I believe that I may indeed be in love with James McAvoy now.
I know that I am in love with Jane Austen.
Several years ago, I visited her adult home at Chawton. The house was a postcard idyll. The seventeenth century cottage had sash windows and creaking wooden floors and wide door ways and ancient trees. It was romance and tradition at once. It was also drafty and rather small.
And the smallest thing in the whole place was Jane Austen's writing desk. No oaken behemoth, the desk instead resembled one of those desks (antiques by a Texan's standards) from my elementary school which was basically a chair with a tray attached, a tray about one inch wider and longer than a ledger sized piece of paper--the kind of desk on which you can't write and rest your elbow at the same time.
On this cramped desk, in this rather ordinary home, Jane Austen wrote some of the best novels ever written in the English language. And she wrote those novels when the form was just that--novel.
If Jane could change literature forever, if Jane could change expectation forever (after all, she was a woman who could write as well as a man...gasp) while writing on this tiny little desk (and answering the door and serving tea), why should I ever feel discouraged?
Comparatively, my pursuits are small and my resources are vast. My opportunities would be unfathomable to Jane. I never, ever have to serve tea. (Good thing, too, my british inlaws would probably tell you.)
This week, Katie and I made some elaborate plans about the future of our store. I was exhilarated by the brainstorming as it happened, and then immediately wracked with worry and doubt. But the dreams we have are within our means and the space we have to maneuver in is vast enough for all our visions. At least at the moment.
This is what I learned tonight: when I grow up, when I really grow up, I want to write like Jane Austen--and look like Anne Hathaway.
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