Not really sure if anyone has even noticed my absence (apart from me), but I’ve been somewhat distracted of late and didn’t feel like writing anything.
It’s a long boring saga of skunks, fleas (no knees or hidden elephants, though), delusional parasitosis and a general assault on my sanity.
Frankly, it was so awful to live through that I can’t bear to write about it as I’d have to relive it in some way or other and I’m not quite ready for that sort of therapy. I’d rather have some nice pills, please.
So, rather than tell you anything more about me, which will quickly descend into a hamster wheel of endless whining, I will instead tell you this which popped into my inbox and left a tiny crack in my heart this evening. I can’t say why.
On this day in 1786, conflicted and love-torn U.S. Ambassador to France Thomas Jefferson composed a now-famous love letter to a married English woman named Maria Cosway. It’s more than 4,000 words long, more than three times the length of the Declaration of Independence, which Thomas Jefferson had composed 10 years before.
He had to write out this letter with his left hand because he had broken his right wrist while leaping over a fountain in giddy delight during a stroll with the woman. The letter is now referred to as “A Dialogue between the Head and Heart.” In it, he records an inner dialogue he had as he sat next to his fireside one evening, solitary and sad, shortly after parting ways with her. His Head and his Heart take turns speaking, one bubbling over with romantic desire and longing, and the other lecturing him about the need for integrity.
His dialogue begins:
Head. Well, friend, you seem to be in a pretty trim.
Heart. I am indeed the most wretched of all earthly beings. Overwhelmed with grief, every fibre of my frame distended beyond its natural powers to bear, I would willingly meet whatever catastrophe should leave me no more to feel or to fear.
Head. These are the eternal consequences of your warmth & precipitation. This is one of the scrapes into which you are ever leading us. You confess your follies indeed; but still you hug & cherish them; & no reformation can be hoped, where there is no repentance.
In the end, Thomas Jefferson’s Head wins out, and he concludes that the only “effective security against such pain of unrequited love, is to retire within ourselves and to suffice for our own happiness.” And so he apologizes to his beloved reader Maria for the sermon, and promises he’ll keep his letters shorter from then on out, and talks about the weather and the casual comings and goings of mutual acquaintances, and about the book that he happens to be reading at the time.
Maria Cosway stayed married to her husband until his death in 1789, and then moved to Italy to start a convent school. Thomas Jefferson became the third president of the United States in 1801, about 15 years after writing this letter.
I wonder if he ever thought of her as he sat in the newly built White House?
{ 4 comments }
God, that is so completely beautiful – I have often felt like that myself. Thank you so much for writing about it, it’s heart-breaking and wonderful.
And I can completely relate to how you feel about the hamster-wheel of whining (tremendous expression!)… I’ve been feeling much the same, and not been able to write anything either. I’ve been so sulky I’ve had to give myself a time out. xxx
I liked the post very much, sorry to hear you haven’t felt like writing. I certainly know how that is. Here is a silly short bit of prose, about, well, you’ll see what it is about and perhaps relate, as something yet to come:
Nursery Rhyme
“B’bye MooMoo, have a good day,” she said framed by the morning light.
She smiled bashfully as she head out the door, swinging her golden brown hair. She wore cowboy boots with red striped socks pulled up to her knees, the only free expression allowed with her school uniform.
She came home from school in the late afternoon. On long legs she sprinted straight up the stairs to her room.
“Where’d she disappear to?’ he asked.
I cracked open the door. She was slumped on the bed, feet apart, knees knocked together, laptop nestled in her lap. She peered up at me over the top of the screen and her glasses.
“Yes, MooMoo?” her lips were pursed with patient exasperation.
“Hi there.”
“Hey.”
“What ‘cha doin’?” I asked the obvious.
“Just talkin’ to my peeps,” she giggled, tilting the screen away from my eyes. Purple toe nails wiggled and tapped, impatient for me to leave.
With the others I would have pushed, prodded.
“Pizza for dinner?”
“Yeah! Me have hunger.” She flashed me a smile and bobbed her head, her shiny hair swung from side to side.
“Happiness?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” she said, nodding her head up and down.
“OK then.” I smiled and shut the door behind me.
Later, I sat on the edge of the bed, “Good night BooBoo.”
“Good night MooMoo.”
We recited together, all in one breath, the words tumbling out fast, “Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite, pleasant dreams, may all your wishes come true, night night.”
Twelve years old, my last child of five, second daughter. She remembered all the words.
“Luv U,” I said, turning out the light.
“Luv U 2,” she said. She rolled over, curled up in a ball and turned into herself.
Best wishes, Dorothy.
This is just lovely. I can already see the day coming when Six will be impatient for me to leave the room. I hope she’ll still sing with me. xo
Oh You girls just get me crying with so much mushy lovely love in the house I have to force a smile to write this. Awesome to have you back “Mothership” – I noticed nothing was going on for some time on this here blog and so I just waited for you to return! … waiting checking your blog on a weekly basis… Wait some more….
Yeah!
You are alive and no more fleas. Well thank God!
They can jump high those things!
I wish you a flea free existence and the bountiful energy and joy to keep writing so we can enjoy you some more!
Woo hoo ! See’s back and making us laugh and cry to boot! xoxox
.-= Helen´s last blog ..Lilli on the loose! =-.
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