Sara and Muriel Help Me Keep Morphing

Twice now I've encountered women in books who have no interest in being married and encumbered with the burdens of being a wife and mother. Both times in young adult fiction. Both times in novels written in verse. Both times in period pieces; in the past. One was a full-grown woman, completely ensconced in her life choice, the other a girl, headed toward her choice and destiny. Both times made me think about being single myself. Both times I was so drawn to these characters, it caught me by surprise.

The first is the character of Sara Chickering in Karen Hesse's novel, Witness. The narrative brings together the voices of multiple members of a small Vermont town in 1924 as they are dealing with the influx of the KKK. Each person's voice offers information that weaves together to tell a story. Sara Chickering is a single farmer-woman who chose to remain single after watching her own mother labor as a farm wife and mother. She has not "ended up" single and her aloneness is not the result of being shunned or not chosen by men. Instead it is a clear choice born in young-womanhood and followed to fruition, although it has made her stand out in her community. She is able, as an older person, during the time of the narrative of the book, to provide shelter through a government program for a recent immigrant and his young daughter.

The second is Muriel, in Helen Frost's Crossing Stones. This narrative brings together the voices of two families in rural Michigan in 1917 as their sons go off to war and their daughters struggle to define themselves. There is an easy symmetry in the families and an assumption that the boys and girls will match up and be partnered, but Muriel finds herself questioning this arranged destiny. "Mother: I have no intention of becoming the Mrs. Norman of your imaginary future. Who I am remains to be seen - and I alone intend to be the one to see it." Muriel tells us this on page 15! So early we learn this young woman in 1917 will not be molded easily. And luckily for her, she has a paternal aunt who is fighting for suffrage.

As the reader gets to know Sara Chickering better through her words and thoughts and deeds on Hesse's page, we see she is as maternal as any woman. Her spinsterhood has not rendered her unable to nurture; her singleness has not hardened her femininity. She cares for (the immigrant daughter) Esther as a parent would. As I have experienced myself, the desire to remain child-free does not necessarily mean one is unable to care for children, just that we prefer not to spend our lives doing so. But many assume there is an intrinsic link. "I am not going to have children," I often say to people I encounter in my life. "But you are so good with children," they cry. Yes. I am. I love them. And they love me. But my ability to be good with children and nurture them does not mean I must use that skill as a parent. I get to not do that if I want. And children will come into my life (and have) in other ways, just like Sara Chickering.

Muriel is still a child herself. At 16, she is already questioning the status quo at school and at home, and her parents, although supportive, are cautionary. They tell her she must learn to mind her tongue, to think before she speaks, to not be too forthright with her thoughts or questions. They are raising a daughter, after all, in 1917. When Muriel attempts to write to her friend (not boyfriend) Frank, away at war, her mother is quick - "I'm not aware I know this rule, until I'm embarrassed to be caught breaking it: The gentleman should always be the first to write, Mama informs me. A lady never writes before she has received a letter." Yet two pages later, Muriel's mother says to her daughter after a bout of questioning: "Maybe you won't rock the cradle, Muriel. Some women prefer to rock the boat."

My own parents raised me with similar seeming contradiction in the 1970s and 80s. They raised me that I could be whoever I wanted and do whatever I wanted. But they also asked me to dress more like a lady (in a pre-grunge and grunge world!) and Mom often asked if it would kill me to wear a little make up. They didn't admonish me so much as gently insinuate that being so opinionated might make the boys not like me so much. More than once, my mother said that chasing boys was not appropriate, and that they should call me first, talk to me first. It being a supposed feminist world at that point, I just told her she was crazy and went on with my life. And today, in a supposed post-feminist world, I sometimes wonder if my habits and choices and refusal to live by these rules has contributed to my singleness.

Unlike Sara Chickering and Muriel, I did not know when I was young that I wanted to remain single. I didn't watch my mother stay home, volunteer on the town's finance committee, found the PTA at my elementary school, cook every night of her life without fail, and raise three kids with distaste. I didn't see any of that as burden. I perhaps looked upon my father's life - two jobs and then a switch to a job he was good at but didn't get any real satisfaction from other than being able to provide for us - with a bit of disdain. All that work. Just for money. How tedious. I knew I was a girl, though, and would be a woman. In my family, with all its gender-based practices, I let myself believe I would follow in my mother's footsteps, becoming a wife and mother myself. It wasn't until high school that I started to realize that I wasn't going to easily fit my little square self into that seemingly perfectly round hole.

As I discussed Sara Chickering in class with my classmates this semester, all of whom were far younger than I, I found myself passionate about her. "But," I argued, "here she is, an outsider in her community because she's single and running a farm on her own, but she's got Esther and Leonora to care for. She probably didn't even allow herself before this to know she was so nurturing!" My classmates looked at me, nodded, and moved onto some other topic in the discussion. As I read the end of Muriel's arc of development, leaving home to head to Washington, D.C. to join the suffrage movement herself and to work as a kindergarten teacher (because she is so good with children!), I shed a few tears. There have always been women who have chosen different paths from the norm and there will continue to be.

As I get older and even less romantically attached than ever (if that is even possible), I keep wondering what this is all about. There are a slew of posts on this blog over the past 5 years on this very topic. The past year though, my thoughts have been less about lamenting this state and more about thinking that perhaps this is what was meant for me all along. Perhaps when my revelation came that I didn't want kids, when I was 24 years old, I just wasn't listening enough to catch the other half - that I wanted to stay single and have my life for my own. Is that possible? Could I join the ranks of Sara and Muriel?

Just over 2 years ago, in the heart-broken throes of another lost love possibility, I screamed at my family "If I stay single I will change and never be the same! I will be bitter and I'm so afraid of that!" I was hysterical that day. Losing myself in paranoia and fear and pain. What have I meant when I've said that? I think I mean that I have always wanted to be in a partnership; to be paired up and have another person with whom to face the world and all its adventures. And if I didn't get to have that, I would be so angry, so upset, so disappointed, I would morph somehow into a different person than I was supposed to be. This is a fair assessment, I think. I've never not gotten the things I want: school, jobs, travel opps, adventures. I dream up shit and then I go do it. But this one - not so much.

I think I'm wrong, though. I think I've been wrong. Because I am morphing. I am changing. And it's not for the better or the worse. It is just change. I'm settling into myself. I am feeling more and more like an adult every year. I'm starting not to miss what I've never had. I'm starting to wonder what my life might really be like if I stay single. I think it might be pretty awesome to keep on in this hedonistic, self-centered paradise I've created.

I make choices based on what I want. I love that I have time for things that most of my peers don't because they are so busy being married or being parents. I love that I rent and could care less about owning a house. I love that I can live wherever the hell I want and who gives a shit how good the school system is? I love that all my money is mine and every dime gets spent on me or on whoever I'm giving a gift to that week. I love that all my decisions are made by me and I don't have to check with anyone before I say yes to a request for dinner or a movie or going zipping on a Sunday in October. I love that only my sicknesses mess up my plans. I love that I don't have to worry about anyone else's eating habits. Or anyone else's family. I love all that stuff. LOVE IT.

Sara Chickering and Muriel were both so sure. I'm not. I'm okay with that. I'm often sure about stuff that ends up changing by the time I'm half-way through it. So no matter what comes along, I'll try hard to listen to the messages and not miss things. As I get older, I listen better, because I'm less scared of what I might hear. I can deal with anything. And so I'll carry on, and I'll keep building my rockin' life.

I can tell you this, though. I'm done wasting energy on worrying about it. And that, folks, is true morphing.