. I skimmed his note, and it seemed a bit formal and not quite what I hoped for, and I didn't want to discover that, so I left it. Instead I drank a glass of wine with Niki, Gill's cousin, whom I'd been staying with and told her all about Jack. We talked about how Christian guys can be weird and noncommittal and how she was dating someone who didn't go to church and wondered if maybe we really did have to go outside the church to find someone normal who actually wants a relationship. Niki told me it was, unfortunately, all the same in England.
When I was fuzzy from exhaustion, sometime around midnight, I went back and read Jacks e-mail. He asked a ton of questions (good), told me a little about Jordan (good), said he'd had a bit of a hard time adjusting at first in Jordan because he'd had such a good time in Oxford (good). Said we'd had such a “great crew” in Oxford (hmm…). Asked if maybe I would want to get together for lunch (lunch?!) when he got back from spending a week in North Carolina, where, he pointed out, he was seeing his new niece and going to his nephew's birthday party.
The e-mail felt chummy, or purposely distant, and far too formal. It lacked warmth. It lacked any sign of the intimacy we'd established. He even signed it with his whole name, though perhaps that is excusable in his case because of the potential of name confusion. He seemed not to remember that I would still be in England.
So,I thought, overall pretty good, though perhaps not as good as I would like it to be. He had written, he was interested in my trip, he sounded like maybe he missed me, and he did want to see me even if only for lunch.
I wrote back and told him tiny bits about the trip, told him I “so enjoyed hanging out with him in Oxford,” would love to do lunch, but would he rather come over for brunch or dinner sometime?
Then I went to sleep.
When I checked my e-mail the next morning, there was nothing. Standing in line at Heathrow, I was determined that Jack must have been going to North Carolina to see that girl he was dating, and the questions began spinning. Why else would he need a whole week to see his new niece and go to his nephew's birthday party? If he were really into me, why would he send an e-mail instead of calling? Did he assume I wasnt in England anymore? Why would he only want to do lunch? He might as well just come out and say he's not interested. Arghl
Perhaps my perspective was a bit skewed, as I was apparently disgusted with all of humanity (especially male-anatomy-nose-wearing French circus people). Perhaps I could wait to see what he says in the next e-mail before entirely giving up hope. I was nearly determined, however, that he was one of those horrible Christian guys who would never know what he wanted or would never step up to the plate to make it happen. I couldn't abide that, and I suppose I would have no reason to abide that as no initiative would be taken and nothing would ever happen.
After the day in Oxford, facing the possibility that this was all rubbish (and laughing at myself at the same time for thinking it is rubbish because he e-mailed me and wanted to get together for lunch), I felt the reassurance of warm, very good memories of this trip even if all of this fell through. And that calm moment at Evensong, in the intensity of hearing the choir sing, “…of whom shall I be afraid?” I believed that.
I still do.
So Oxford was my own again; sometime during my walk by the river, I believed I could love it simply for my own sake without always tying it to memories of Jack.
Niki took me grocery shopping, and I bought two large tins of golden syrup for making treacle tart and a huge thing of Marmite for Gill, which I have since decided was a very bad idea, and I have vowed I will never buy anything heavy again when I travel. Directly south of St. John, with just 650 miles left till landing in D.C., I was especially thankful for the sun in Oxford, even though my pen kept leaking and my fingers were now black like Jo March's in Little Women.
One Year Later
The Return to Ordinary
There is mercy in every place;
And mercy, encouraging thought!
Gives even affliction a grace.
—WILLIAM COWPER
One thing I love about Austens books as opposed to the movies is that she tells us a little more about how the characters’ lives turn out. The movies tend to end with a wedding, and that's that, as though there is nothing more worth telling. But in the books we learn, for instance, that Wickham was never allowed to visit Pemberley, that Darcy and Bingley continued to be great friends and their wives the closest of sisters, that they all helped to contribute to Lydias upkeep but Lydia never felt that she was given enough. We know that Elinor and Edward were quite content in the Delaford parsonage after they redecorated everything and that Lady Russell and Captain Wentworth forgave each other and put their differences aside.
Among the small things I want to tell you is how I've developed an addiction to English tea—always with milk, of course, never with half-and-half, like a good little Anglophile. I've almost given up coffee altogether.
I have a new niece—Sweet Isa, my brother and sister-in-law's daughter. She has my eyes. Or rather, she has my brother's eyes with my sister-in-law's coloring, and she looks a little like me. She has a way of looking very seriously at the world when there is not a grin on her face. On the night she was born, I drove to the hospital and could almost feel my world changing for hers, the circle of life and all. Perhaps it is inappropriate to think about death on the night a baby is born, but that is what it made me think, how all of us only overlap for such a short period of time really.
I miss the monks. A necklace I made in Bath—silver and pale pink beads on a black cord, with a cross I bought at the abbey—is one of my favorite things. I have even, from time to time, made cheese and onion sandwiches. On the first morning I got home, I woke up at five thirty and put in a CD I got at Magdalen College on my last day in Oxford— “Oh be joyful in the Lord all ye lands,” it begins, the “Jubilate Deo” of the Book of Common Prayer and Psalm 100—and just lay there in the sun remembering, full of every goodness.
I suppose you will want to know the end of my story with Jack.
In spite of my doubts at Heathrow, I came home glowing. Partly because of just being in England I'm sure, but largely because of Jack. My friends knew I had met someone before I told them just by the look on my face. I was deeply happy and incredibly pleased with the world.
I think maybe love always dies, so maybe we shouldn't be surprised by this. I don't mean genuine love, the agape or phileo love New Testament writers describe. Because genuine love isn't really feelings, not the thing that makes the entire world seem far more fascinating, everything funnier and brighter and more interesting than before. It is that at the beginning, and then that fades and life takes on a more normal hue. In the best cases, maybe the feelings come and go, and you can expect to revisit them frequently over the course of a relationship, or maybe they continue in a deeper if slightly less urgent form. I d
on't know. Maybe I know very little about it at all really.
The feelings between Jack and me died a long and torturous death. At least mine did. I never really ascertained what his were. From my perspective, it seems that they could have been quickly and cleanly put out of their misery with one honest admission on his part. He chose instead to sort of leave them out in the cold on their own to see if they might be able to survive. Eventually they starved to death.
It was a little more than a week after I got home before I heard from him. He wanted to do lunch, which I thought was a sure sign that he was going to break bad news. So I put on my jeans and ironed my hip little black sleeveless shirt and put on my favorite garnet earrings and necklace and left for the Town Center. I'm sure I looked like the nervous wreck I was. I'd had a month to imagine him as the most perfect man I ever met, and this was where those dreams would hit reality.
It was all a bit awkward. He had copies of the pictures of us together from Oxford, but I didn't know what to say about them because I had no idea what they meant. At the end, after I had picked through my salad, he opened up about his state of mind.
He was overwhelmed. School was starting again, and he wasn't sure about how he was going to pay the bills, or exactly what he wanted to do after he graduated. He wasn't sure he'd be able to stay in school full time. He said he needed time to figure out things. I was determined to be patient and understanding, not to pressure him, so I just tried to be supportive and didn't ask the questions I should have—like, “What does this mean for us?” and, “Are you still seeing the girl in North Carolina?”
