“The ground was hard, the air was still, my road was lonely; I walked fast till I got warm, and then I walked slowly to enjoy and analyse the species of pleasure brooding for me in the hour and situation. It was three o’clock; the church bell tolled as I passed under the belfry: the charm of the hour lay in its approaching dimness, in the low-gliding and pale-beaming sun. I was a mile from Thornfield, in a lane noted for wild roses in summer, for nuts and blackberries in autumn, and even now possessing a few coral treasures in hips and haws, but whose best winter delight lay in its utter solitude and leafless repose. If a breath of air stirred, it made no sound here; for there was not a holly, not an evergreen to rustle, and the stripped hawthorn and hazel bushes were as still as the white, worn stones which cause-wayed the middle of the path. Far and wide, on each side, there were only fields, where no cattle now browsed; and the little brown birds, which stirred occasionally in the hedge, looked like single russet leaves that had forgotten to drop.” – Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, Chapter 12.
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Story communicates across centuries, across the bounds of life and death.
Read a chapter of Jane Eyre, and you are thrown across 170 years (or more) – into the imagination of a young woman of the 1840’s. There is no one with whom you may sit and hear a first-hand account of life in the 1840’s. You can not sit and laugh or cry or sip tea with one person who breathed the air and walked the Earth from 1840 to 1849. They have died. Their children have died. Their pets have died. Their horses, their cows, their oxen – the squirrels and monkeys and elephants and gazelles and lizards that roamed this planet in the 1840’s – all gone. The little brown birds…like single russet leaves. Every one of them – gone.
When I first read Jane Eyre, I was thrown across just 140 years, not 170. Thirty years have flashed past in an instant – and, by the time you read these words, the year 2019 may be a distant memory – as will I and our pet dog lying at my feet and the cherry tree swaying outside this window. We will all be gone – the tree, the dog, the writer.
My mother was born in 1929, her elder sister, my Aunt Eleanor, was born in 1921. They are the two remaining of the seven siblings who lived to adulthood. Our 12-year-old son Finnean listens to their laughter, hears stories of their childhoods and young adult years, sits at table with them and sips tea. If all goes well, Finnean will be my current age in 2063. At that point, there will be no one who breathed the air and walked the Earth from 1920 to 1929. One would have to be thrown across 140 years to reach them.
Embrace the magic of being able to travel across the centuries through the written word. What a gift we give ourselves when we sit down with a Bronte novel! We can sit and laugh and cry and sip tea and listen to the words and images, the dreams and fears, the reflections and hopes shared with us by Miss Charlotte Bronte, as she tells her Jane Eyre story from the 1840’s.
And Finnean and I can sit with his Nana and Great Aunt, sipping tea and listening to the words and images, the dreams and fears, the reflections and hopes of the 1920’s and 30’s and 40’s and beyond. Storing away these tales in our minds, continuing a tradition that even predates the written word – the oral tradition of listening, remembering, and re-sharing the tales.
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Are there old books and literature that intrigue you or touch your soul? If not, ask a good friend for some recommendations. Find an old story and read it – whether it be a novel, short story, biography, travelogue. And, each time, before you begin reading, note the year it was written. Reflect on the incredible fact that you are about to be thrown across decades or centuries! Enjoy the journey.
In this piece, we mentioned Finnean’s grandmother and Great Aunt Eleanor as two elders in our family. Who are the older people among your family or friends who offer stories of places and times that are no more? You can even seek out such a person in a local retirement community or nursing home – finding the right person for you and going there not just out of kindness or in service to others (though that is wonderful), but also going in search of places and times that are now gone, opening yourself to that which will soon be beyond the first-hand memory of any living being, seeking stories that can pass across decades, centuries, and lifetimes.
(Music: Courtesy of Adrian von Ziegler, “Sacred Earth.” )