On little women.

This one is for the girls, and it's long, so stick with me here :) Well for those of you who don't know me, I'll enlighten you to the fact that I deeply get into books and movies and revel in them, usually to the point of tears in most cases, sometimes - more often then not - at ridiculous things, like The Wizards of Waverly Place, (and you can read all about that, as well as my queer knack for crying at kids movies, in a previous blog post.). Luckily, I rarely cry so hard that anyone notices besides a runny nose, but I found today, to my great chagrin, that one of the books I pined over and grumbled over and hated with every particle of my body proved to be, on re-reading, the second most moving book I have ever read, and I pride myself on a wide variety of novels. 

How sad it is that people these days are so caught up in the Vampire Chronicles and such things that they've forgotten how to read a truly good book! Three years ago, in my Harry-Potter mindset (after re-reading the excellent series for about the fourth time) I set about to read the classic Little Women, and only after my mother had forbidden any other book until I read it. As I had attempted to pick it up at least thrice before and always put it down early, it did not bode well. but I got through it, hated it, and resolved never to read it again.

I should have known better than to judge a book from my first reading of it, having had a similar experience with Pride and Prejudice, and after declaring how much I hated the dry book, which I had only read in order to watch the movie, I have promptly re-read it six times. 

This summer, I was about to start my annual summer reading of Harry Potter, when my amazing mother stopped me and told me flat out that I wasn't allowed to read it until I had read Little Men and Jo's boys. Much as it pains me to write, I must honestly say that I have rarely been in such a bad mood about having to read a book. 

And I couldn't put Little Men down. Immediately after it I picked up Jo's Boys, which I had heard from my sister was the weakest of the trilogy, and prepared myself for the worst. 

And never at a book, and rarely in a film, have I cried so much. I don't expect anyone who hasn't read it to understand what it was that made me feel this way, but I felt a keen connection in Louisa May Alcott's writing that made lines to my own family, and she had a way of writing that moved my heart. 

After that, Mom completely banned Harry Potter until Christmas, and though I complained then, now I see that I have to thank her for so much. I put together a book list that maybe some of you saw, but I have, in the course of the summer, expanded far beyond that. This year, I have been to France, London, Middle Earth, Perelandra, The Great Depression, Russia, Outer Space (multiple times) and many other places. 

But then, two days ago, I felt a deep need, suddenly, for something old. Something I had already read, something that would relieve me from the stress of a Tale of Two cities, just for a few days.

I chose Little Women.

Little Women; even the title suggests something great, something really amazing that most people seem to brush past. I started from the very beginning, and from the very beginning began to find something that I had missed my first time around in a haste to be over with it. In the title characters I saw people who I wanted to be, and wanted to have in my life. There's a depth to her book that my frustration had skipped over.
I saw my small vanities in Meg, but I also saw the housewifely woman that I've always wished I could be. In Jo the faults of a hot temper and tactless tongue; I also saw the desperate struggle of always trying, but not always succeeding, to be truly good. 
Beth was the one that truly brought tears to me, because I bear her name (there goes my secret identity), and because she is someone I am constantly wishing to be like, and know that I will never be as good as little Bethy.
My mother calls me "Amy" due to my tendency to make up my own words, or use incorrect ones in context. But out the four girls, Amy is the one I strive the most to be alike to - a true little woman, who won't let herself be taken in my the ways of the world, and though she enjoys life to it's fullest, remains a true lady.
If only we could all be such girls! The timeless struggle for goodness that Louisa May Alcott threads into her story makes me cry - not because it is sad, but because it is beautiful. The simple wishes of the girls' mother and father for them to be no more than "little women" remind me of my own parents' wishes for me and my sisters.
So I'm calling to you girls out there! In today's society it is a hundred times harder to be who God meant us to be, but we need to "shoulder our burdens and toil on" so that we can find the peace that every girl who tries to be her best will find. Little Women shows the beginning of the downhill society, and we are getting it in it's prime. But Mr. and Mrs. March aren't the only parents who pray for their girls to be the female leaders of society - by example, not by wealth or position. Your parents also are begging you, praying for you, and helping you to grow up and be the little women that you were born to be. 
"I've got the key to my castle in the air, but whether I can unlock it remains to be seen." - Little Women
-Rhian