An interesting thing happened last night.
I was in a movie-watching mood.
(this is hardly interesting; this is a very regular occurrence.)
But, what I decided was that I was in the mood for "Little Women".
Usually, when this thought occurs to me,
I feel guilty, and feel the need to wait to watch it
until the next time I see my favorite Sophie.
Wellll, I won't get a chance to watch it with her for a while
so I decided I could watch it by myself.
Now, I have absolutely no problem watching a movie alone.
In fact, I quite enjoy even going to the movie theater alone.
(That might be a problem,
but I'll worry about that tomorrow
as Miss Scarlett O'Hara would say.)
But Little Women, I've never watched by myself.
It's always been with my mom
and then my mom and Sophie,
and recently my mom, Sophie, and Emma Gracie.
We love it a little bit.
We also have a tendency to make parallels between our lives
and the lives of the March Sisters.
My mom is very clearly a "Marmee" figure.
I always think of her when Marmee tells Jo:
"You have so many extraordinary gifts;
how can you expect to lead an ordinary life?
You're ready to go out and find a good use for your talent.
Go, and embrace your liberty.
And see what wonderful things come of it."
or especially when Jo and Amy are fighting and she says:
"It is a very great loss and you have every right to be put out.
But don't let the sun go down on your anger.
Forgive each other, and begin again tomorrow."
That's my mama.
Emma is undoubtedly Amy;
the cute, sweet, unabashedly quirky one,
who would make up a word like "expectuating" or "degratitated"
or say something like "Jo! How could you? Your one beauty!"
in reference to a bad haircut.
And Sophie and I can't ever decide which of us is Jo, and which is Meg.
It completely depends on the day,
and the situation,
who ends up being more of a non-conformist,
and who ends up being the polite one
who gets invited to things like "Belle Gardner's 'coming out' party".
We go back and forth.
I don't think this quandary will be settled until we get married;
We'll have to wait and see who marries a Mr. Brooke,
and who marries a Professor Bhaer.
Here's a little example;
I giggle the whole way through this part,
it reminds me so much of my sisters.
And that pretty much sums us up as kids (and also adults in some ways);
playing some imaginary game that involves dress up clothes,
creating elaborate projects that we all were required to contribute to,
one of us keeping the others in line ("don't say awful, it's slang")
discussing boys;
their "noble brows", and if they have secrets,
and we usually end with some words of wisdom from Emma.
Ahhh I love that movie.
And I usually cry when I watch it,
but I bawled a little bit last night; I'll admit it.
I'm a lucky lucky girl
to have had such a March-sister-esque childhood with my sisters.
It has been quite full of
imagination and laughing and loving
...and more laughing.
Favorite Little Women quotes:
"Butter! Oh isn't butter divinity?" --Amy
"You don't need scores of suitors, you only need one, if he's the right one." --Amy
"You can't even propose without quarreling." --Jo
"I go around throwing away perfectly good marriage proposals..." --Jo
"I don't want to die, I've waited my whole life to be kissed, and what if I miss it?" --Amy
"Marmee, must you speak to everyone about corsets?" --Meg
"In token of my gratitude and as a means of promoting communication between adjoining nations, shouting from windows being forbidden, I shall provide a post office in our hedge, to further encourage the bearing of our souls, and the telling of our most appalling secrets." --Laurie
"Your heart understood mine " --Professor Bhaer
"And so I stepped over the divide between childhood and all that lay beyond." --Jo
