Trust The Greater Voice Within
Posted: January 18, 2013
Rural Pen
How does it feel to reach the end of your life and feel nothing but regret?
Henry James tells of such a person in “Beast of the Jungle,” a story in which John Marcher, from a young age, knows that he is destined for some grand purpose. At 15, he shares this conviction with a younger girl, then by chance meets her 10 years later at a party.
May tells him what he told her: “You said you had had from your earliest time, as the deepest thing within you, the sense of being kept for something rare and strange, possibly prodigious and terrible, that was sooner or later to happen to you, that you had in your bones the foreboding and conviction of, and that would perhaps overwhelm you.”
Marcher is drawn to May because she understands him.The two begin spending time together, going out to dinner, concerts and museums. Marcher grows to rely on May for feedback on his life. He thinks early on about marrying her, but there is no question of that. Something lay in wait for him, like a beast in the jungle, that would either slay him or be slain by him.
He could not ask a woman to share in this haunted life.
However, May centers her life around her commitment to Marcher, who centers his life around awaiting his perceived fate. They grow old. Nothing has happened. When May becomes deathly ill, she realizes what has happened to Marcher. She dies, and Marcher’s life is empty but for his visits to her grave, where he once again experiences her companionship.
On one visit, a man visiting a nearby fresh grave walks by. When the two look into each other’s faces, “Marcher knew him at once for the deeply stricken ... .”
Marcher realizes he has never been touched by passion, that he has “utterly, insanely missed” living his life from the inside. He has worst of all missed loving May. This was the beast: Nothing happened.
Henry James’ brother, William James, was a famous philosopher who said, “Be the kind of person on whom nothing is lost.” Well, Marcher is the kind of person on whom everything is lost. He doesn’t get it.
After reading this story, I thought of some of the young women I know. Typically, they graduate college, get a job in their chosen field, work there for a few years and move on to a better job elsewhere. Many of them forfeit love, thinking they can find someone else when they’ve reached their career goals. But true love doesn’t happen like that.
As a teenager, I did a lot of writing and planned to get an English degree. But at age 19, I became pregnant.
My gynecologist said, “You’re pregnant — do you want a termination of pregnancy?”
Had I chosen my way of fulfilling the Big Plan For My Life, I would have aborted my “fetus” — Heidi — to go to college. This was just a year after the Roe vs. Wade decision of Jan. 22, 1973, but the mantra that having a baby would “ruin your life” was already the accepted wisdom. All my girlfriends had had abortions. It’s what you did when you got pregnant.
But what is life for? Should I, like Marcher, choose some elusive grand purpose?
“And we are put on earth a little space, / That we may learn to bear the beams of love,” writes the poet, William Blake. Had I aborted Heidi, I would not have learned what it means to love another person, to put another person’s needs ahead of my own. I would have been choosing anti-love.
There is a greater wisdom, within, which we, as women, must trust.
Most of the 1 million-plus abortions performed annually in the United States are for women ages 18-24. Perhaps the “choice” to abort would not be made so frequently if these young women did not feel that having a child would ruin their life.
How about pregnancy and parenting resources on campus such as housing, child care, maternity coverage and riders for additional family members in any student health care plan, flexible schedules and telecommuting, resources for pregnant women and children and counseling.
As for me, I have no regrets. My life was not ruined. I married my true love, enjoyed raising my three kids and have a writing career.
Yet the beast still skulks.
Henry James tells of such a person in “Beast of the Jungle,” a story in which John Marcher, from a young age, knows that he is destined for some grand purpose. At 15, he shares this conviction with a younger girl, then by chance meets her 10 years later at a party.
May tells him what he told her: “You said you had had from your earliest time, as the deepest thing within you, the sense of being kept for something rare and strange, possibly prodigious and terrible, that was sooner or later to happen to you, that you had in your bones the foreboding and conviction of, and that would perhaps overwhelm you.”
Marcher is drawn to May because she understands him.The two begin spending time together, going out to dinner, concerts and museums. Marcher grows to rely on May for feedback on his life. He thinks early on about marrying her, but there is no question of that. Something lay in wait for him, like a beast in the jungle, that would either slay him or be slain by him.
He could not ask a woman to share in this haunted life.
However, May centers her life around her commitment to Marcher, who centers his life around awaiting his perceived fate. They grow old. Nothing has happened. When May becomes deathly ill, she realizes what has happened to Marcher. She dies, and Marcher’s life is empty but for his visits to her grave, where he once again experiences her companionship.
On one visit, a man visiting a nearby fresh grave walks by. When the two look into each other’s faces, “Marcher knew him at once for the deeply stricken ... .”
Marcher realizes he has never been touched by passion, that he has “utterly, insanely missed” living his life from the inside. He has worst of all missed loving May. This was the beast: Nothing happened.
Henry James’ brother, William James, was a famous philosopher who said, “Be the kind of person on whom nothing is lost.” Well, Marcher is the kind of person on whom everything is lost. He doesn’t get it.
After reading this story, I thought of some of the young women I know. Typically, they graduate college, get a job in their chosen field, work there for a few years and move on to a better job elsewhere. Many of them forfeit love, thinking they can find someone else when they’ve reached their career goals. But true love doesn’t happen like that.
As a teenager, I did a lot of writing and planned to get an English degree. But at age 19, I became pregnant.
My gynecologist said, “You’re pregnant — do you want a termination of pregnancy?”
Had I chosen my way of fulfilling the Big Plan For My Life, I would have aborted my “fetus” — Heidi — to go to college. This was just a year after the Roe vs. Wade decision of Jan. 22, 1973, but the mantra that having a baby would “ruin your life” was already the accepted wisdom. All my girlfriends had had abortions. It’s what you did when you got pregnant.
But what is life for? Should I, like Marcher, choose some elusive grand purpose?
“And we are put on earth a little space, / That we may learn to bear the beams of love,” writes the poet, William Blake. Had I aborted Heidi, I would not have learned what it means to love another person, to put another person’s needs ahead of my own. I would have been choosing anti-love.
There is a greater wisdom, within, which we, as women, must trust.
Most of the 1 million-plus abortions performed annually in the United States are for women ages 18-24. Perhaps the “choice” to abort would not be made so frequently if these young women did not feel that having a child would ruin their life.
How about pregnancy and parenting resources on campus such as housing, child care, maternity coverage and riders for additional family members in any student health care plan, flexible schedules and telecommuting, resources for pregnant women and children and counseling.
As for me, I have no regrets. My life was not ruined. I married my true love, enjoyed raising my three kids and have a writing career.
Yet the beast still skulks.
Luanne Austin lives in Mount Sidney. Contact her at RuralPen@aol.com, www.facebook.com/rural pen or care of the DN-R.