On Emily and Solitude

I was (and still am) trying to wrap my brain around this idea of spinsterhood. When the idea of spinsterhood existing in my own world at the mere age of twenty-two came to me, at first it was comical, because when one hears the word spinster, this image usually comes to mind:

  There seems to be a stigma built around the concept, that stigma consisting of women who are lonely, shriveled, haggardly, pitied, own many cats, are hunched over and creeping, etc.  When I began using this word in passing conversation, trying to rouse the idea with friends and acquaintances, I was surprised to learn that a handful of people weren’t vaguely familiar with the term. When describing this lifestyle, they immediately became familiar with the term, and most retorted oh! An old hag! The concept has seemingly become fictionalized. We only see extremities of spinsterhood characteristics in stories—the most prominent in my mind is Faulkner’s Emily in A Rose for Emily. But this can’t be what represents spinsterhood, a women living in her old colonel father’s house, isolating herself from society and hoarding a dead body of a man she sleeps with every night. Many negative connotations have been constructed, so I’ve been racking my little brain about how to glorify this idea of women remaining in solitude for the span of their life. I wanted to break this fictional element that has attached itself to my current fascination. I turned to my literature (where the fictionalizing began) and started musing on the author’s motivation in creating these characters. I then looked up quotes, hoping someone else’s brilliant thought would give birth to some sort of epiphany—rather give me some sort of guidance to glorifying this lifestyle of solitary women. Here are a few quotes that I stumbled upon:

 “The trouble is not that I am single and likely to stay single, but that I am lonely and likely to stay lonely.”—Charlotte Bronte

            Okay, so this particular quote wasn’t so inspiring, but it captures the fear that has been derived from spinsterhood. It does recognize that being singular is not what is feared, but being lonely. No dependency on another is needed.

“Better die an old maid, sister, than marry the wrong man.”—Billy Sunday

            This one was a bit more comforting…

“Without a doubt... the worst part of being a single woman was having to take care of your own car.”—Lisa Kleypas

            This one was just simply humorous.

And then I stumbled upon this little gem:

“She could become a spinster, like Emily Dickinson, writing poems full of dashes and brilliance, and never gaining weight.”—Jeffrey Eugenides

This spurred some encouragement and turned me away from fictional characters that portrayed all the haggardly elements of spinsterhood and pointed me toward a real woman who represented lovely qualities, despite her solitude: Miss Emily Dickinson—thank you Jeffrey.

Meet poet and brilliant Emily Dickinson:

Emily lived in Amherst, Massachusetts where she lived reclusively and wrote beautiful, stopping poetry. None of her poetry was published until after her death; her sister founds hundreds of poems and they began being published after 1860—they sold rather well. Dickinson never married and slowly began to withdraw from society. Her quiet life was not seen as morose or pitied, it was infused with creative energy as she wrote one brilliant poem after another.

Here is a link to an article with further details on how her hermitary affected her work:

http://www.hermitary.com/articles/dickinson.html

On looking at Emily’s solitary life and on looking at her work produced from this solitude, it gave me satisfaction and hope for those who also share in this solitude. One does not need to be wrinkly with whiskers poking from their chin, or surrounded by wailing felines. One can be imaginative, creative—influential—despite their solitude, hell, solitude may help spur some of that creative energy—it did for Emily. If there are those who are shrowded with doubt within their solitude, do not let the stigma that society has created around spinsterhood define you. You are not haggardly, you are not “of no use,” you are not truly alone. Look at others who have impressed their ideas and imagination on life. Something lovely can be born from solitude. Thankfully, Emily Dickinson aided me in my quest to glorify this “lonely” life we call spinsterhood. 

Choice of the "Qua La"

It must be of no great surprise now...we've added another to our family. 

This is Eliot. He came a bit more quietly than Edgar. He is quite the lover with a sweet amiable nature. We assume him and Edgar to be brothers--they compliment each other so nicely.Edgar definitely has the traits of an older brother as he is always pushing poor little docile Eliot around and frequently stakes his territory on the wooden ledge of our back porch, looking down on sweet Eliot. We often find the two kissing and showing brotherly affection toward each other, but there are oftentimes we find the two in a hissy fit--Edgar of course initiates this. 

But no matter what, we still love them both dearly.

It's rather canny how with each blog post comes a new cat purring its way into our two sizes too small spinster hearts.It may seem like canny coincidence--involuntary and a frequent happening, but it is really a choice. We choose to care for these little lovers and we choose to to stay at home drinking Delicious Red (yes, wine straight from the box) and read poetry out loud.

These certain aspects of our life may ring lonely, deplorable,in a sense, or just unfortunate circumstance, but my friends, it is a choice! Today's blog is about choices, and we're going back about thirty years to the little village of LOI, Vietnam. 

(With many thanks to one of my Professor) I discovered this  article on women in this small village who were considered "too old for marriage" when they were a mere twenty-six years old. These women decided that this was not going to be their fate--they were not going to be told by their society that they would remain alone. They chose a life of solitude for themselves, but here's the twist (which breaks the barriers of my own "spinsterhood"): a group of women would find men willing to impregnate them and then would choose to raise the child on their own. They preferred to remain alone, and so they did without allowing society to deem them "qua la" or "past marriageable age." They just really wanted babies! 

Here is a link to the website (again, many thanks to my professor for showing me this) that'll give you these women's stories in a bit more detail: 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/15/world/asia/in-vietnam-some-chose-to-be-single-mothers.html?_r=0

So there are many different aspects to this life choice we call "Spinsterhood," or "Qua La" or what have you, but one thing should be made clear: For most (including my roommate and myself) it is a choice, a lovely simple and quiet choice that entails (at least for us) many glasses of boxed wine, poetry by the lamp light, and lots of purring kitties.