A Mixed-up Mashup: Take Two

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to a new week. Six years on, I'm still adjusting to calendars that begin the week with Monday, but whatever! Be it a full-on new week or just the beginning of your work week, may it be excellent for all those kind enough to stop by and join me in my meanderings.

I'm feeling very optimistic today, which is not an emotion I have experienced in abundance recently. My daughter turned ten last week, and we held her long postponed sleepover party on Saturday. I am almost as relieved to be on the other side of that event as I was to get my first COVID vaccine (ten days until the second!). It feels like life is really beginning again, and I hate to think that some reading this post aren't there yet. The pandemic has been so devastating to so many, and while my brain is finally out of crisis mode (those of us with preexisting PTSD will be spending years figuring out the mental fallout endured), I know this thing is still far from over. May we all be on the other side soon.

I am writing again! Not what I am supposed to be writing (not ready to plunge back into the deep waters that Tales of Less Pride and Prejudice has become quite yet), but writing, at least a little, and it feels so, so good! Without any previous intention of ever attempting to turn my Mixed-up Mashup into something coherent, I have returned to it, ten years later, and I think I see a path to actually making it a functional story. In it, characters from all of Austen's novels find themselves thrown together in most perplexing circumstances. I have removed the page containing the previous content from this blog, so I apologise to those who know not of what I speak, but I have started posting the new version at A Happy Assembly. Please join me there. I need all the feedback and encouragement I can get to sort through this mess. What happens when you stick Lady Catherine and Sir Walter in a room together? Chaos. Please help.

I began writing this story shortly after the birth of my daughter, when my days were primarily spent pushing a stroller around our beautiful neighbourhood in Wilmington, Delaware. The Rockford Park area is filled with a mishmash of gorgeous houses, in a variety of styles. My more humble abode lay in a townhouse behind the Delaware Museum of Art, having been built to house workers at nearby Bancroft Mills in the late 19th century, but there were mansions in my neighborhood. As I strolled past their impressive facades, I assigned each one the identity of a house featured in Austen's novels. Soon I was pointing out Delaford and Uppercross to my perfectly oblivious infant. I did indulge a variety of other fantasies as we walked, discovering a Lowood school (a ghastly place) and a Burrow, but as usual, Austen dominated. Inevitably, I started writing down and blogging the elaborate fantasy born of these musing.

I must pause to share an anecdote. When my daughter started preschool and we met the other parents in the class, it turned out that one of them lived in the house I had dubbed Longbourn. I figured this out the very first time I met the mother, and I must have confused her to no end when I announced this fact. Despite the real concern she must have had for my sanity, we were invited to the house on multiple occasions, and it was perfect: the sitting room exactly right to suit Lady Catherine's complaints. A beautiful house and a beautiful family.

Anyway, I stopped work on the story when I wrote myself into it and simply could not stomach writing a fictionalised version of myself. I was in the early throes of motherhood, after all, and far more interested in self-sacrifice than self-fixation. Perhaps the pandemic has cured me of that, which is why I can now tolerate the notion. I almost lost myself while quashing all my own needs beneath the enormous ones of my family. I think I'm okay with indulging a little ego now, as long as I don't let it get out of hand.

Another issue with this story is I used a major plot line from it in Being Mrs. Bennet, but I think I now have figured a way out to make that work. Maybe. The story feels like it has direction and momentum, which is already more than I ever imagined for it. I'm not sure if I will publish it or not. We'll have to wait and see how it lands.

I will conclude with another plea to come to A Happy Assembly and read along. The beginning of Rocky Horror Picture Show keeps running through my head: "I would like, if I may, to take you on a strange journey." It's just too perfect. Maybe it needs to be in the book, too. Yes, we're dealing with that strange of a book. If nothing else, it will be perfectly silly, and can't we all use a good laugh?

A Poem by and an Interview with My Daughter

Today is one of the many Catholic holidays that are national celebrations here in Switzerland yet totally off my radar. That's why it came as a surprise to me that no one has school or work today. So instead of finishing my post in progress, I'm going to incorporate my daughter into today's offering, leveraging blogging into a bonding activity. We'll soon learn if I'm brilliant or just desperate. This post will take the form of an interview, the subject being what it is like to grow up with a raging Jane Austen fan for a mother. She frequently composes poems, usually fast expressions of her feelings. This is what she jotted down when I asked her about Austen. It is entitled "I Don't Know."

I don't understand.

My thoughts just can't land.

I don't know.

My brain wobbles to and fro.

When I don't think,

My thoughts can't link,

And I do not understand.

Anne Hathaway in Becoming Jane, 2007.

Uh ... it's hard not to take this poem as a reflection on my own failures, but let's go to the source and learn more.

You're my daughter? 

    Um hm.

What is that like?

    Uh ... very interesting.

How so?

    Because you are very nuts?

Nuts?

    Yes. You're weird, wacky, and wonky, which is a good thing.

Does any of that craziness have anything to do with Jane Austen? Or am I crazy either way?

    You're crazy either way.

Have you read Jane Austen? 

    Jane Austen board books, when I was a baby.

Did you like them?

    When I was a baby.

Have you seen any of the film versions?

    You've made me watch them my whole life.

Tell me one you remember.

    Bride and Prejudice. That was hilarious. 

Do you remember any period adaptations?

    No.

Does that mean we should sit down and start watching them all again?  

    NOOOOOOOOO! They're very boring.

You know those words are like daggers in my heart, right?

    But they are. 

Do you think Jane Austen holds any interest for almost ten year olds?

    Maybe try again when I'm 13.

Why not?

    Because ten year olds are busy reading cool stuff, like Harry Potter and stuff.

What does your poem mean to you?

    It means I do not understand any of this. You just blab about it, and I do not understand any little bit of it.

Do you think that if you had read the books or watched the movies you would understand?

    Not very likely.

Do you think your mother has done a bad job of introducing you to Austen?

    Most likely.

Why?

    Because you like it. Everything is boring if you like it.

Maggie Smith in Becoming Jane, 2007

I like Harry Potter.

    Thanks a lot. You ruined it for me.

Are you a cantankerous child?

    Absolutely not.

Tell me one thing that you know about Jane Austen.

    She wrote in the early 19th century.

Good job. I guess I'm not a total failure. Can you tell me something interesting about the early 19th century?

    The clothes were interesting.

Why?

The clothes were very different than those from before or afterwards, which were big and look uncomfortable, but Empire dresses look comfortable. It makes me think of the clothing in the 1920s, because they were so different than the times before and after. I think that's cool.

Anything else you want to say to my readers?

    I prefer fantasy.

But you love to read, right?

    Yeah.

And that's the most important thing, right?

    Yes.

So I'm not a complete a screw up, right?

    No. Because you're my mommy. 

Aw. Anything else?

    Goodbye.

Bye, Eliza.

It's been an interesting experiment. Until next week, thanks for reading.

New Release - Mr. Darcy's Christmas Present: The Madness of Mr. Darcy Continues

I've been very remiss in promoting this (got a lot on my mind, now I am 8 months pregnant), but my short story, Mr. Darcy's Christmas Present: The Madness of Mr. Darcy Continues, was published on Kindle last week. Do check it out, especially if you are one of the many readers who told me they were wanting just a little bit more from the original story. Hopefully, this slim volume will satiate that need. The first review, by Rita of From Milton to Pemberley, was very flattering. She writes:

Mr. Darcy’s Christmas Present was the best Christmas gift Alexa Adams could have given me. She gave me a loving novella where all the characters I wanted to see again are present to give me closure to one of the most intense and amazing books I have ever read.

Wow! Leaves me beaming every time I read it.

Also, just a heads up, if you want to read I am Lady Catherine for free, do so now while the getting is good. I will be removing the posts in the next week or so, that I may enroll the book in the Kindle Unlimited program.

Hopefully, you will hear from me again before the bay arrives. Afterwards, I fear this blog will be even more neglected than it has been in the 2+ years since my move overseas. Thanks so much to those of you who continue to read it and support my writing. Happy holidays to all!

How far have we come? Princess Charlotte's death in childbirth

Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales
by George Dawe, oil on canvas, 1817

I'm not going to devote the time this topic deserves. That's more of a promise to myself than anything else, but I have been inspired to speak on the subject, and I will do so, even if I do not go as deep as the topic warrants.

I spoke not long ago of Princess Charlotte of Wales when I was sharing my adventures in London at the National Portrait Gallery (read the post here). She died after an excruciating breach labor to a still-born son which use of forceps could have prevented, but such intervention was against the philosophy ascribed to by her attending physician. This national tragedy sparked a new interest in birthing practices amongst members of the medical establishment: an entirely male body. Prior to this time, many doctors were content to leave the mysteries of childbirth in the capable (if often dirty) hands of the midwives. The effect of childbirth becoming such an intense focus of study had many positive effects but also many drawbacks, and we remain to this day subject to the inadequacies of a field of study conducted almost entirely by those who have no first hand knowledge of the experience.

Two articles in the news lately grabbed my attention. The first's headline is one that I'm sure ensnared many. 100 Women in 2016: Researching the female discusses the lack of knowledge we have in mapping the nerve endings in female genitalia as opposed to the swath of information available on the male. This dearth of knowledge leads many in gynecology and obstetrics to attribute responsibility for sexual dysfunction on the patient, as they do not understand the medical cause. The second article, Cesarean births "affecting human evolution", regards a study conducted in Austria demonstrating an increase in the number of women suffering from fetopelvic disproportion, or FPD, and attributing it to medical intervention's effect on the evolution of humanity. Basically, because cesarean births have enabled women who (like Princess Charlotte) may not otherwise have survived and delivered healthy offspring to do so, a genetic predisposition for a narrow pelvis is being passed down from one generation to the next, increasing the number of women who aren't able to deliver vaginally because the baby's head is too large to pass through the mother's birth canal. The result is the cervix doesn't dilate all the way, and labor fails to progress naturally.

This next paragraph is somewhat gruesome. Be warned.

Princess Charlotte went into labor at 42 weeks and 3 days on the evening of November 3, 1817. Having followed her prescribed diet, called a "lowering" treatment, she was weak due to inadequate nourishment and bloodletting. Mild contractions came at 8 to 10 minute intervals. Her cervix was considered to be a "half penny dilated," whatever that means (I could find out, but I'm not taking the time to do so). Around 3 am the princess had a violent vomiting spell, and important state personages were called into attendance. At 8 o'clock in the morning on the 4th she was only 3 centimeters dilated, and the labor continued to progress slowly. The following day at noon, after the presence of meconium was detected, doctors began to fear for the cild's life. A 9 pound, still-born boy was not delivered vaginally until 9 pm on the 5th of November. Charlotte had been in labor for 44 hours. Thirty minutes later she began hemorrhaging. The doctors were able to extract the placenta, and for a time all seemed relatively well, yet by the 6th she was dead, having experienced a series of severe spasms (follow the link for a detailed account of Charlotte's labor and death: http://www.innominatesociety.com/Articles/The%20Death%20of%20Princess%20Charlotte%20of%20Wales.html).

This is in many ways so similar to what happened to me when I gave birth to my daughter, yet with all the benefits of modern medicine that a 19th century princess could ever imagine. My daughter wasn't breach, but she was facing backwards, so all my labor pains were in my back and very intense. I could have blessed the anesthesiologist when I received the epidural. From then on my pains were not acute, but the labor didn't really advance. I had discussed with my doctor upon first being pregnant my doubts about being able to deliver vaginally, and she must have recalled my warnings, because after only one round of pushing at 8 centimeters with no progress she looked at me and said, "How wed are you to the idea of vaginal birth, because this is going to take a very long time. A mere hour later I had my daughter, but I could not hold her for several because of hemorrhaging. Sound a bit like Charlotte?

The reason I doubted my ability to give birth naturally was many fold. First, I was so fortunate as to have a gynecologist once who thankfully bothered to mention that I had unusually narrow cervix. Second, my husband and I were both the products of mothers who only had cesareans. Both are small women who delivered large babies. Third, my husband has one of the biggest heads I've ever seen. I mean, he can hardly buy a hat. I considered the matter and concluded it was quite likely I would not have a natural childbirth. Every medical expert I spoke with fervently disagreed.

I am now thinking of having another child. My hope is that this new research will allow me to point out a body of evidence to my new Swiss docs that helps them take my concerns about a VBAC seriously. My fear is that it will increase an already strong cultural reluctance towards assisted births of all sorts. I'm not particularly concerned about receiving proper medical attention if I need it, but I would rather avoid the rigamarole of waiting for the doctor to see the evidence before his or her eyes that I have been trying to explain for months and just get the whole ordeal over and done. First world problems, I suppose, but they take up a great deal of my attention.

So these are my thoughts on this sunny Tuesday morning. Doctors need to be less satisfied with their breadth of knowledge and start filling in the massive holes left by centuries of male-dominated medicine. In the meantime, please listen to your patients. Particularly when it comes to the female body, we are each so unique that it is impossible to boil us down into neat categories and distinct experiences, no matter how hard pregnancy manuals might try. It's disgraceful I should be able to compare the birthing practices of two hundred years ago to those of today and find doctors still subject to the same prejudices.

Second Glances on Nook and 2nd Birthdays

My very demure way of sticking it to the man (aka Amazon). Second Glances: A Tale of Less Pride and Prejudice Continues is now available on Nook. First Impressions, too, is back on Nook following my test run of Amazon's KDP Select program, which gives them exclusive electronic rights. Not sure it was worth it - just seemed to alienate those who prefer other devices to the Kindle. Still, it was nice to be able to offer the free download days.

This weekend it my daughter's second birthday party, and I can think if little else. How has it been two years already? I kind of didn't have the mind to put much effort into the first birthday, but I'm making it up in spades this year. Following lengthy debate, Eliza decided she wanted a music party (well, really a Fresh Beat Band party, except mommy doesn't believe in plastering corporate marketing materials all over the place, so were doing a generic version). I've got three arts and crafts projects planned for entertainment: the kids will be making their own instruments. I'm super excited about it and might even have t post a picture or two, which is something I never do. Happy birthday my little darling! May you have a magical year.

"I must have my share in the conversation..."

I think my darling baby girl might be turning into Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Lady Catherine, we can safely assume, was a baby once, and while Lord and Lady Matlock, or whatever you prefer to call them, might not have been the type to loiter in the nursery, there was no doubt a hoard of nurses to dote on her every word. They might have been as entertained by her early, babbling dictates as my husband and I are by Eliza's. I swear, though it might have sounded to the untrained ear like "ahbah demay thooo", I clearly heard her say "I must have my share in the conversation", pronounced with as stately a mien as Lady Catherine herself might don. We are surely in for it. 

On another note, I feel like I have sick for a month. Ever since Eliza started school, it has been one wave of cold or viral infection after another. The good news is the the baby, other than a runny nose, has been pretty healthy. She's just a little germ carrier delivering her gifts to myself and, to a lesser extent, my husband. The one time she did have a fever, I learned to be extremely appreciative that at least she and I weren't both sick at the same time (so thankful!). Anyway, this is my explanation for why the blogging has fallen back off again, and just when I was starting to get some momentum going too! Janeicillin hasn't made any progress either. I'm going to try to pull it all back together again next week, health allowing. Thanks to you who have kept checking in!

Turning into Catherine Morland

"If I understand you rightly, you had formed a surmise of such horror as I have hardly words to -- Dear Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained. What have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians. Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your own observation of what is passing around you. -- Does our education prepare us for such atrocities? Do our laws connive at them? Could they be perpetrated without being known, in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing, where every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay everything open? Dearest Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?"

Henry Tilney makes a good point, one that has often inspired me to disregard fears and paranoia in favor of reliance on my rational mind. But since I had my daughter, I find that I have more and more trouble not admitting such ideas into my rattled brain. Suddenly, every news story seems to portend the end of civilization as we know it, each person I pass on the street seems potentially maniacal, and I can barely sleep in the house alone without convincing myself that intruders are lurking just outside my door. It's like my brain has wandered out of control and no reasoned admonition can reign it back in.

Mr. Tilney laughs at my foolishness, and I of course agree that constant consideration of the worse case scenario is no way to live one's life, but the truth is that horrors do happen, atrocities are committed, and escaping them is purely a matter of luck. So am I falling victim to flights of fancy rivaling Mrs. Radcliffe's worst imaginings? Most certainly, but rather than continue to upbraid myself, I think I'll take these musings as a reminder to savor every blissful moment of security and happiness I am so privileged as to be able to enjoy. Oh, and I think I'll upgrade the home security system. Can't hurt, right?    

Two Weeks of Parenthood ...

C.E. Brock's illustration for Emma - mollands.net

... and though I'm a bit sleep deprived, I am loving every moment (well, perhaps not the dirty diapers and aching mammaries). Recovery from the cesarean I ended up having is a bit more difficult than I bargained for, but I feel stronger everyday. I'm almost as amazed by my rapidly shrinking stomach (and it's cottage cheese-like texture) as I am by little Miss Eliza herself! Those of you who are parents know all too well how much there is to stand in awe of at this unprecedented period of life. She was born on her due date of 6/10 at 6:10 PM, coming it at 9 lbs 1 oz (hence the cesarean). Such a prompt and orderly little lady! Needless to say, we find her excessively diverting.

Even at this time, Austen cannot be far from my thoughts. I am reading (slowly) the newly released Annotated Sense and Sensibility by David M. Shapard, whose work I adore, and my thoughts inevitably drift to those Austen novels where babies play a role. Most prominently, I keep pondering that scene at the end of Emma in which the Woodhouses meet Frank Churchill upon visiting little Ana Weston. It suddenly strikes me in a manner it never has before, and I wonder if Austen set it up this way on purpose. As you will recall, Mr. Churchill gives a speech in which he praises Jane Fairfax's previously disparaged complexion to Emma, all while the "others had been talking of the child". He says: "Did you ever see such a skin?--such smoothness! such delicacy!--and yet without being actually fair.--One cannot call her fair. It is a most uncommon complexion, with her dark eye-lashes and hair--a most distinguishing complexion!" As I have spent the better part of my time staring at a newborn lately, I must marvel that anyone could make such a statement with a baby in the room, an immediate example of far better skin, with greater smoothness and delicacy than any lady, no matter how beautiful, can ever hope to possess. Is this is yet another intentional example of Mr. Churchill's extreme egocentricity, or could Austen's childless state have possibly rendered her oblivious to the irony of these lines? I certainly prefer the former explanation to the latter, especially as Austen was certainly no stranger to the charms an infant possesses. Her familiarity with the concerns and cares of the new parent are made abundantly clear later in this scene when Mrs. Weston relates her alarm over the baby's health and having considered calling in Perry for consultation:

She believed she had been foolish, but it had alarmed her, and she had been within half a minute of sending for Mr. Perry. Perhaps she ought to be ashamed, but Mr. Weston had been almost as uneasy as herself.--In ten minutes, however, the child had been perfectly well again. This was her history; and particularly interesting it was to Mr. Woodhouse, who commended her very much for thinking of sending for Perry, and only regretted that she had not done it. "She should always send for Perry, if the child appeared in the slightest degree disordered, were it only for a moment. She could not be too soon alarmed, nor send for Perry too often. It was a pity, perhaps, that he had not come last night; for, though the child seemed well now, very well considering, it would probably have been better if Perry had seen it."

Yes, this is a great opportunity to once again laugh at Mr. Woodhouse's hypochondria, as well as the paranoia of the new parent, just as Austen has poked fun at Isabella Knightley's motherly concerns throughout the novel, but only familiarity with the realities confronting new parents could have allowed Austen to leverage her wit so effectively on this subject. In fact, Austen was so well acquainted with the less pleasant realities of child rearing that she seemed to find great satisfaction in not having to take such cares upon herself. She certainly attributes such feelings, or rationalizations, to Emma, as in this explanation to Harriet Smith regarding her feelings on marriage: 

"And as for objects of interest, objects for the affections, which is in truth the great point of inferiority, the want of which is really the great evil to be avoided in not marrying, I shall be very well off, with all the children of a sister I love so much, to care about. There will be enough of them, in all probability, to supply every sort of sensation that declining life can need. There will be enough for every hope and every fear; and though my attachment to none can equal that of a parent, it suits my ideas of comfort better than what is warmer and blinder. My nephews and nieces!—I shall often have a niece with me."

Undeniably, such an arrangement would be more comfortable, but could Austen have experienced such warmer and blinder sensations she certainly would have adapted herself to them, just as Emma surely will upon her marriage to Mr. Knightley. Little of my experiences in these two weeks of parenthood can be described as comfortable, but never have I embraced discomfort so willingly, nor has it ever been more felicitous.

Such are my musings as we approach my daughter's  two week birthday. I'm sure there are many more to come. Poor little girl! To be so quickly subjected of my Austen obsessions.

Gestational Diabetes and Jane Austen

So today should be a Janeicillin day, and while I am anxious to explore all the ins and outs of Eleanor's romance, my head just isn't in it. I found out this morning that I have gestational diabetes, in spite of the fact that I have always been a healthy weight, exercise regularly (obsessively some would say), and eat precisely the way I am supposed to. Frankly, I am in shock, on top of being terrified of all the possible repercussions. While I have every intention of doing precisely as the doctor directs, and the knowledge that I know several people who were similarly diagnosed and have perfectly healthy children is reassuring, the notion of glucose testing is causing me to panic. I have always been terrible about any kind of blood letting, no matter how minute, ever since I accidentally got into my Dad's lithium when I was three and had to have my blood monitored for two days (they can't pump your stomach in such a case as lithium goes directly to your blood stream). I never had a blood test since that I wasn't sedated for, until pregnancy prevented me from relying on such methods. I do feel like I've gotten pretty good at keeping myself calm through the myriads of tests that they give you when pregnant, but having to do the testing myself is a whole different story. I need to find a way to brace myself for this, so that I can prick my finger multiple times a day without fainting, and of course I turn to Jane Austen for assistance.

Quite frankly, any medical treatment, no matter how irrationally afraid I might be of it, pales in comparison to what Jane Austen had to endure at the end of her life. It is not my intention today to recount the many different posthumous diagnoses out there, but just to focus on the spirit and bravery that allowed Miss Austen to face her painful decline and eventual death. I should be rejoicing in the blessings of modern medicine, a science that can pinpoint the amount of insulin my body is producing and compensate for it, rather than sitting here crying over a silly little pin prick. It is my hope that by putting my situation in this perspective, I can scold myself into rationality.

Several of my recent readings have been stark reminders of the blessings of modern medicine. Last week I reviewed Dearest Cousin Jane by Jill Pitkeathley (read the post here), a book that emphasizes the astounding serenity with which both Jane's cousin Eliza and her mother, Philly, faced breast cancer, suggesting that their behavior inspired Austen when she too was confronted with illness. And just yesterday I reviewed David M. Shapard's The Annotated Persuasion (read that post here), focusing in on the character of Nurse Rooke and the lack of resources available to those in pain and medical need at the time. All this makes me reflect upon Sanditon and the remarkable humor which or dear authoress was able to display regarding medicine while on her death bed, in particular her depiction of the hypochondriac Parker sisters, Diana and Susan. A line in a letter from Diana, describing Susan's recent treatments, particularly comes to mind:

She has been suffering much from the headache, and six leeches a day for ten days together relieved her so little that we thought it right to change our measures, - and being convinced on examination that much of the evil lay in her gum, I persuaded her to attack the disorder there. She has accordingly had three teeth drawn, and is decidedly better, but her nerves are a good deal deranged.

And the notion of glucose testing sends me into a panic! What I weakling I am! Instead of succumbing to all this fear, I will do my best to count my blessings. I will give birth in a sanitary environment, with no concerns for the "childbed fever" that used to kill so many (including Edward Austen-Knight's wife, Elizabeth). If the gestational diabetes does cause the baby to grow too big and a cesarean proves necessary, there is virtually no risk of complication (during the Regency is was basically a death sentence). I have great doctors who thoroughly understand this complication and will treat it accordingly, minimizing the risks it poses. So much to be thankful for! If dear Jane were here, she certainly would mock my worries. Keeping her in mind will hopefully keep me rational. Perhaps Janeicillin (the name of which itself feels taunting at the moment) will help!

Jane Austen and Prenatal Yoga

How's that for a bizarre post title? It was inspired by a new prenatal yoga workout I have just discovered this week. I do a lot of yoga, generally, so as soon as I found out I was pregnant I rushed to find the prenatal workouts produced by my favorite yoga instructors, as both a way to stay in shape during my pregnancy and as a means for staying calm and reducing nervousness (which I admit to feeling a lot of, especially after the two miscarriages I had last year). Although I have long enjoyed the workouts by Gurmurk, which are Kundalini focused, I didn't think to look for a prenatal workout of this kind, assuming that yoga during pregnancy needed to be calmer and less energetic. It was by accident that I found The New Method: Baby and Mom Prenatal Yoga workout on Netflix and decided to give it a try after reading in the description that Gurmurk was the instructor. Wow! This is exactly like her other workouts, incorporating far more movement than the other prenatal yoga workouts I have found, but with such an incredible internal focus on the changes the body is experiencing and preparing for. I imagine it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea, as there is a lot of chanting and spirituality incorporated, but I just adore it. I am ordering my own copy today.

So what on Earth does this have to do with Miss Austen? Just the associations I make between almost everything and her books. In this case, during shavasana (the final relaxation, for those unfamiliar with yoga, that every yoga session should end with), Gurmurk speaks about the importance of relaxing the tongue. She says, "If our tongue stays relaxed, our whole body is relaxed. When our tongue is tight, we usually make not great food choices, and we often talk about people." Now this may seem like new age mumbo jumbo to many, but it brought to my mind Mrs. Bennet, followed by the many other gossips in Jane Austen's novels: her sister Mrs. Philips, Caroline Bingley, Mrs. Norris, and Miss Bates. It made me feel so sorry for these women (yes, even Miss Bingley and Aunt Norris), for when you consider Gurmurk's words, you have to reflect on the sad mental and emotional state a person must be in to malign others. I can't say much about Mrs. Philips, as she is not developed enough to fully reflect upon, but the rest of these women all suffer enormously. Mrs. Bennet is subject to her own worries about the entail and guilt at not having produced an heir, as well as Mr. Bennet's undermining and dismissive attitude towards her. Caroline Bingley is the product of her family's ambition and her failure, despite the best schools and opportunities, to secure a socially elevating husband. Mrs. Norris is a complete basket case. We can suppose her marriage to have been unfulfilling, and her lack of children has left her without an outlet for her massive energies. I also often imagine that she was rather jealous, in a way, of her youngest sister, as she married for love, and took a very painful form of glee in that union proving so miserable, hence her viciousness towards Fanny. As for Miss Bates, by far the most endearing of the ladies mentioned, she lives a lonely life - unmarried, the caretaker of an aging mother - but it is Mr. Knightley who describes her trials best: "She is poor; she has sunk from the comforts she was born to; and, if she live to old age, must probably sink more." Subject to the insecurities resulting form financial instability, it is really a wonder that Miss Bates is so very pleasant a lady, and the tongue that endlessly wags in her mouth is a comfort we can easily forgive her for indulging in. It is also telling that when Emma mocks poor Miss Bates on Box Hill, it is under the tension of that gathering, when both she and Frank Churchill are so obviously indulging in fits of nervous energy. Sometimes an outside, totally unrelated source, like Gurmurk, allows me to contemplate and shine clarity on a new aspect of Austen's work, that I have some how failed to consider despite countless readings. Such insights allow me to not only understand Austen better, but also leverage the knowledge I gain from her to help me be a better person. I just felt the need to share with you this most recent revelation.   

Apologies and Plans

Many of you are aware that I am in the first trimester of pregnancy and those of you who have been here before will perfectly understand what I mean when I say my brain just isn't working right. The image to the left (snagged it from the Early Signs of Pregnancy website) is not me, but aptly demonstrates how I feel right now. I've started several posts this week but just can't finish them - my thoughts are incoherent and rambling. Plus, the doctors have been treating me like a pincushion, taking tons of blood and administering all kinds of injections. I have a lifelong phobia of needles, resulting in my feeling very out of sorts this week. I apologize for my current, totally unproductive state.

I just want to make a few announcements in hope that putting my intentions in writing will force me to act on them. I have several half written posts on Emma that I hope to finish, in particular a two parter on the function of letters in the story. I also have a few books in need of review - I have finished George Knightley, Esquire Volume One: Charity Envieth Not by Barbara Cornthwaite and Rainy Days by Lory Lillian, both of which I greatly enjoyed.

Yesterday I received a shipment from Amazon containing Relations Such as These by Sara O'Brien, A Noteworthy Courtship by Laura Sanchez, and Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler. It would behoove me to get busy reading. Observant followers will notice the accumulation of non-fiction titles in my "I'm Currently Reading" sidebar posting. Honestly, I just don't have the concentration right now to complete these books, so be prepared for them to sit there for a while. Be assured that I will, eventually, finish them.

I also have a few non-Austen reviews to complete. I am very excited to have joined the Classics Circuit's Georgette Heyer Tour, which will be taking place in March. Ms. Heyer will be here on March 9th for my review of Black Sheep. I have not yet read this book but my husband and I have read several of her novels out loud to each other over the past several months, laughing rather hysterically all the way through them, and I look forward to enjoying sharing this one with him as well. Here is the Amazon description:

Abigail Wendover, on the shelf at 28, is kept busy when her niece falls head over heels in love with a handsome fortune hunter and Abbie is forced into a confrontation with his scandalous uncle.

Miles Calvery is the black sheep of his family- enormously rich from a long sojourn in India, disconcertingly blunt and brash. But he turns out to be Abbie's most important ally in keeping her niece out of trouble.

But how can he possibly be considered eligible when she has worked so hard to rebuff his own nephew's suit for her niece? And how can she possibly detach from an ailing sister who needs her? This is a heroine who has to be, literally, swept off her feet . . .

My other non-Austen review will be for the All About the Bronte's Challenge I am participating in, hosted by Laura's Reviews. It has been my intention to complete one book a month and for February I plan to read The Professor by Charlotte Bronte. I first read this book in high school but barely recall it, so look forward to rediscovering Charlotte's least-known work.

Most exciting, from my perspective, is that I should shortly have a release date for my novel First Impressions: A Tale of Less Pride and Prejudice! If you are interested in reading the first three chapters, please refer the the listing in the sidebar.

February is a short month and I feel like I am dreadfully behind on all this. I'll keep praying for a burst of energy that will see me through it all but, in the meantime, I'm off to take a nap.

"The finest child in the world"

So I planned to write another post about Emma today - either about the role of blunders in the story, Mr. Elton, or Harriet Smith - but instead I have some news that I am most anxious to share with all my Janeite friends. I am pregnant with my first child, due in September. Since I found out I have absolutely no concentration for anything other than babies (even Austen is on the back burner) so you'll have to forgive my flightiness until I finally settle back down into a semi-normal routine. Between the book, the house, and now a baby, my cup is truly running over. What can I do but ransack Austen in search of baby references?

My thoughts turn immediately to Mr. and Mrs. Palmer of Sense and Sensibility and that gentleman's unreasonable attitude to his first-born offspring:

"Mr. Palmer maintained the common, but unfatherly opinion among his sex, of all infants being alike; and though she could plainly perceive, at different times, the most striking resemblance between this baby and every one of his relations on both sides, there was no convincing his father of it; no persuading him to believe that it was not exactly like every other baby of the same age; nor could he even be brought to acknowledge the simple proposition of its being the finest child in the world."

I have great hopes that my husband, who is actually more excited than I am, will be far more natural in his praise of our child as the most perfect amongst its kind. He has had some rather troubling opinions of infants in the past, likening them to little, pink ... best not quote him. As I dare not pollute this forum with such an ugly word, let's just say it's thoroughly uncharitable. I hold to my belief, nonetheless, that once he gazes upon his own child his opinion will forever alter. Besides, I always thought Mr. Palmer said such things just to be provoking and really did delight in his baby (an impression enhanced by Hugh Laurie's portrayal of the character in 1995).

A bit back on the topic of the week, Emma provides far more gratifying images of parenthood. The Westons are equally pleased with their child, and I simple adore this depiction of the lady:

Mrs. Weston, with her baby on her knee, indulging in such reflections as these, was one of the happiest women in the world. If any thing could increase her delight, it was perceiving that the baby would soon have outgrown its first set of caps.

Now this is how it should be. I hope to find in motherhood a kind of joy far surpassing all I have previously experienced. In my own home, with my own child (having also long been in the field of taking care of other people's children), I intend to at least equate, if not surpass, her contentment.

Another lovely picture, certainly one more in keeping with my present circumstances, is that of Emma and Knightley as they dote on their little niece. I love this exchange:

"Tell your aunt, little Emma, that she ought to set you a better example than to be renewing old grievances, and that if she were not wrong before, she is now."

"That's true," she cried—"very true. Little Emma, grow up a better woman than your aunt. Be infinitely cleverer and not half so conceited."

Yes little baby, heed Auntie Emma's words and be better than both she and your mother. This is my earnest hope for the future and I will do my best to make it so.

One last thing - I have no idea what the child will be named if it's a boy, but we long ago decided that we have a girl she will be Eliza, named in honor of two of my favorite characters, Eliza Doolittle and Elizabeth Bennet. And yes, we will call her Lizzy.