Stress does some really funny things to people. Stress can make you stark raving mad; dissolving your earthly layers as you dance naked in the streets and fling your excrement at walls. Stress can descend over your psyche as a stupor; the stupefied no longer doted with the capacity to process any emotion, any action or even inhalation, you stare vacantly into the space ahead of you and imagine the horizon opening like a gigantic mouth as it sucks you into the abyss beyond. Stress destroys the wellbeing of individuals, of their families, of their friends and in my case, of their livers. So you, and my liver, might be pleased to know that the world has righted itself and would appear to be spinning again just as it always had been.
We are each unique and individual and special, so we each have our unique, individual and special ways of coping as stress, like the curtain of a winter flu, takes hold over your capacity to function as a normal person. Some run, some cook, some shop, some redecorate, some are violent and some reach for the bottom shelf of the DVD cabinet, the shelf known as the Bonnet Drama shelf. Curling into the warmth of my bed, my own little Island on top of La Butte, I stare into the English countryside that emanates from the screen above my toes and I slip into a state of meditative fixation.
Darcy at the Netherfield Ball; the eyes, that sly smirk, that jaw-framing collar, the britches, the chestnut hair that drapes across his almond eyes…yes, I’ve seen it a few times.
I can’t adequately describe the bubble of fuggy calm that envelops me as I stop being the girl in the metro whose face is being pushed into an armpit. The river of relief as the wretched girl who tripped, again, on her way up the grimy metro stairs, vanishes as Darcy dances. Well when he does that dance-ish^ type thing where he stands up on his toes and walks back and forth while holding Lizzie’s hand.
I’ve gotten so good at living in my Regency Reality Reverser that I can conjure up Colin in my mind, no DVD required. I sit at my desk, staring into a computer screen, and he stares back at me. I wonder what he would say if ever he met me. Would I be truly accomplished? Would he think I was lovely, just as I am?* I know it is really sad, perhaps a bit depressing, but it is certainly doing less damage than necking a bottle of Shiraz every night…and I have no plans to buy a cat.
So one Saturday night, in a moment of sleep-deprived exasperation, with maybe a dash of libation, I decided to visit Chawton. I did more than just decide, I added together the points of every frequent flyer programme I could scrounge together, used them all up, booked it and paid for it.
F**k You Stress; Jane and I are taking back the night!
Chawton is the location of the home that Jane Austen lived in up until a few months before her death. The house and garden has more recently been transformed into a museum dedicated to her short, spinster-y life and her exceptional oeuvre. The trust recently fought, and won, a claim to have a ring once owned by Jane, but purchased by American Idol winning popstar Kelly Clarkson, remain in the UK.
Sometime in the summer I read that as one of the many activities across the UK to honour the 200 years of Pride and Prejudice, the house was hosting an exhibition of costumes used in the 1995 series featuring the one and only Mr Firth. Yes, the actual outfit worn by the actual Colin, when he played the actual Darcy, was actually only about 500 actual kilometres away from me! It seemed like the perfect reason for a weekend in the English countryside, the perfect excuse to visit a museum I had always wanted to visit and the perfect way to fill the second of two consecutive 3-day French weekends.
I’ve written many times before about my love of all things Jane and all things Darcy. The watching and reading of bonnet dramas is often associated with single, lonely, cat-owning women as a sad and sorry way to escape the reality of their lives. I’m not so sure.
Generally speaking, I am not lonely, I am usually very busy dashing from here to there having aperos and cafes and dejs and weekends here there and everywhere. While I am single, I’m not entirely unhappy about that. In fact, I recently walked away from an event that might have made me double. Finally, I don’t own a cat, but I’ll avow, I am trying to escape.
I’d like to escape from the place where a man will use his backpack as a weapon of mass metro destruction as he forces himself into the last remaining space, to the place where a man will not only allow a lady to enter a train first, but hold her hand and consciously assist her to step inside. He’ll compliment her dress, rather than try to remove it. He wears coats and cravats and things that have been ironed, none of which is emblazoned with the monikers of Messrs Abercrombie or Lauren. He asks for leave to court her rather than get her drunk to give her anal and he knows how to kiss.
I’d like to escape to a place where food is not wrapped in paper and scoffed between conference calls, but presented by gloved footmen, arranged upon gleaming salvers and appreciated during hours at table in conversation with companions who have more to tell you than the sale on at H&M. I’d like to spend time appreciating the food that was thoughtfully prepared and actively participating in witty repartee rather than updating my Facebook status between bites. I’d also like to escape to a place where I could eat all that food without gaining a gram.
I’d like to escape to a place where there are letters; letters written with care and attention, written from the heart with purpose, written upon wax sealed paper rather than the constant vomit of pixelated drivel I am forced to digest at all hours of the day and night. I’d like to live in the place where spelling and grammar is not only commonplace, but also an expectation. I want to live in a place where communication is intentional and honest, not a tool of torture and indoctrination.
I know they didn’t have flushing toilets, their women didn’t work outside the home, a trip meant visiting the next village and that I would not have expected to live past 40, but Jane did. Jane was the daughter of the village rector and she wrote. She didn’t live to see much of her success, but she was exceptional. So here it is written, with intention, and hopefully no spelling errors. I might not succeed, but I’ll try as hard as I bloody can to become truly accomplished, just like Jane.
My first step on this journey was to visit the museum. Now I know very well you should not touch anything, hell, I don’t even take photos in art galleries! But I need a bit of luck to get me going. I just could not resist the urge to put my hand in the place that has inspired me, that has kept me sane, that I’ve dreamed of since 1995.
Yes indeed, I stuck my hand in Darcy’s crotch, behind the flap, and prayed for the strength and resolve to put Bridget behind me and become Jane; a red-booted Jane who doesn’t need to escape into fictional worlds, because I intend to make it real for myself.
^We should ask Dancing with the Stars to do that dance routine instead of their ridiculous Game of Thones numbers
*Yes, borrowed that bit from the other, more contemporary Darcy
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