The Not Quite Austen's - Jane Austen Inspired Film Adaptations Ranked

This is the list of the not quite Jane Austen's and retellings I've seen.  Or rather, this is my ranked list of them.  I will add to this as I see more.  Why do I call these the "not quite Austen's"?  They are either movies that were inspired by Austen but are very original works, or in some cases retellings set in modern times, or movies simply about Jane Austen and her works.

If I want to watch an adaptation I want to revel in the clothes and beautiful manor houses in England, the beauty of the time on display visually in a movie.  I do not want to watch a movie set in modern times and in high school (I'm looking at you Clueless).  Unless it's doing something more, telling a different story, I don't want my adaptations to be set in modern times.  I don't mind the "not quite Austen's" that are set in modern times if they are telling a slightly different story, like Austenland, or The Jane Austen Book Club.

These movies have their own list because I couldn't quite place these in the other list.  But here is my ranking of the Not Quite Austen's and retellings.

1. Lost in Austen 2008

My favorite "not quite Austen".  In this story, Amanda, an avid fan of Pride and Prejudice ends up inside the Pride and Prejudice story and has to figure out how to not ruin it or her own happy ending.  It's cute, it's interesting.  It explores the original characters as they deal with life in very new situations.  All of them involving a very modern Amanda who does not fit in no matter how hard she tries.

It is not faithful to the book, obviously.  I find it delightful.  I like that we learn things about Caroline Bingley and George Wickham that feel appropriate and are still fun and new.  I like that we learn Mr. Bennet's first name.  I like the way she has to come to grips with living in a story and how desperately she tries to keep the story together as it falls apart ever faster.

I like that we briefly see some Pride and Prejudice characters in modern London, but not so much so that it overtakes the story.

I do love Pride and Prejudice enough to really worry about the characters as the story goes painfully sideways.  I had moments of real concern and that's what makes this such a lovely story.  This story, like Austen's work, has real circumstances and obstacles that pose true challenges for the characters.  Like Austen's work those characters who deserve it also end up with happy endings, even if they are nontraditional.

2. Austenland 2013

Simply fun.  An obsessive Pride and Prejudice fan goes on an expensive holiday to a Jane Austen immersive experience.  She arrives at a magnificent mansion is immediately told she is the least important guest and has the "basic copper package" while everyone else has the platinum elite packages.  She is dubbed Miss Erstwhile and things don't seem to be going as planned.

It's charming.  There is both romance and silliness.  The characters are over the top fans, hired actors to "romance" the guests, and airheads.  Yes, it's totally silly, but I think it's just fun.  It doesn't take itself too seriously.  The movie contains terrible sewing projects, beautifully terrible music and plays, and romance.  It is sort of a Pride and Prejudice retelling.  It's a feel-good movie.  And Kerri Russell and J.J. Field are utterly charming.

This is actually based on a book called Austenland by Shannon Hale.  It's a satisfying tribute to Jane Austen and subtly skewers the ridiculous while telling a lovely story.  It's not quite like the movie.  It's better, and I would highly recommend it.

3. Jane Austen Book Club 2007

Also based on a book, this story follows a group of women who form a book club to support each other through the problems of modern life.  Together they face death, divorce, relationships, and love with the help of their friendship and the "Jane Austen Book Club".  It is a charming story about friends and book lovers that both shows real-life experiences and explores the ways that reading can liberate you, inspire you, and help teach you to grow as a person.  A good book can help you through a crisis and bring you back to the world as a more thoughtful individual.  Part of this movie's charm is in the real friendships it displays and how they help each other through this book club that, as Grig says is "the all Jane Austen all the time" book club. 

It is a story that is mostly about the women and their friendships and relationships.  However, I do love the way that the men have a part to play in this story.  It's mostly from the women's point of view but we see the men getting influenced and drawn into this book club as the story progresses.  I love the way different parts of their lives mirror different parts of Jane Austen's books.  This allows us to have a teachable moment at the end where one of the men realizes that all the Austen men get a chance to explain themselves.  He is encouraged to try to repair his relationship with a well-written letter.

What makes this story fun is that it's all the Jane Austen stories rolled into one.  It has its rough moments, its tears, but it's also a celebration of endurance, humanity, friendship, and literature.  It's a better film than Austenland, but it's also slightly more about modern life than actual Austen stories, so it's third for me.

4. Becoming Jane 2007

This is a lovely movie about Jane Austen's younger life before she is a known author.  It's romantic, moving and beautifully filmed.  This movie makes me cry.  It more or less broke my heart for Jane.  This is a movie that weaves fact and fiction into a realistic and heartbreaking portrayal of Jane Austen's romance with Tom Lefroy.  Tom Lefroy is completely charming in this movie.   The movie is a moving portrayal of the facts that we know, with a story in between them that is fictional, yes, but could have been real.  It really was well done, but it was hard to watch.  I'm a softy, I like my movies to end well.

If you're interested in more on this story, a good place to start is with this article from the Jane Austen Society of North America, "Becoming Jane: Sorting Fact from Fiction".

5. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies 2016

Well, it's Pride and Prejudice.  And it's not.  And it's good actually.  Surprising as that may be.

It is a well-done movie with funny moments and beautiful cinematography.  It has zombies so it's also gruesome and strange.  But it has a certain appeal.

I won't lie, I wanted to hate it.  But I did not hate it.  Much to my shock (and possibly my regret?  I mean I'm glad I didn't feel my time was a waste but do I feel as though I've betrayed my own taste in liking the movie - if that makes any sense).  I really don't like zombie movies.  Yet, I liked this movie.  It was good.

It is a retelling of Pride and Prejudice with some obvious alterations.  I love that it's still set in the Regency era.  I don't love zombies, so I was never going to love this movie with my whole heart.  However, I found it surprisingly well-done and I do, in fact, mean to watch it again some day.  Though perhaps as a Halloween movie.

6. Miss Austen Regrets 2007

This is a movie about Jane Austen's life.  As one might suspect from the title this is not a light-hearted movie.  The story examines Jane Austen's life as she reaches her later years.  Through the eyes of Jane's niece Fanny, we see Jane Austen's choices and regrets in life.  

Fanny, Jane Austen's niece grounds much of the story

Olivia Williams is a fantastic Jane Austen, but the portrayal of Jane in this movie is a little sharp and difficult.  Since we are seeing Jane mostly through Fanny's story, we jump around a fair amount and it can be a bit difficult to follow who all the players are and what the story is for a few moments.  Much is obscure if one is not already familiar with Jane's life.  For instance, we know that Jane's sister Cassandra persuades her not to marry Harris Bigg and we know that she had her own reasons for it.  You have to know about Cassandra's life to know what's going on because this movie never tells you.  So, knowing, as I do that Cassandra's fiance died abroad leaving her heart-broken, the scene where "Cass" tells Jane she had her own reasons for not wanting Jane to marry makes sense.  If you don't know the history, you're left to wonder if Cass was jealous, or worried about her own future.  It leaves you asking lots of questions.   

Olivia Williams is such a lovely multi-faceted Jane in this film

It's a beautifully filmed movie and it is entirely believable.  I love that we see beautifully put together scenes of daily life, with Cassandra and Mrs. Austen doing chores along with the servants while Jane reads to them.  I love that we see a real difference in the cost of different character's clothes, without it being taken to an excessive degree.  The sets, the scenes, the landscapes, they're all just beautiful.  I love seeing the adorable scenes where Fanny is falling for Mr. Plumbtree.  Chasing each other about in the garden with a crimson ribbon was beautiful, romantic, lavish, and tender. 

I'm just not sure that I love this movie.  I don't love this particular interpretation of Jane Austen's personality.  I like to imagine that Jane Austen was a combination of some of her heroines, the wit and ability of Lizzy, the self-assured confidence of Emma.  It's all speculation, of course, so it's hard to draw firm lines.  And it may very well be that Jane had many regrets, but it was difficult to watch a deeply regretful, self-pitying, spiky Jane.  I don't mind seeing Jane proud of her work and at odds with conventional society.  I don't mind her being portrayed as a shameless flirt or a cynic.  I do not, however, like to see her being cruel to people not sharp enough to keep up with her wit.

It was definitely a good movie, but I had a hard time watching it. It was difficult for me to have an unvarnished look at hard choices and realities of the time without any comedy or pleasant twists to soften them.  Thinking about Jane reviewing her life and trying to pretend she's happy while being lonely is just difficult.  Anyone who loves Austen novels feels a little bit like they know and love the real Jane Austen behind them all.  And we none of us like to think of our beloved friends suffering (even if we only imagine them to be our friends).

I mean, the movie is titled Miss Austen Regrets.  It's good, but it's definitely heavier.  And it's fairly realistic which in this case is both intriguing and a bitter pill to swallow.  What I don't understand is how the movie is based on what we know of Jane's life through letters and yet Cassandra plays such a minor role.  We never read anything from Cassandra written to Jane.  Considering that some of Jane's major regrets (at least in this film's telling) are tangled up with Cassandra's fate as well.  

It's a beautiful film but it's so sad.  It's hard to believe that I ranked it below Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  I'm not sure I believe it myself.  But the leaps in the story, and the fact that this isn't how I'd like to imagine Jane Austen make this not as fun for me.  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was definitely fun.  I can't believe it either.  But I'll end with some more pretty photos from this beautiful film.

7. Pride and Prejudice, Cut 2019

It seems to also have a second title, called "Becoming Ms. Bennet: Pride & Prejudice".  Everywhere it is listed online under this title except for IMDb which has it listed as "Pride and Prejudice, Cut."  Go figure.  Well, whatever you call it, this was a cute little movie where an American internet star named Kate is cast as Lizzy in a British film production of Pride and Prejudice.  It's about acting, getting dialogues right, learning parts, navigating the film production drama and all the while they act lines from Pride and Prejudice, the characters are all experiencing the Pride and Prejudice story off screen as well.  

The parallel Pride and Prejudice storylines were very cute and done in a naturalistic and believable way.  Our Darcy is an accomplished and classically trained British actor who at first looks down on our Lizzy who is just an internet personality.  He comes to admire her and her work ethic as we watch Wickham being a self-obsessed actor who meddles with too many people, including the woman holding the purse-strings on this venture.  And of course, our Jane and Bingley and our Darcy and Elizabeth both end up together as couples in the end, as they should.

It's definitely more fun than Miss Austen Regrets, but it's not as well filmed.  Miss Austen Regrets is a far superior production of a sad story.  This is a cute little feel good movie, which I enjoyed more, but is definitely not on the same level.  The costumes are mostly modern since the majority of this little movie is done pre filming of their little movie and they rehearse in modern clothes.  The few Regency clothes we do see are really barely passable at all.  Nothing is glaringly wrong with it, it's just not as high a production value.  It's a little fluff piece, but it's worth a watch if you want something light and fluffy with a happy familiar ending.

8. Clueless 1995

          Technically this is an adaptation of Emma, though I personally consider it a "not quite Austen".  It's a modern retelling so it's set in Beverly Hills High School.  It does poke fun at the "in-crowd" which I appreciate.  But I didn't love this movie when I first saw it and I feel like I'm far too old to love it now. 

          Personally, I don't think it aged well.  The writers did an excellent job of setting the dialogue so firmly in the slang of 90's teens that it feels really cringe to me at this point.  Admittedly, I have not once ever been cool, so what do I know?

          I do actually think it's a better and more consistent story than the Emma with Gwyneth Paltrow from 1996.  However, I consider this movie a "not quite Austen" because it's set in modern L.A. in high school.  It's my list, and I didn't like it, so I've made it last.  I know that this may not align with popular opinion.

          Clueless does have its charming moments.  I like the father even though he has a rather minor role.  He is a busy lawyer, not a hypochondriac in this version, but nobody is perfect.  He is still a really cute father in this movie.  I appreciate that while he spoils Cher he sits her down to tell her that he doesn't want her dating some boy who can't see her merits.  It's a timelessly great message.  I also appreciate watching him smile as he sees his step-son falling for Cher.  Saying nothing about his protective behavior and then seeing that knowing smile, it's pretty cute.

          Perhaps my favorite scene is when Dionne is learning how to drive and accidentally gets on the highway in LA.  I laughed hysterically as they all screamed, convinced they were going to die.  I'm quite sure that this has nothing to do with my personal feelings about driving in LA.  How dare you even suggest it?  Ok, it does, but it's still a great scene.

          Another thing I appreciate about this film is what it does with the character of Frank Churchill.  In this movie, his name is Christian and he's gay.  I appreciate this so much more.  He has complex realities to deal with, he's not intentionally trying to lead Cher on.  Once he realizes that she's a little too into him, he backs off.  I appreciate that.  I never enjoy watching characters be total jerks, even when they have good reasons for it.  I have never been a fan of how Frank Churchill used Emma to hide his engagement to Jane Fairfax (who he is awful to throughout the story until the very end).  He doesn't deserve any of the women in my opinion.  In this version, Christian just becomes Cher's really good friend, and I prefer it this way.

          Maybe I'm just an old soul.  I don't think I've ever really enjoyed stories set in high school, with all the antics and drama that come with them.  Even though this film is making fun of the high school dynamics, it's still not my favorite thing to watch.  Yes, the drama does make a bit more sense when it's with high-schoolers.  Emma would have been 21 according to the book, but in some ways, her more juvenile antics make more sense as a 16-year-old character.  But watching a very drama-filled high school rendition of Emma sort of made me cringe.  Emma is not my favorite story to begin with, and setting it in high school was too much for me.  Perhaps I'm just too old.  Or maybe I've always been too old.

If there are other Jane Austen adjacent movies that are really good, I'd love to hear about them.  Is there anything that I simply must watch?

Other Austen Adaptation Rankings

To see my ranking of Every Jane Austen Adaptation, go here.
For my discussion/ranking of all the Pride and Prejudice adaptations, you can go here.
For my discussion/ranking of all the Persuasion Adaptations, you can go here.
For my discussion/ranking of all the Emma Adaptations, you can go here.
For my discussion/ranking of all the Sense and Sensibility Adaptations, you can go here.
For my discussion/ranking of all the Mansfield Park Adaptations, you can go here.

For my discussion of the Lady Susan Adaptation (Love and Friendship), you can go here. 
For my discussion/ranking of all the Northanger Abbey Adaptations, you can go here.

I have a whole page dedicated to Jane Austen where you can find my rankings of different movie adaptations and essays etc.

All Things Jane Austen

Hope Writer Challenge - Remember

Today for @hopewriters writing challenge #hopewriterlife the topic is Remember.

When we talk about remembering it is important to keep in mind that memory is not perfect. It is perfectly possible to forget something that felt momentous at the time whereas seemingly insignificant things can linger for years to come.

I find that it is almost more important to record the little things that happen. The small moments that mean so much in life because life is not a straight forward journey. For me, I'm making sure to record the little things that surprise me during this time of global pandemic. I want to remember in years to come the things that made me smile in the midst of tragedy, the moments of friendship that lightened my load and encouraged me. I want to record for posterity the things that surprised me during this time and the things that I learned.

I used this double photo (in a spinning double sided frame) for today's image because I feel it represents life both in its journey and its singular strength and beauty. There are things I wish I could forget about this time, burdens I do not wish to bear. This frame sits on my desk to remind me that life is a journey much like a spiral staircase. It's as much about going sideways and around as it is about going up. Progress in life is often accomplished by going many steps sideways before you go forward.

On the other side is a photo of two buildings from two very different ages, both beautiful. It is straight lines and reflections. These buildings tell me that strength and beauty look different in different times. Every age of your life holds a different piece of your truth. Your strength and beauty grows and changes with time reflecting your progress, your journey. You are no less strong or beautiful for having different shapes and emphases in different ages of your life. Even as you reinvent yourself, it is built upon your old strength, just as the older building is reflected in the windows of the newer one.

May this remind you, as it does me, that even if you're different from the other buildings, you are still beautiful. You are still strong. You just need to keep following your own lines. Be your own building, for that is where your strength and beauty lies. 

Remember that and it will help you through the tough days when all your steps go sideways and you cannot see the end of the winding stairs. 

Remember too, that even when nobody around you looks like you, you are strong and beautiful and that your steps will wind upwards slowly even when you can't see it.

The Loneliness of a Stranger

The smell of coffee and cigarettes clung to her with the same loneliness that drove her speech.  A rambling collection of things were strung together in a strangely proud, and yet deeply lonely, conversation.  No, conversation is the wrong word.  We didn't converse so much as she talked and I listened.  I had gathered almost instinctively that she just needed to be heard, seen.

She told me that her Mom had passed and she was looking to become reconnected.  I am guessing that was where her loneliness originated.  She recounted a story where she and her mother had walked into the museum when it was closed but a meeting had been going on.  They were graciously allowed to wander the museum while the meeting continued.

She told me of the way she was only just realizing that all the places she likes to visit in Mexico and the US have turned out to be Kumeyaay sites.  She feels she is being drawn to them.  Maybe it's because she senses the deep roots of community in those places and she is drawn to them now that she feels alone in the world.

An intelligent woman, it rankled her in the way a familiar sadness does that she needed assistance when she couldn't reach a taller shelf.  Perhaps too it chafed at her that I was not less informed on the subjects in which she wanted to be superior.  It seemed important to her that she prove herself to me as someone who is well informed.

All I really know is that a day later I'm still contemplating the loneliness of that woman.  I feel her loss and sadness keenly and in my own way I'm grieving for her.  Sometimes I feel as though I see more than people intend for me to see.  Sometimes I think I can see right through a person to their deepest pains when they talk.  Is that a gift or a curse?  I can't do anything to help this woman, but maybe listening was enough.  We all have different roles to play in each other's lives, maybe yesterday she simply needed to be reminded that there are people in the world who will still listen.

Let's be Old Fashioned Anglo-Saxons...

and write poetry.

That is, I was thinking there should be more poetry done in the Anglo-Saxon style using kenning.  Recently, I was thinking about how much fun it is to describe things in lengthy poetic phrases.  My favorite from reading Anglo-Saxon poetry, oh so many years ago, was the way they described the sea as the whale's road.

So, naturally, when this sprang to mind recently I decided I should write my own poem using kenning. Oh right, I haven't defined it yet and you may not wish to look it up just now, being as eager as you are, I am sure, to read my poem.  So, I'll just define it for you.  Kenning is when you use a poetic phrase to describe a word instead of just using that word.  Rather than saying you rowed a boat across the sea you would say that you rowed a boat across the whale's road.  A kenning for dragon would be fire-breather.  It's not a difficult poetic concept, nothing like conforming to a strict meter.  However, I think it's a lovely literary device.

Right, so now that we've defined kenning, I won't keep you in suspense any longer.  I know you are all dying to hear a little Anglo-Saxon styled poetry.  What would your day be without it?  Bleak.  I know.  Don't worry, I understand your concern about the dearth of kenning in modern society.  So, without further ado, here is the word pile of the day:

I make myself comfortable in the ocean's sand-box;
As the birds' highway lifts my hair in playful delight.
I build a tan grainy castle for the rolling water to devour;
While my toes find freedom from their leather plight,
My fingers find purpose in their tiny ground-pebble creations;
And my face grows warm with smiles in the day's ending light.

When a Glass Heart Shatters

In September I asked this question and I meant everything that follows.  I'm posting it now because I think a lot of people go through life shatterings and feel alone and don't know what to do about it.  So, here is what I lived through:

What do you do with your life when your heart has been shattered into thousands of jagged pieces of broken glass?  All of them crumbled into a glittering heap of broken dreams that were once shiny and new, now lying flat on their faces in the road tarnished by dirt and no longer reflecting hope.

Some people have advised gathering all these jagged pieces of your heart together, picking them up and continuing down the same path you were on before.  I've looked at all their sharp edges and balked.  Gathering them up will only cut up my hands.

There is no mending of broken glass.  It's broken, it can't be put back together, picking up the fragments is dangerous to the safety of the rest of me.  I don't need to bleed from other places while I try hopelessly to salvage broken portions of my heart.

Over the last few years, I've sort of put a fence around my heart.  Caution tape and orange plastic fences around the scene of the accident.  Head on collision, lots of broken glass all in a heap.  Every so often on weekends, I stop by to marvel at the wreckage.  Even less often I come prepared with gloves and tweezers and I stoop down close to the pile.  I'll gather up two pieces of glass and glue them together and then leave them off to the side.  Maybe one day they'll function again, but I don't hold my breath.  There is one chunk of my heart still functioning and I've left it in there for examination by experts at the scene.

When these experts are on shift they do detective work and try to figure out where things went wrong and I more or less give the whole thing a really wide berth.  I don't walk the same path anymore.  I don't do the same things.  I've essentially left my heart in it's crumbled little pile and carried on with the one chunk I have left.

What's the point of picking up the pieces?  The world isn't what we want it to be.  It's not our bloody oyster.  It's the way it is.  Cold, impersonal, brutal and real.  It doesn't care if your heart gets involved in a twenty car pile up on the freeway, or is beaten with a bat, or gets thrown against a wall at the end of a relationship.  Whether you've lost someone, lost a dream, lost a whole life, lost all hope, it makes no difference.  The world is just the way it is and stumbling around brokenly carrying bloody handfuls of shattered glass isn't going to change that.

No, you can't just go on.  You'll never be the same.  Even if you miraculously managed to piece together your heart and glue it together with a billion uneven fractures into a whole heart you wouldn't be the same.  Even if you gathered every tiny sliver of glass up and not a single piece was left lying in the street you wouldn't be the same.  You would always have the scars, the fractures that were just a little bit weaker, the chance you could shatter again more easily, and the memory.  Even if you melted all of your glass fragments down and reformed them again you would remember that once they laid shattered in a heap, alone, broken, hopeless in a gutter.  And you would feel more fragile for it.

So knowing this, knowing all of this and looking at the sad pile of broken glass on the ground that used to belong to me, what do I do?  Solitude is calling to me but it offers no respite.  It calls in the way that solitude calls to a wounded animal.  It wants me to slink off to a solitary place and hope for a peaceful death.  My wounds, however, are not fatal.  They are of the marring variety, the sort that almost make you wish you'd died but leave you unmercifully in a state of sadly altered life.

Never.

The word that caused this shattering with a single blow.  It's finality gripping and crushing and harsh.

So where do you go from here?  Part of my life has ended violently, shattered and gone.  I see it lying there hopelessly fractured.  How can there be a forward now?  My cat nature tells me that I cannot go either forward or back.  That leaves me left and right.  But both options seem hopeless when faced with the jagged remains of what used to be a heart and the dreams that are gone forever.

Maybe I will lie here, curled up near the scene of the crime and wait for an answer on what comes next.  I hope God is listening because he is also involved in this wreck.  But I have lost hope that he will answer.

So, what do I do? 

If you want to know what I did with my life and my heart in the months that followed, the continuation post: Mending a Heart of Glass, will be posted soon.

Stars in the Darkness

The stars had fallen, but some of them so slowly that nobody realized they were falling until it was too dark to see anymore.  The dark, gem-black of the sky had once been pierced by the bright lights of stars.  Or so the passerby who saw it years ago have told me.  Lately the sky felt dark and stormy.  The few stars left were so lonely they almost felt out of place.  I had been staring into the blackness so long that the missing stars didn't strike me as unusual.

Photo via Flickr by Kristin Jona 

So many years ago that it felt like a dream, I had watched the first star fall and mourned it's precipitous descent.  I held it in my hands, cradling that dying dream.  And then I laid it to rest beneath the protective limbs of a tree; on a hill where it could still see the sky.  I didn't want it to feel as alone as I felt.

As I lived through some dark times the stars kept falling.  I stopped noticing their fall.  It somehow felt natural now that the light would slowly be extinguished and the dreams would fade.  The blackness felt inevitable.  The time when the sky was full of stars and the world still had a hopeful light was so far away it felt like I'd imagined it in dreams of a better time that never was.  A time that could never be again.

Photo via Flickr by Stephen Rahn 

How long have I occupied this lonely hill with my fallen dreams alone?  Who can say?  I sit here in the dark, keeping my sorrowful, personal vigil.  I no longer mourn the stars sprinkled around my feet.  I thought it was only a matter of time til they fell.  I was so wrapped up in the emotion of the darkness that I didn't stop to ask why they were falling; all I knew was that I couldn't stop it.  My despair was as large as the sky, crushing and endless.

Then, suddenly, the night was different.  I realized in a moment that I wasn't as alone as I thought.  The warmth of friendship can be as shocking and illuminating as summer lightning.  A figure in the darkness, a friend, stopped and sat with me to share my dark inner vigil.  I was not surprised by their presence but I hadn't expected them to stop and sit with me in the dark.

Without so much as a word they glanced at the sky and then down at the piles of fallen stars.  I felt their sadness at the state of my night sky.  Seeing it through their eyes I could now see how empty and dark the sky felt with its bright dreams lacking.  I had no words to offer back to them about the state of things.  I had only silence and pain to offer.

Photo via Flickr by Martin Fisch

My silence didn't scare them.  We sat in quiet stillness surveying the darkness for some time.  Then gently they started collecting up my fallen stars, gathering up my darkened dreams, stacking my broken hopes up tenderly.  I asked what they were doing.  "We are going to put your dreams back up in the sky where they belong" they said.
"But, they are dark, they have lost their fire" I said.
"So, we will light them again."
"How will we do that?" I asked with a doubtful hope beginning to flicker in my chest.
"With love" they said and they reached out.
I held out an upturned hand to them.  Gently, into my palm, they placed a single dark star.

I looked down at one lonely broken dream and it felt heavier and heavier in my hand.  I cradled it with  both hands crying.  Gently they added their hands to mine to help still their shaking.  When I finished mourning the brokenness of my dream they closed my fingers around the star and added their hands around mine.  With four hands supporting my dream they said with the firmest gentleness "With love" and together with hearts open we re-lit my dream.

Original photo via Flickr by Leland Francisco

Tears now sparkled with light as they helped me release my rekindled dream into the sky.  It floated higher and higher until it joined it's few remaining star brethren and made them just a little bit brighter again.  And with the joy that followed, the love, friendship and hope flowed out of my heart and re-lit all the stars at my feet.

Photo via Flickr by Nic Redhead

As suddenly as my first star had fallen I was relighting my dreams and we were throwing them back up into the sky.  Lanterns lit with love and hope they floated upwards.  Being surrounded by brightly lit dreams is beautiful and magical.

Photo via Flickr by Jirka Matousek

With stars streaming upwards around us, I looked at my friend.  They smiled, "You deserve it," they said.

I smiled, my heart as bright as the stars.

We painted the night with dreams and light.

Photo via Flickr by Judy Schmidt

**********************************************************************

Photo via Flickr by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

With love to all the friends who have helped me stumble through the darkness and have with the gentlest most insistent love helped me rekindle my dreams.

Words rarely express the depths of emotion we want them to.  This is my attempt to express some of my gratefulness to those who have walked beside me through the dark.

I wouldn't be here without you.  You have helped light my darkness.

I hope that I can be even a small source of light for you in return.



My dreams are as vast as the sky, bright and limitless.

Photo via Flickr by Alessandro Caproni

Sleepless nights: racing thoughts and looming questions?

I hate those long sleepless nights; those dark nights where your thoughts prey on you.  Every time that your head hits the pillow your heart races and those dark thoughts crawl out.  Those dark thoughts that hide in the dark corners of your mind, lying in wait til you turn off the lights, then they come slinking out.

I've been dwelling with them so often lately that I've come to categorize these dark thoughts into two distinct types.  Of late I've had two different types of sleepless nights.  Perhaps the best way to explain them is to describe all these dark thoughts as insects.

The first type of sleepless nights is what I'll call chaotic ant style.   These are the nights where you turn off the lights and a million tiny questions that have been hiding in the corners of your mind run out and race around.  Your heart races and thousands of questions run across your mind, hurrying in and scurrying out.  Barely giving you time to even answer the question for yourself, you are just subject to the barrage of thousands of questions running around you now that the lights are out.  It's overwhelming, your heart races at the sheer number of things you've been pushing back into the corners to deal with later.  You can't sleep.  The questions are not friendly, but they are not weighty.  They run around your mind the way that a mass of ants runs around after it's line has been disturbed.  A nice little train of thought in the daylight, the second the light goes off you've wiped your hand across the ant line and chaos ensues.  All the little questions you were ignoring or putting off til later run around frantically and confused, not sure where they belong or how to get back to normal.  By themselves each question is harmless but in such numbers, the situation is overwhelming. You panic.  The questions run around your mind panicked.  You don't sleep.  It could end there or the tiny questions could get nastier and start to bite you. Who knows what is in store for you on chaotic ant style sleepless nights.

The second type of sleepless night is very different and I'll call it looming spider style.  This type of night is usually dominated by one looming question.  It has hidden deep in a web in the corner of your mind.  You know it has to be in there somewhere but you haven't seen it.  It doesn't just get frantic when the lights go out the way that ant style thoughts do.  No, no.  This is much more sinister.  This question is the big ugly kind.  It hides in the day because you're actually afraid to ask it.  You don't want to know the answer because of the three possible options for answers.  You've tried not to think about it because you know the answer to this dark question is either bad or worse.  Despite your attempts to not think about it you've come up with roughly three possible terrible answers to this looming question.  But at night, you discover it has more legs.  More ugly ways this question could be answered.  This questions fears discovery.  It preys on your mind in the darkness.  Slowly.  Methodically.  This is less of the heart-pounding overwhelming problem and more of the lie awake, cry, or be forced to get up and beat back that question with light and activity.  I have a few of these looming spiders I'm afraid to say.  One of them is named How.  He creeps out whenever there is a tricky situation that I don't know how to deal with.  How lurks around when I'm trying to figure out how to mend a relationship or how to get out of a jam.  He is often accompanied by his buddy What.  He lurks around with "What just happened?" and "what should I do about this?" situations.  Sometimes How and What creep around together, sometimes one comes out and then trades places with the other.

But the looming spider I'm most afraid of is bigger and uglier than that.  He likes to wait til it's extra late and I'm extra tired and he looms over my bed.  His name is Why.  I fear him and he knows it.  He is the biggest, the ugliest and the as yet undefeated monster of my sleepless nights. For those of you who like Lord of the Rings, think of Shelob the spider.  The only respite from the looming Why is on nights where it has already fed before I try to sleep.

Don't get me wrong there are some facts that keep me up at night.  Not everything that makes me bleary-eyed and cross in the morning is a question.  But it seems that facts and darker realities can be met with some amount of peace and acceptance.  It is the questions that truly haunt me when the lights go out and the questions that rob me of my rest.

Hello, Handbasket!

Today I find myself concerned because I have stopped for a second, looked around and realized I'm sitting in a handbasket.  Yes, this is a metaphor.  And when you are sitting in a metaphorical handbasket you know what your ultimate destination is going to be.  If you don't, I applaud you and I would appreciate life advice.

Now, in the moment of inevitable re-evaluation that this sort of handbasket sitting causes, I thought about how I had arrived in the center of this particular handbasket.  Life has a strange way of wending around like a lazy river.  It takes its own time, bending here and swirling there.  Moving in a muddled way that can take a distracted traveler by surprise.  One moment you've put into the river in a canoe, knowing exactly what direction you are headed.  The next while you take a moment to admire the scenery, you realize that you are suddenly in the eddy of an oxbow facing entirely the opposite direction from the one you expected and your canoe has magically turned itself into a handbasket.

At moments like this, I like to assess my life and try to figure out which bend in the river has put me in this precise handbasket.  So, I looked around at a few of my fellow travelers.  A few of them looked shocked as though they'd been newly apprised of our destination.  A couple of them looked grim as though they'd known about our dire situation for a long time but seen no way out of the inevitable.  Not a one of us was entirely sure how the river of life had turned us around and spit us out into this handbasket on the highway to... well, you know.

Hindsight has proven the few souls that bailed earlier to be the wiser travelers on this path.  Alas, I was not so wise as they.  I have only now seen the handwriting on the road signs.  So here we are, a sad group of somewhat more or less shocked travelers in a handbasket speeding down the highway.  I gape as we roar past another group of people along the side of the road feverishly bent over their wickerwork; weaving a new handbasket for their own impending journey.  That's when I realized that not a single fellow traveler was arguing about whether we were, in fact, on our way to H*ll with impressive speed, we were merely quibbling about the ETA.

The way things have gone today, I think it might be wise to invest in wicker.

Welcome Sweet Shrouding Fog of Unknown Futures

Goodnight World,

Rest in the peaceful shroud of unknown tomorrows.  May the languid winds of unformed futures gently smooth your weary brow.  Too long have you worried over the unnamed monsters of the morrow; turning desperately this way and that to thwart them.  Morning's harsh light may part the mist and reveal to you the fearful outlines of Scylla and Charybdis.  But here, now, in these final hours of rest welcome the sweet shrouding fog of unknown futures.  Scylla's slashing teeth cannot steal your slumber from you.  Neither can Charybdis change your course this final night of sightless sleep.  Inevitable fate awaits you, World, one man, or even many being powerless to change it.  Fate, ah The Fates, there is no room for fear in the unfamiliar future they have fixed for you.  Mist will rise, the shroud will part and tomorrow you will stride forth boldly into the fray, the fight, the future.  Tomorrow, deeds having been done, the course of the future will unfurl before you in all its fury.  Scylla and Charybdis will greet you and the terrible consequences of the course set before you will be plain to see.  Tonight, embrace the twilight of unrevealed tribulations.  Lay fear aside, thank all the stars that you were not born into Cassandra's curse and gather the dusk around you in the final slumber in the blissfully unknown future ahead of you.

History was Made This Very Evening

Most evenings do not find me communing with the collective spirit of sport frenzied enthusiasm.  In fact, most evenings that involve me and sports in the same room usually involve my unbridled invective against the barbarity of this sport or the stupidity of that one.  It's not even that I hate sports.  I simply hate watching other people play them.  I'd so much rather play the sport myself, or do anything actively, rather than watch others play sports.  However, this evening was different.

Now, maybe it's my deep American roots, but I've always had a fondness for a good ballgame.  (Not that I watch baseball often, but I tolerate the odd game here and there because I like the game.)  As a child I remember cheering on my Dad while he played in corporate ballgames.  I remember playing t-ball and Dad teaching us to bat.  My brother and I loved it when he would do the "real pitcher's wind up".  No doubt he went easy on us but we felt like pros when we would hit these real pitches.  As slightly older children we taught our dog to outfield for us so that we could take turns batting and pitching without having to run and get the ball ourselves.

So, this evening found me captivated by the world series game between the Chicago Cubs and the Cleveland Indians.  Mom, who has always been a die-hard Cubbies fan was too nervous to even sit in the room.  She feared that if she watched the Cubs would lose.  So she hovered in the adjacent doorway, fretting and finding busy work to keep her hands occupied between running in to see a play and running out of the room so as not to jinx her beloved Cubbies.

And there is something special about Cubbies fans.  They've been fans, dedicated fans, for the last 108 years without any world series wins to their credit, not since their last win in 1908.  To be fair, the Indians hadn't won a world series since 1948.  So, the stands were full of tense faces, hands over mouths and distractedly holding nervously onto baseball hats as fans of both teams watched 10 close innings.  And what a game it was.

The enthusiasm was high throughout the game.  It was exciting because it was such a close game.  With the batters who nobody expected anything of sometimes bringing it home.  So, when the Indians hit a ball at the bottom of the tenth the atmosphere was tense up until the moment that the Cubs' first baseman caught the ball and made the final out, winning the world series and delighting Cubbies fans everywhere.  A historic moment, 108 years of bad luck, curse, dryspell or whatever you would like to call it, was finally broken.  Just think about that for a minute.  People were born Cubbies fans, lived their whole lives and died without seeing the Cubs win a world series.  Almost two generations of people passed while waiting for tonight.  It has been pointed out that the last time the Cubs won the world series, Al Capone, Mark Twain, and Thomas Eddison were alive.  Tonight linked us back to a time that was a full century ago.  And I was caught up in the magic of the excitement, camaraderie and importance of this moment.  I watched history being made.  What a great feeling, knowing both teams played so well, were so close and wanted it so badly.  What a great game!  What a moment to remember.

Rocky and Shadow's Guide to Street Food

Popcorn is always a fine choice. - Photo via Flickr "face it" by Amancay Maahs

As the air turns chilly and thoughts of pumpkin spice everything floats in our heads, it is time to consider enjoying a pumpkin spice latte on a walk through the freshly chilled air.  A lazy afternoon stroll in the autumn air capped off with the perfect snack from a street food vendor is the recipe for a perfect Saturday afternoon.  And it just so happens that combining walks and street food is a favorite pastime of Rocky and Shadow.  So, it stands to reason that they would know the ins and outs of all the best local street foods.  "Everyone raves about street tacos," says Shadow "but my personal favorite is sidewalk popcorn.  All those delicious little kettle-corn kernels just sprinkled in the cracks of the sidewalk.  They brighten up even the longest most tiring walks."

The finest street popcorn - Photo via Flickr by Nadia Hatoum

Shadow is always on the lookout for tasty morsels left behind by foolish humans.  Rocky is more interested in the walking, but even he agrees that Saturdays are the best for finding street treats.

Photo via Flickr "Sunbathing Popcorn" by Mika

"Saturday evening walks always produce the best smells," Rocky tells us.  "Market day is a big deal here.  Everyone likes it.  Dogs and people abound throughout the morning, and by evening the very best aromas have blended together into a perfect Saturday evening sunset of smells.  There's really nothing like it."

Rocky and Shadow are foodies.  They like to regale their new friends with stories of the best foods they've found in the area.  Gutter apples sprinkled with flakes of perfectly blended autumn leaves sound almost too magical to be real.  But Rocky claims he found one once, and Shadow seems to remember with great pain that he didn't stumble across this find himself.  Also to Rocky's credit is the discovery of several quaint little neighborhood spots that have produced bush leftovers in the form of par-eaten ribs with a hint of earthy soil sauce.  

Lest you think that all the great discoveries are Rocky's, it should be noted that Shadow can claim discovery of the motor-oil infused road crackers that are a new and growing trend in the neighborhood, much to both dogs' continued delight.  While the absolute favorite is still bite-sized bread crusts and a hearty helping of veggies wrapped gently in grease-soaked paper and laid aside in, dare I say, hole-in-the-wall eateries near the sidewalk; they are only for the most discerning of foodies.  

Aren't these wrappers mouth-wateringly beautiful? - Photo via Flickr "Cupcake wrappers" by Joy

If all of this talk of street food has made you hungry, Rocky and Shadow cannot recommend market day enough.  As a matter of fact, they are always on the lookout for the latest and greatest in food trends in the area.  And don't worry, for those of you who love dessert but are watching waste-lines, be on the lookout for a local rosebush cafe that offers delectable and low-carb candy wrappers with just a hint of chocolate.  With so many irresistible street-food options right around the corner, it's hard to see how life could get any better.

Delectable low-carb candy wrappers - Photo via Flickr "laziness" by Leonard J Matthews

What is my Car squeaking about?

"Chitty squeak, clackety screech" the dashboard in the car sings merrily as we drive about town. It sings like it's someone's Great Aunt Ethel, with a high-pitched voice that is both annoying and familiar; nattering away non-stop as you drive.  Maybe my car is Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's stately relative Great Aunt Ethel.  You don't think cars have great aunts and sing?  Well, apparently you haven't met my car.

If my car really is a Great Aunt Ethel type, it is no doubt telling you to "be careful, and slow down, and watch out for that squirrel, and did you know that your cousin three times removed on your father's side had recently bought those horrid foot gloves that masquerade as shoes and I can't see how it's going to improve her appearance any, and don't you just love those red bougainvillea plants they planted in the median?"

Or maybe it's not Great Aunt Ethel after all.  Maybe the car is singing its own song about roads, stoplights and gas tanks and the smell of freshly paved asphalt roads in the morning.  Perhaps, the car is singing a song that goes "every day out of the junk yard is a good day!"

Maybe I'm driving a cheery realist around town.  He knows and accepts his fate with a dash of cheer, realism, and song.  Its squeaky rattling tune tells of its happiness to be living the life of an automobile to the fullest.  I have enough gas and enough working parts to keep driving, so driving I will go.  Three cheers for working motors!

Or maybe my car is plotting mutiny.  It plans to wait til we have set sail on a long journey of enormous importance and break down leaving us stranded in an inhospitable section of shark infested waters.  Maybe its little creaking symphony is the mutinous mumblings of a car that fancies itself abused and overworked that will crash on purpose at the earliest convenience with a raucous shout of "Drink up mechanics yo ho!" right before it careens full sail into a ditch with faulty brakes.  Just maybe.  Of course, I could just be imagining all of this because I have an advanced case of scurvy induced madness, anything is possible, right?

Whatever it is my car sings or mutters about, it certainly does so at a constant rate.  Sometimes the squeaking cacophony is almost soothing while others it's enough to drive you mad in a mere handful of blocks.  Maybe if I roll a window down a bit it will drown out Great Aunt Ethel's helpful nattering.  Or perhaps, I ought to join in with the song... "every day out of the junk yard is goooooooood day!"  Everyone can use a healthy dose of cheery realism once in awhile, right?

Beards being radical and radically maddening?

This ancient stone figure is looking pretty shady with his curly beard. - Photo via Flickr "Beard" by Quinn Dombrowski

Tajikistan shaves beards to stop radicalization...

Shaving beards to stop radicalization?  You can read the article here.  And you will probably come to the same conclusion that almost any rational person would.  "That's stupid" you'll say.  "Mad," says I.  And we'd be right you know.

This is the maddest thing you've ever heard of.  And it's not just because it's the sort of headline that you can imagine an insane person like myself coming up with.  It's not just that you suspect it will turn out to be a piece written by The Onion.  Oh no.  It's not even the fact that it's true that makes it the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard of.  (Though I don't know what you've heard of, so perhaps it is...)

But the real truth is that this is the maddest thing to happen in the modern world precisely because it's been done before.  You are laughing, I can tell.  You don't believe me.  But it's all perfectly true.  The strangest things in this world are the facts.  No great work of fiction can ever rival the madness of real life.  "But, seriously," you think to yourself.  "It can't have happened before."

"Ah," I say knowingly.... "but it did.... many years ago in Russia."

The beard revolts.  Peter the 1st decided that Russia needed to be westernized.  And one of the ways that he thought he should go about this was to dispense with all the beards in his country and ensure that he and his countrymen were all clean shaven.  So he instituted a beard tax and tried to get the populace at large to shave.  Just as the Tajikistan police have been shaving the beards of their male population.  Since, beards in Russia were not just a choice of facial hair, but an ingrained part of the culture, the beard shaving was not met with much favor.  And I'm sure it will not be met with much favor in Tajikistan either.

Now, the article states that Tajik culture is what they are trying to uphold with this, er, practice.  But what it fails to mention is that beard wearing is very much a part of Muslim culture, which constitutes a whopping 99% of their citizens.  So, say what you like about beards being cultural.  Even if you can convincingly argue that beards are not an ingrained part of Tajik culture I still can't see anyone being pleased to be forcibly shaved.  Hair, whether facial or otherwise is rather personal and being forced to shave is not just shocking it's insulting as well.  Having a beard does not make you radical.  However, as the article suggests, having your beard forcibly shaved might make you into a radical.

In Russia, the people weren't having any of the beard shaving.  They revolted.  The beard revolts were large, violent and well, very Russian.  But the point is, forcing someone to shave their beard never solved anything.  It didn't westernize the Russian peasant automatically and it won't de-radicalize anyone automatically either.  It will only incite anger and possibly violence.

And the maddest thing of all is not that it's happening, which I think you and I might both agree is mad, but that it's happened before.

There really is nothing new under the sun.

Sadly, for those of us historians unfortunate enough to be well read, we are doomed to watch history repeating itself.  Slowly unfolding with it's inevitable consequences right before our eyes while we shout and rage in impotent frustration.

Just call me Cassandra.

(In case you aren't up on your ancient history.... ironic considering the post, no?  Anyway, I'm referring to that prophetess of Greek mythology; doomed to know the future but cursed so that nobody would ever believe her.  Yes, you ancient Greeks, thanks a lot for that one.)

And if I've just left you depressed I will give you a peace offering.  I'll leave you with two different articles.  An article on beards that is going in the opposite direction.  Read it here and don't dwell too much on the madness of the world.  And if that isn't enough to raise your spirits I offer you The Onion's take on beards here.  Just to amuse you, or to make you pause and think about how differently beards can be viewed.  Radical?  Conversation tool?  Hipster?

Photo via Flickr "beard" by urban_data