Ewan or Ewen? Maud's grave and headstone

Herein lies a mystery:

why the different spellings of Ewan's name on the Macdonald grave marker?-- Ewan & Ewen.

I don't get it-- if the first spelling was wrong, then why not pull the marker up and do it right?

For some unknown reason Maud preferred the wrong spelling of Ewan's name when she wrote it.  Why is it that the wrong spelling is being corrected on the grave marker, and this for all the world to see?

 It's confusing...

The wish for her own separate grave marker (as she stated it in her Journal) has not been carried through.  It is possible that she never clearly pronounced her wish to her family-- only to her Journal. She must have been terribly out of sync with the people around her.  Did she expect that her wishes would not be carried out anyway?

"Well, I hope when I die my sons will not grudge me a gravestone of my own!"

 The Selected Journals of LM Montgomery, Vol V, p. 102, Rubio & Waterston

Also, the graveyard has been heavily polluted with the noise of traffic at the stoplight and the gas station across the street.  It is very unsettling. What can you do?

Herman Leard's grave site at Bedeque reveals a certain poignancy. I observed it as thus: that his resting place is exactly as I would have hoped that Maud's own resting spot could be. The Bedeque Cemetery across the street from the Baptist Church is situated on a grassy knoll where the sea breeze is free to flow.  There is a shade and a quiet there.  Where would fate have carried them if Maud had married Herman instead of Ewan?

As we were leaving out on the Highway from Cavendish and passing by the cemetery, one of my traveling companions called out to me, "There is a crow sitting on Maud's gravestone!"  It just so happens that one of the features of my personal photographic style is to capture the image of birds as they perch on the monuments in our local cemetery.  The crow perched on Maud's grave as we were leaving Cavendish seemed to be a supernatural symbol of saying good-bye.  Why did I not turn the car around???

(Below, birds and monuments I have photographed at home)

Maud's Island - Sunscapes

Lucy Maud Montgomery's Birthplace, Clifton, PEI (New London)

The window on the stairway that Maud's mother, Clara, would have peeked out of to see her husband working at his store next door. She may have been cuddling baby Maud as she was heading down the stairs.

The Kitchen Window where Clara could have watched for Hugh to come home.

The kitchen in Clara Montgomery's home

LM Montgomery's Birthplace

The room where LM Montgomery was born.

A replica of Maud's tiny-waisted wedding dress. 

There isn't a lot that is remarkable about this place except to say that it is a sweet little cottage and I like it.

I learned that Father Bolger ("The Years Before Anne") from Stanley Bridge visits here every day.  Stuart, Maud's second son, never visited here until 3 weeks before his death.  It was "his first and last visit here."

Hugh John's store was located in a lot that is to the corner of the placement of this house.  The store was not a success and the building is no longer in existence. 

Why do I feel like I've been here before????

Lower Bedeque

Confederation Bridge - exit or entrance to PEI

LMM Landmarks, Schoolhouse - Lower Bedeque

The PEI policy of getting on the Island free of charge, but having to pay to GET OFF kept me pretty baffled.  What happens if you run out of money while on the Island?  Do they set you up a cot, or do they let you off the Island, but not before making you sign a promissory note?

Since I had taken the Wood Island Ferry to get over to the Island (that was a sight to see coming up to the Island at Twilight)  it was yet the more expensive mode to take an exit.  So,  I decided to take the Confederation Bridge back to New Brunswick thereby saving myself $17.50. The LMM landmarks in Bedeque had to be foregone on the fast Week That Was, but I made a mental decision that if I saw a road sign indicating the Bedeque location then I would stop there on my way through to the bridge.

The Bedeque stop-over was obviously meant to be, for their before me was the sign, Bedeque,  just before coming up to the bridge.

Green Gables, Cavendish, PEI - July 15th 2010

The 14th Colony and Halifax

One of three boarding homes where Maud resided during her short sojourn in Halifax--

Maud's room is located on the right hand side of the building.

I fell in love with Halifax!!

This city, on a grander scale, reminds me very much of my own hometown in North Carolina.  Halifax is a seaport city with an expansive scope of North American History. It retains many interesting caches of period flavor and ambiance. Oscar Wilde, during his Canadian Tour in the 1880's,  made a stop in Halifax at the Waverly Inn on Barrington Street.  Wilde's "ghost" has been purported to show up at the Inn on occasions.  Was he also so enamored of the city?  I like what Wilde is quoted as saying in 1882 as he was passing through US Customs to embark on his US-Canadian tour:

"I have nothing to declare but my genius."

I wish I had thought of saying that!!

The Waverly Inn - Barrington Street, Halifax, NS

Oscar Wilde, author of "The Importance of Being Ernest"-statue in Dublin

Graveyard in historic Halifax

   

"The Race that Knows Joseph"

The Guild, Charlottetown, venue of Tuesday night's wonderful performance, "Nine Lives of LM Montgomery" 

"Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph". Exodus 1

Until last Tuesday night when I attended the musical Nine Lives of LM Montgomery, I had never made the connection between "The Race that Knows Joseph" and dream interpretation.  This became evident in the wonderful song of the same name (The Race that Knows Joseph.).  Ah, yes, I said to myself!  Joseph was an interpreter of dreams.  This adds even more layers to my understanding of the whole identity of Maud's coining of the name.

Well, this morning, in my first waking moments as often happens to me,  I had a dream, or rather a sort of vision, like a movie short.  It went like this:

Maud was standing with her back against the side of a brick building which was several stories high.  I think the building may have been a hotel and there was a sidewalk surrounding the building, and an expanse of green lawn that also surrounded the perimeter of the building.  Suddenly, an ebullient little boy, Chester--well scrubbed and dressed in short pants--bounds happily around the corner from the other side. Maud stands dour faced with her back straight against the building and does not deign herself to peer around the corner to see where Chester has been or what he has been doing.  Perhaps she does not identify with the child, or perhaps she doesn't see her responsibility in monitoring what happens in the live's of little children. 

It could be either, or none of the above. Whatever her reasons were, it is very obvious from the dream that her back was against the wall (though she had options that she wasn't taking) and that she wasn't looking!

That's it!  Not much, but there it is.

Different Aspects - Lover's Lane

Mental Notes taken at UPEI Library

Old Lady

After browsing the various LMM exhibits edging around the room of the UPEI library, I made my way to the coffee shop in order to buy a badly needed cup of java.  The nice lady at the counter noticed my Southern accent and asked me in a friendly manner the purpose of my visit to UPEI.  I was grateful for the coffee and also for the rapport so I gave my truthful reply that I was on an LMM Odyssey.

She then regaled me with a short story:

"My Mother saw LM Montgomery once.  She was here at the train station-- visiting a cousin, I think."

"--What did your Mother say about her?",  I asked with interest.

"My Mother said she looked like an old woman.  She had on long skirts (the Coffee Lady pointed to her ankles).  She was very famous then."
----------------------
Now, this is the second time that I have heard LM Montgomery being described as looking old..  In "Remembering Lucy Maud Montgomery" (Alexandra Heilbron-2001- p 55)  Maud's grand-daughter, Luella, describes her grandmother similarly:

"I remember my grandmother as just an older person, and she had that older-age palsy kind of thing ..."

Maud was only 67 years old when she died--not so very old when seen from my vantage point-- and she was vain about her looks.  Was she completely oblivious to this "old fashioned" look which other people saw on her?  Or, was it simply stubborness that held her back from entering into the trends of a time which she did not feel to be a part of?  I wonder if life had simply beaten her down so much. 
__________________________________________________

The Hammock

I was very shocked upon my perusal of the model of the Leaskdale Manse to see "Ewan's Hammock" placed under the trees of the front yard in full view.  I simply do not understand the wisdom in the placement of this hammock.  It seems that it might have appeared unseemly for the minister of a congregation to be viewed as leisurely when he and his family are being supplied with a roof over their heads. I've always suspected that Ewan was lazy (or unmotivated) and the sight of the hammock just underscored that feeling for me. 

While reading Journal I on the airplane ride home,  I found the following::

"Ewan sat among us in silence and gloom.  He got someone else to motor Mr. Mutch to Zephyr and remained at home lying in the hammock....

...Ewan had been perfectly well right up to that week and he certainly had not been working hard all winter.  Ewan is not the type of man who overworks--he "takes things easy" in all respects."
The Selected Journals of LM Montgomery, Vol I, p. 322, Rubio & Waterston

(I can't help but ask myself, why would Maud feel surprise in noticing the same characteristic in Chester?  Why would it seem acceptable for her to "push" Chester, and not push Ewan? Would Chester, or anyone for that matter, be able to understand a fairness in this approach?)

The Haunted Wood - Green Gables

Star Gazing at Green Gables

Kitchen Window at Green Gables, PEI

Cavendish, Thursday, July 15th, 2010--

On Thursday, we did the Tourist tour of Green Gables National Park. After supper at Chez Yvonne's, we stepped out into a twinkling moment of waiting sunset at Cavendish Shore. Upon the sinking of orange sun deep into the Western sky, we found that the rest of the night fared well for an undertaking of momentous import.  So, we scrounged up some courage and a flashlight. There was a moment to be seized for Spirit hunting. With some mild trepidation, we stepped into the path that led behind Kindred Spirits Inn and crossed over the Golf Link in to Green Gables. No Spirits were in evidence there but we did find a canopy of spraying stars hanging over the spot like a soft benediction. Perhaps there was a Spirit there, after all!!

We walked through the back yard and went home.

Later that night, I found this Journal Entry written by Maud where 100 years before me she is talking of a starlit night in Cavendish! I find it very strange that Maud would have walked for three miles in the dark night on the Island. She obviously felt no fear of snakes (there are only garter snakes, I found out) or Bogey Men on her Island.

Friday, February 10, 1910--
Cavendish, PEI

(Maud has taken a walk to visit her friend, Amanda Macneill Roberston, in Mayfield 3 miles away!!)

"The only pleasure of the outing came when I was walking home alone with my good friends the stars.  I also had the delight of seeing for the first time the mysterious, phantom-like Zodiacal Light....
....I never took up anything (astronomy) that gained such a hold on me or that gave me such strange, eerie, unearthly pleasure--the most purely spiritual pleasure I have ever known since there is indeed nothing of earth about it."
The Selected Journals of LM Montgomery, Vol, I p. 3, Rubio & Waterston

PS, there are no deer or moose on the Island, but we did see lots of foxes!!!

Peering down the hill at Green Gables, PEI

Morning at Dalvay by the Sea

Last night we had dinner in Charlottetown at a little Italian Bistro.  The chicken curry (at Italian?) was exactly what I had been hoping for.  We have scouted desperately for some Indian fare, but no go.  It seems that the Islanders aren't even sure what Indian food is!!

So, last night, we drove home to the Dalvay (20 minutes from Charlottetown) around curves and over hills of strange darkness.  We made it safe and the luxurious bed at the Dalvay provided with the best sleep yet.  There is no air conditioning here, but strong drafts of cool air gushed through the open windows and kept me company in my dreams.  I awoke with the sun, along with an attendant consciousness that the morning here  is truly a time of spiritual rebirth.  Evenings are lovely here, the supernatural sunsets, etc, but the mornings, at least at the Dalvay, seems to place one in a vortex of spirtual awakening that is very sweet.

Time for coffee at the Dalvay!

Sunset on Cavendish Beach.

Whispers from Maud at the Shore and the Haunted Wood-Photos of Park Corner

I am feeling a bit of Maud in whispers from the Sea on the Cavendish shore.

Anne of Green Gables has become a commercialized Santa Claus.  Anne is a moneymaker and a means of livelihood for the Island.  The MacNeill homestead is the one place that maintains integrity of Maud's purest intentions in her writings of home life and of the Island.  That is so nice to see for Maud's sake. I felt something eerie a couple of times at the Haunted Wood, but more on that later.

The seaside evening here is supernatural.  The landscape is beautiful, but no more beautiful to me than my own home by the Sea in North Carolina.  But, the sea is different here!  And our evening on the shore after last night's rain made me think of the Mists Of Avalon.  The sea and sky were fused with the hues of a silvery aqua pearl-essence and the result was supernatural.

Here are a some photos for the moment, lots more to come.

Highlights of the trip so far, Nine Lives of LM Montgomery and a vision of newborn mists on the sea after rain.

Park Corner

Me taking a picture of myself in Maud's Mirror (from Macneill Homestead) at Park Corner.

The SPOT, where Maud and Ewan were married in 1911.

My first glimpse of PEI from the Ferry.

Stranger in a Strange Land

Day 1 - Halilfax

After a grueling 13 hour plane journey,  we landed at 10:00 pm in Nova Scotia. (I "was feelin' 'bout a half past dead.")  My first encounter was a rude customs agent with a Scottish accent.  After being impatient and rude to me (I was so confused and tired) he finally allowed me through the gate.  "Well, I'm glad that worked out!", I said to him.

Then, the airlines lost my luggage and I needed help in the terminal (so confused and tired) and I received rudeness again.  My first two verbal encounters with the Canadian Public Servants being so negative, it naturally follows that today,  I feel a real aversion to the Canadian accent.  The lilting foreign brogue runs afoul to my ears, like nails scratching on chalkboard.

However, some good things did happen.  There was a very funny Shuttle Driver who drove us through drenching rain to the Hotel and all the while giving gossip of local celebrities (Anne Murray being one of them).  He was so nice and escorted me in to the Westin Hotel.  When I asked at the desk for some Ibuprofen (my arthritis medicine being buried somewhere in my bag in Detroit), they didn't have any on board.  The Driver very kindly offered to drive me out into the late night to find a pharmacy.  I declined his kind offer but was nevertheless very appreciative of his kindness.

Then, the Westin people brought service to my room: Chamomile tea (a double!) and toast with jellies on a tea service lined with white linen. The ensuing hot bath was awesome. The Westin, formerly The Nova Scotian, was built in 1928, and has retained a very deep Old World ambiance. It occurs to me that Maud might possibly have stayed here at some time.

My first impression on the view of Halifax Harbor was very grand.  Coming across the bridge of Halifax Harbor, I had a feeling of transversing our own River at home in North Carolina, only on a much grander scale!  That was fun.

It's raining cats and dogs in Halifax today.  More adventure to come!

Heading for Maud's Island....

Dalvay by the Sea

Tomorrow I will be boarding a plane which will head me Northward to Prince Edward Island.

Tomorrow night, I will be staying in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where Maud spent an independent year of her young life while writing for the Halifax newspaper, The Echo.  On my return to Halifax on Saturday, I will spend a little time taking a look at Dalhousie University where Maud attended, just to see if I can get a feel of what Maud saw with her eyes while she was there.

On Tuesday night, we will be attending Mike and Leo's musical, "Nine Lives of LM Montgomery".  We are looking forward to that!!

On Wednesday, we will be heading to Cavendish, with a stop off at Tryon, PEI to visit with the people at the Museum there.  Tryon, PEI is named for our former Colonial Governor, William Tryon.  Tryon spent taxpayer money here in North Carolina to build a lavish mansion, then decided he didn't like the climate so he deserted the place and headed North to become Governor of New York.

Sometime on Wednesday or Thursday, we will take a trip for high tea to the Dalvay.  The Dalvay Resort was featured in Sullivan's "Anne of Green Gables" movie series.  (I can't remember where or when but I believe it is featured in Anne I.)

On Saturday, I will head back towards Nova Scotia for a little touring of the Southern Shore and some photographic opportunities of Peggy's Cove at sunset, and also to savor the delicious (so I hear) gingerbread at the Sou'wester Restaurant.

Look for some photos upon my return!!

Maud and Perfectionism

It seems to be a sad and ancient tale that Maud's married life was so unhappy in spite of her perfectionism.

Ewan,  being provided on a daily basis with delicious meals and a clean home and nice clothes, seems to never notice that the spot where he has landed in life is so much better than some.

Why couldn't Maud make him happy??

This perfectionism doesn't work.

I tend to think that Maud's perfectionism was her way of masking deeper feelings of weakness.

Just my plundering brain, writing this out....

Kindred Spirits Tea Room, Harkers Island, North Carolina

I don't go to Harker's Island very often any more so I don't know if this tea room still exists.

However, this is proof positive of just how far a distance that the long arm of Maud's talent could reach. 

It reached me, way down here in North Carolina!

Prince Edward Island,  I'll see you in 9 days.

Kindred Photography

Like Maud, I like to take photographs.

I am lucky enough to live in a land rich in photographic opportunities.  The people in my town like to dress up for any and all occasions.  These photos are from a large archive and were taken with a cheap camera. I have been playing  with these otherwise nice photos using a editing tool to make them look like newspaper clippings.  It's a good way to make poor quality photos work for you.

It's so strange, that I can only get the backs of these ladies, it's always this way in my photos of the dressed up people.

Maud tells the truth - the song and dance of duty

Duke analyzes life from behind the fence - "A Southern Green Gables" - New Bern, NC

"And no one would realize the bone-weariness she suffered as she did what duty demanded.  One part of her enjoyed it;  one part resented its intrusions.  She would write: "Sometimes I get so sick of them (mission bands, missionary auxiliaries, ladies' aids, Women's Institutes, Sunday School teachers' meetings, etc., etc., etc.) that I could hang myself on the handiest gooseberry bush rather than go to another.  And yet--it's odd--it's always in prospect only that I hate them.  When I go to them I find myself really quite enjoying them.  I like 'making things go,' having, so I have been told, a 'gift' that way.  It is really only because of the inroads they make on my time that I rise up and howl occasionally."  Yet she could write, "I have lost the art of living entirely...It isn't right.  We weren't meant to live like that."  Separately, she could have enjoyed any of her current activities.  All together, crammed into one life, they were too much." 

The Wheel of Things, A Biography of LM Montgomery, Mollie Gillen, p. 129   
______________________________________
"I've got an idea that a lot of work in this world gets done by lazy people.  That's the reason they work--because thy're so lazy...You work because you have to drive yourself to such a fury to begin. It's so hard to get started that once you do you're afraid of slipping back.  You'd rather do anything than go through all that agony again...Then people say you're a glutton for work, but it isn't so.   It's laziness--just plain, damned, simple laziness, that's all."

Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again

All things being relative in a parallel world....July & August 1915

Maud wrote often of the "hot" summers on PEI with the house full of company (Uncle Leander and entourage.)  Her discomfort seems incredible after I found that the high temps for the Island are recorded as 73 degrees for the month of July.  Yesterday, it was 102 degrees here on the inner banks of North Carolina.  (73 degrees is the mark where we set our air conditioners in order to feel comfortable in our homes.)

Perhaps it felt hotter in Maud's grandmother's house, because of the baking that she was required to do, and with the long hair, dresses and layers of underclothing.

All things being relative in a parallel universe...
________________________________________
One of the important lessons that may be gleaned from reading Maud's Journals (and it's a big one) is that it might be better not to depend on your children for your happiness. This passage is coming from Maud long before some even harder blows befell her.  It seems evident by this passage that Maud was always prone to depression..

The Manse, Leaskdale, Ont
August 13, 1915

"It is just a year to-day since little Hugh was born dead.  Oh, that hideous day!  Shall I ever be able to forget its agony?  And will it be repeated in October?  This thought is ever present with me.  I have had some bad attacks of nervous depression lately--one last night that was almost unbearable.  My condition--the war news --the weather--all combined to make me very miserable.  Sometimes I feel so unutterably disheartened that if it were not for Chester it seems to me that I would rather not go on living."

The Selected Journals of LM Montgomery, Vol I, p. 171, Rubio & Waterston 

----------------------------------------------------------

A lovely walk with her cousin Frede at Park Corner...

Park Corner

Sunday, July 18, 1915

Tomorrow I leave Park Corner...To-night Frede and I planned to have a walk together over the bridge in the dusk--a last farewell walk, the last one we could have there for many years--perhaps forever.  In the twilight we slipped away and had our hour.  The western sky was full of the hues of a weird sunset.  Before us the old pond lay in shadow and silver.  The evening was very still, very calm, very clear.  And through the stillness came the strangest, saddest most unforgettable sound in nature--the soft, ceaseless wash on a distant shore of the breakers of a spent storm.  It is more mournful than the rain wind of night--the heartbreak of all creation is in it.

  Frede and I walked back and forth over the bridge many times, sometimes in silence, sometimes speaking lowly of the deepest thoughts in our hearts.  We seemed a part of the night--of the dreaming water, of the dusk in the cloudy firs, of the far remote stars, of that haunting moan of the sea.  And when the twilight suddenly was night and the shining new moon swung above the tree tops that bend over that old homestead, we walked away from the glamor in a silence that touched the lands of dream and tears."

The Selected Journals of LM Montgomery, Vol I, p 170, Rubio & Waterston

"the old past was mine once more...."

As I am winding down the days till I board a plane in North Carolina to embark on my sojourn to PEI, I  am hoping to find a way to connect with Maud's feelings of homecoming.  It is nice to have this place--this blog--to share her record, and to validate my own feelings about this dream like Odyssey, to be where she has been, to see what she has seen, and perhaps to feel what she has felt.

It is a certain homecoming for me, too!

In a personal way, it seems strangely poignant that Maud--always self-searching and with a book on hand-- had missed the profoundly correspondent themes about home and self  in Thomas Wolfe's works.  After all, they were living in a contemporary world.  How could she have missed him?

Maud:

Sunday, June 27, 1915

The Manse, Cavendish, PEI

   ...Last night I had a very dear, very sad, very strange and unlooked for experience.
     When I was on the Island before I shrank from the very thought of going near my old home.  This year I felt the same until last night.  I was on the manse veranda.  The dew was falling.  In the south-east a large, hazy, full moon was rising.  To my left lay the dark trees that screened th old house from sight.  suddenly an irresistible longing took possession of me to go to it once more--in that pale enchantment of moonlight when one might chance to slip back through some magic loophole into the olden years.  I could not withstand it.  I slipped over the church grounds and through the old gap in the fence through which I used to go to church.  I walked along the meadow edge where the foot path used to be, past the grove of spruces, and on till the old house lay before me in a soft, silvery shadow.  I turned aside for a moment to the old well and looked down it.  The ferns that always lined its sides had grown completely across it.
     I went on to the old kitchen door.  Beside it, every summer a certain shoot of balsam poplar used to start up, to be trodden down under passing feet.  Since the old house was closed it had been able to grow and so fast had it grown that the whole angle between the kitchen and the cook house was full of it.  It as as high as the kitchen roof.
     I went around to the end of the house and stood under my old window.  The moon was floating over the valley below.  I had looked on that very scene a thousand times on moonlit nights of long ago.  My heart beat with mingled pain and pleasure until it almost choked me.  Everything in that kind radiance seemed so much the same.  For a space the years turned back their pages.  The silent sleepers in the graveyard yonder wakened and filled their old places.  Grandfather and grandmother read in the lighted kitchen.  Old friends and comrades walked with me in the lane.  Daffy frisked in the caraway.  Above me my old white bed waited for me to press its pillow of dreams.
     Most of the windows were boarded up but the south one in the parlor was not.  through it I could see the bare old room distinctly with the black mantelpiece that was the admiration of my childhood.  I went around and stood on the stone steps of the front door.  The old "front orchard" and the grove beside it seemed more bowery and bosky than of yore but I think that was only because i have grown used to a thinner screen of trees on my Leaskdale lawn.  How lovely and lonely it all was, and yet how unreal.  I seemed to be in a dream--and yet it seemed th only waking.  Oh, as long as that moonlit magic worked the past was mine once more--the old past, before the last sad years had spent in the old home.  Oh, beloved old place, that half hour I spent with you last night was worth the coming from a far land.  You were glad, I think to have me back---me, who loved you so.  For there is not one living now but me who loves you--not one.  As I stood there I seemed to feel a presence enfolding me as if it claimed me--as if something that had been forsaken and desolate were once more rejoicing in my affection.  Have not old homesteads souls that cling to them until they crumble to dust?
   I could hardly tear myself away from the spot.  Perhaps the charm it had for me is not a wholesome one--not altogether one to which it was well to yield.  Perhaps the dead past should bury it's dead.  It may not be well to linger too long among ghosts, lest they lay a cold grasp upon you and bind you too closely to their chill, sweet, unearthly companionship.  Certainly all the pleasures and joys of my real life seemed to grow pale and fade into nothingness beside the strange enchantment of that shadowy tryst."

The Selected Journals of LM Montgomery, Vol I, pp 168 - 169, Rubio & Waterston

"...and he had an instant sense of something re-found that he had always known--something far, near, strange, and so familiar--and it seemed to him that he had never left the hills, and all that had passed in the years between was like a dream."

Thmas Wolfe, "You Can't Go Home Again"    

Going home....

"...it was silly, anyhow, to feel as he did about the place. But  why had he always felt so strongly the magnetic pull of home, why had he thought so much about it and remembered it with such blazing accuracy, if it did not matter, and if this little town, and the immortal hills around it, was not the only home he had on earth?"    

 Thomas Wolfe,

 You Can't Go Home Again

                     Asheville, North Carolina   

Maud:

Cavendish trip, 1913

..."Voices were calling to me that could not be resisted--voices of the past, fraught with all the past's enchantment.  They summoned me imperiously and I obeyed the summons.  I slipped out into the darkness of the summer evening and went to find the lost years....
  ...In the dim, still, eerie twilight I slipped down the hill, over the bridge across the brook and up the dark path under the spruces.  It was the old way home.  I found the little gate in the fence and went through.... 
....Yes, there it was.  In the fading gray light I could see the old gray house hooded in shadows--I could see the little window of my old room--
.....I wept bitterly...."

The Selected Journals of LM Montgomery, p. 126, Rubio & Waterston

"… for once seen, and list the moment that he sees it, it is his forever and he can never forget it. And then the slow toiling train has passed these lives and faces and is gone, and there is something in his heart he cannot say."

Thomas Wolfe, Of Time and the River  

Crimes of the Heart

"Yes; it was a crime to marry you. I have paid for it."
Irene Forsyte to Soames Forsyte, "The Forsyte Saga",  John Galsworthy

There is a strange feeling of sadness that has been falling on me as I am preparing for our trip to PEI in July. It seems as if Maud comes to me, and then I feel her intense love of the Island.  It is her marriage, and her disappointment over it that is getting to me. As I am shopping for my traveling clothes I begin to think of Maud's great attention to detail in the choosing of her honeymoon trousseau. Anyway, it all went so bad over time. It makes me sad.

Maud
" I had been feeling contented all morning.  I had gone through the ceremony and the congratulations unflustered and unregretful.  And now, when it was all over and I found myself sitting there by my husband's side-my husband!--I felt a sudden horrible inrush of rebellion and despair. I wanted to be free!  I felt like a prisoner--a hopeless prisoner.  Something in me--something wild and free and untamed--something that Ewan had not tamed--could never tame--something that did not acknowledge him as master--rose up in one frantic protest against the fetters which bound me.  At that moment if I could have torn the wedding ring from my finger and so freed myself I would have done it!  But it was too late--and the realization that it was too late fell over me like a black cloud of wretchedness. I sat at that gay bridal feast, in my white veil and orange blossoms, beside the man I had married--and I was as unhappy as I had ever been in my life."

 The Selected Journals of LM Montgomery - Vol I, p 68, Rubio & Waterston
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"Oh! Jolyon, yes.  He's in love, I feel he's in love.  And he'd say:  'My mother once married without love!  How could she have!'  It'll seem to him a crime!  And so it was!"

Irene Forsyte - "The Forsyte Saga", John Galsworthy

The Forsyte Saga - Granada Television 2002

Fate - and the Nine Lives of LM Montgomery

Mike and Leo

It seems incredibly fortuitous that during our upcoming July Odyssey on PEI,  there will be a happening!  Adam-Michael James and co-writer Leo Marchildon are working on a musical reunion of their well known production, "The Nine Lives of LM Montgomery."   We haven't heard the final details yet, but according to Mike, the stars are lining up!

Methinks I can see the hand of Maud in this.  If only someday, I can meet Mrs. Mary Rubio to ask a few questions that have been burning in my mind.  That will happen too, if it's meant to be.

Counting Down the Days to PEI - feeling a sadness for Maud

New Bern, North Carolina - my home

"bannered with crimson, sentineled by star.." LM Montgomery

 
It is 31 days till the fulfillment of a lifelong dream, a long yearned for visit to PEI -Maud's home and her lovely vista of childhood wonder.

Today, I feel a sadness for Maud that almost brings me to tears.  I think it has to do with some words by Thomas Wolfe which are ringing like a sad bell.  It is a quote from "Look Homeward Angel" where he describes his feelings of being "lost, on this weary unbright cinder".  Maud never knew that she was lost and in darkness.  The outside world was so beautiful to her.

Perhaps when the ugliness crept into her life,  if she had known, like Wolfe, that being lost and in darkness is the common state of man, she would not have felt so desperately alone.

I hope to get a sense of the spirit of Maud Montgomery on my visit to PEI, though I'm not sure that it is necessary to travel there to get it.

Still, Maud loved the island so very much!! There must be some shadow or a whispering of her spirit which is lingering there.

O waste of loss, in the hot mazes, lost, among bright stars on this most weary unbright cinder, lost! Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When? O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again. 

Thomas Wolfe - Look Homeward Angel