Before I was a doctoral student (some fourteen, fifteen years before, actually, back before I was a living history instructor on a sailing ship or a documentary filmmaker or an actor or a college student or high school student or junior high student) I used to have an ambition to be a romance novelist.
When I was a sixth grader I wanted to grow up to be a romance novelist in Canada. I wanted to dress everyday in accurate Victorian clothing, and live in an antique country manor. I would have silk dresses, rose bushes pruned like animals, and seventeen cats. I think I imagined I would write my books with an quill and ink well all morning, and then break for tea and scones on the patio in the afternoon.
There was nothing in this fantasy about what my Canadian neighbors might think about me -- even in Canada I don't think this behavior is the norm -- and I doubt I gave it very much thought. I doubt at that age that it would have troubled me to have faced a future as a crazy corset-wearing cat lady.
On the other hand, I am sure I gave a LOT of thought as to what kind of scones they ought to be: raspberry? ginger? chocolate chip? topped with butter, cream or jam? This was the kind of kid I was.
Now I am primarily struck by the boldness of the idea, which does not match my current self-conception. It was a super idea, actually. Why not live in Canada? Why not be some cat-urine-scented thirtysomething version of Anne of Green Gables? What is so wrong with eccentricity? Don't you agree that I should have pursued it further? Do we get a do-over?
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