The Woman in the Glass

This ad for a designer faucet stopped me in my tracks.  I have felt this way most of my life. Well, at least since I first dipped into Little Women, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and the novels of Jane Austen.  The modern woman peering at an 18th century version of herself captured my imagination because I have often wondered what it would have been like to have lived in an earlier age.  My romantic notion of being a great heroine from one of my favorite books was later tempered when I matured and realized that most of the centuries I would have selected for myself were before central heating and indoor plumbing.

However, I am still entranced by trailing gowns, chaste courtships and love in other times.  A friend who knows some Hollywood types told me that Sense and Sensibility, the film production of Jane Austen’s novel, is considered one of the most perfectly made movies and I agree.  The colors in the film, the images, the language and the loss and regain of love makes for a charming romantic escape to Georgian England.  Who wouldn’t want to be Elinor Dashwood, the heroine who finally claims the heart of honorable and handsome Edward Ferrars?

I’ve discovered that my fancies have continued well into middle-age.  But now they manifest themselves in my desire to associate with courteous and genteel people who still keep their voices modulated when in public.  They manifest in the happy feeling I get when a little boy shyly holds a door open for me.  They manifest when I frequent shops where people are polite and make me feel welcomed.  And in the way I still care about dressing well.

As for love, gallantry in a relationship cannot be overstated.  The night my date helped me into my coat, my heart sang a song I hadn’t heard in years.  If there were a puddle, I do believe he would have laid down his cloak for me.  Yes, I know the world is broken and far more complicated than the one the lass in the mirror faced.  And I know the past was not always what it seems to today’s romantics.  Still, I reject overt cleavage, crassness, and vulgarity.  Instead, I seek out kind acts and perform as many as I can.  At times I feel like a dinosaur but I don’t care.  The woman in my mirror keeps egging me on.

“The Woman in the Glass “