I am reading the novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. Actually, I have to confess, I read 2/3rd of it about 3 months ago, then stopped, and haven’t picked it up again until last night. This is not a good book to read when you are single, dating, but failing again and again to find the right person.

Tess was born to a poor family in the 1800’s and they discover they might be related to a wealthy family called the D’Urbervilles. Class lines in those days meant if you were born poor, you had little chance to improve your lot in life. So Tess’s parents send her to the remaining widow of this family line to beg for money and a position in her household. The widow has a cad of a son. He tricks innocent Tess and rapes her, leaving her pregnant. Tess returns in disgrace to her family. The baby dies, and Tess is sent to be a milkmaid on a farm. She and a gentleman farmer, staying at the dairy to learn the trade, fall in love. Tess is afraid to tell him of her past and finally confesses the night of their marriage. 

This is where the story gets worse and why I couldn’t finish. Clare, her husband, has not led a perfect life, and it is made clear that he has had several indiscretions himself. Yet, when he finds out that Tess is not a virgin, he becomes cold and rejects her. I haven’t been able to read any since that part of the plot. I’m afraid it won’t have a happy ending. 

A woman gets blamed for being raped. There was no compassion for her. I understand that life was harsher back then. In a society without social security programs, it was vital that a baby was born into a traditional family, so that it received the necessary social and economic support. There was little room for deviation from established norms. In Dickenson novels, poor people are "jailed" in poorhouses, rather than given a helping hand. There they fester and die. Killing them would have been more merciful. A scarlet woman became an outcast and was forced to beg or glean scrapes for a living. 

Even in the 50’s when I was born, there was a more rigid societal structure. There was no room for single women. They were called spinsters. There was no room for anyone who didn’t fit into the expected norms. Some people say that we should revert back to that harsher time. That the Bible says we should live only one way. I read a different Bible. My Bible says that love is most important. That we are to treat the different with compassion and hope and love. That is the world I live in. 

The Little Rascals gang provided a lot of comfort to me as a child. They didn’t seem to have parents, yet they lived an exciting life with adventures every day. As a child, I dwelled in that non-parent fantasy world and it helped keep me strong. I also knew there were other kids like me, somewhere, who lived in that same world and I knew that they were part of my gang. I felt connected to Spanky, Alfafa, Darla, and Buckwheat, and all the other real kids who had a life like mine. I still feel that strong connection and I carry it inside my heart.

I lived in a world of verbal violence. My mother would make me stand in the kitchen, or in the living room, or anywhere she would find me in the house, make me stand, and yell for hours about how worthless I was. I tuned out most of the words and imagined myself in the clubhouse with the gang, but some words were so sharp they penetrated my shield and ripped into my flesh. I’ve been able to wipe most of those words from my memory, but the thing I still remember was how my feet would start to ache, then tingle, then throb, and I would sway. I would have to use every ounce of my strength to force myself to not fall down. I knew that if I fell, she would make me stand back up, and it would anger her so much that the torture would be prolonged. Once the pain in my feet became intense, I was so immersed in it, that the shield protecting me grew stronger. I yearned for that pain the instant the yelling started. 

When you live in a world of verbal violence, you feel like you are in a parallel dimension different from the kids you go to school with. They would talk about eating supper and fooling around with their parents, being silly, and I would fell so disconnected. I believed their world was the fantasy world, and my world, the one carefully constructed by my imagination, was the real one.  I wrapped this fantasy world around me tightly, disappeared into it, and it protected me.

When it got really bad, I would disappear for real. I would slip out of the house and spend the night in the woods underneath a tree. The Tree would "talk" to me and I would curl up around the roots and listen to the sap run inside it. When first light came, I would sneak back inside the house and crawl into bed so my mother wouldn’t know I had been gone. If it was too cold to go outside, I would spend the night inside my closet. It was comforting to be in the dark with the walls hugging me. During the day, if I was afraid the yelling was going to start, I would slip into my closet and hope my mother wouldn’t find me. It often worked.

And this is the question I will never be able to answer. Did my mother ever know I disappeared? She had to know I was gone, at least during the day when I was inside my closet. She never looked for me. Perhaps, having me out of her sight calmed her down and the need to hurt me would go away. I can never ask her this question. She’s wiped so much of this past out of her memory as well. I don’t ever bring up any bad when I am with her. It would hurt her more now than it ever hurt me as a child. I have forgiven her as she was simply a woman who should never have had children. Her psyche is too fragile to have the chaos that is children in her life. Yet she lived in an era when getting married and having children was the only thing women did. I don’t blame her. So, I will never know the answer to my question.

I’ve had nothing but bad luck for months. I spent months working on a big bid for a website and lost it by a teeny margin even though I was the low bidder. I had one large contract cancelled 6 months ago, and one that got moved up until April, both because the client changed the schedules. I’ve been waiting on numerous government contracts that won’t happen until Congress decides to pass a budget. They have been running the government on resolutions since FY2007. A budget for FY2009 appears unlikely, since they can’t even decide on health care reform. I laid myself off in May and things just keep going downhill. I am working harder and for longer hours than I ever have, looking for jobs for my businesses and sending out resumes. 

I have decided that God has a really warped sense of humor. He’s connected me with people who are establishing several charter schools and that’s been very positive. I feel very passionate and enthusiastic about the opportunity to help economically disadvantaged children and make a difference in the inner city. 

But bad luck just keeps hanging around. God apparently doesn’t think I need money to live on. At first, I thought that this was a learning experience — that I had grown complacent about having money and privileges and needed to learn how to live without things that I can’t take to heaven. I am surviving on credit cards and a paltry unemployment check, and I will have to declare bankruptcy once my credit card balance goes much higher. That’s okay. I could live without my house if there was only me. But I have one deaf incontinent Great Dane, two deaf and blind Great Danes, two other dogs, and 5 cats. With the increasing overpopulation of homeless animals (worsening every day because of the economy), I know the fate of my dogs. There’s no one to take them, so they would end up euthanized if I lost my house. 

My new vision is of me wandering the streets with my purple coat wrapped tight around me, a tin cup for donations, and trailing behind are three white Great Danes and two smaller dogs. Following behind them are five cats in a line. We trail through the streets, meandering around public places asking for handouts, and sleep in a doorway to keep out of the rain. The cats sleep on top of my head and the dogs wrestle for the best spot next to me. At least I would no longer have to worry about keeping a diaper on the dog. Guess there are blessings!