The True and Outstanding Adventures (Part II)

This is one of my favorite covers for the book, "The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters." It is very similar to mine, except that the title is placed above the girl on my copy.

Please Note: This entry will make much more sense if you have already read the entry entitled, "The True and Outstanding Adventures." Take notice that this is titled "(Part II)".

One of the things I love about this book so much is the cover. The little girl, in her pink princess dress, with a crown on her head, skipping across a bright blue sky... waving a sword. And happy. As if princesses are supposed to wave swords. As if she is supposed to be waving a sword. It is yet another personification of the fighting spirit. It is ridiculous to fight a losing battle. It is ridiculous for a princess to wave a sword. And yet, some do it anyway, because they believe what they are fighting for.

It reminds me of the games I played when I was young, and the differences between those games and the games Emily played. I don't mean like boardgames, I mean make-believe. I only know what games Emily played because I read a paper she wrote for a class regarding the effects of childhood games and make-believe on the person that played them.

Example: Emily often played the role of "damsel in distress" when she was younger. She was the princess who had been captured or cursed or whatever, and basically waited for the prince to save her. Now, I don't know Emily well enough to figure out what kind of effect this may have had on her, if any, nor how strong the effect is. But according to Emily's paper, she has trouble making decisions and doing things for herself. She doesn't like being her own advocate. She is uncomfortable being "her own hero," so to speak.

I was rarely, if ever, the damsel in distress. I was the hero's sidekick. I was the victim who was making a great escape. I was the princess waving a sword over her head. What can I say? I was kick-butt. And I've developed a fighting spirit, I assume, because of it. So much so that I would say I don't know when to stop fighting. And when it comes to the point that fighting is futile and I think I may need to stop fighting, I don't know how. I really don't. That is when I turn into Emily. If I have to stop fighting, I can't make my own decisions or do things for myself. Because all I know how to do is struggle and fight and push and make an effort. To stop doing that is like to stop being me. But sometimes, fighting just isn't what you are supposed to do.

Like the princess with the sword, I don't always know my place. Don't you know that you, a princess, aren't supposed to hold a sword, much less run about waving it like a magic wand? Don't you realize that as a princess, you shouldn't fight, but sit demurely on the side and let things play out, hoping that they do so to your advantage? Don't I know that fighting a losing battle is going to cause more pain than good?

Maybe I do. But I just don't know how to not fight. I don't know how to not hope. I don't know how to stop futile fighting, and I don't know how to let go of false hope. So convention says I need to do both of those things, but my consciousness says that forcing myself to do so would be a defiance of my nature, painful, and bad. I don't know who is right. I don't know what to do with my fighting nature and my love of hope.

A friend from church, whom I shall call Sound, told me this. It is something that gives the princess the right to wave the sword and gives me a reason to fight and hope. :

He says that if you are naturally something, it is because you are supposed to be that thing. If you are naturally stubborn, then you are supposed to be stubborn. You weren't given your stubbornness so you could fight it down and force yourself into submission. You weren't given your intense need to stand up so that it's hard for you to sit down. You are made something to be something. The key is to know where to use it. Are you going to stubbornly fight to keep him, or are you going to stubbornly fight for the dignity that he is destroying? Are you going to stubbornly fight to get him back, or are you going to stubbornly fight to keep yourself as strong and self-reliant as you were before this happened? As strong and sure of yourself as you naturally are? As you are most likely meant to be?

<3 o.

p.s. : Sound's words were much shorter and to the point. Parts of what I included were the things that went unspoken, but that I felt were very much what he was trying to get me to realize.

The True and Outstanding Adventures

"The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters" is a grand and magnificent book. It follows the story of Olivia Hunt as she tries desperately to keep together her unravelling life, and her sister, Madeline Hunt, who is fighting vainly and ferociously against the leukemia and treatments that are wearing her closer to death. Olivia Hunt is somewhat of a pessimist, but she is also a fighter. Maddie, as Madeline is called, is an optimist, and a very idealistic one at that. This drives Olivia insane. Olivia is willing to fight where she thinks it might work, or where Maddie shames her into action, but she does not believe in helping everyone that she can or fighting needlessly or anything romantic like that.

Olivia is also working, throughout this book, on a movie adaptation of Don Quixote. Now, I have never read Don Quixote, but here is what I gather from what I've read about it: Don Quixote is basically crazy and reads nothing but books about chivalry and knighthood. He decides to become a knight, and he picks this random farmer, Sancho Panza, to be his squire. So they ride around, and Sancho takes care of Quixote while he is doing crazy things, like attacking windmills and freeing criminals -- all for the sake of love and good. At the end of the book, Quixote is dying, and he renounces all of his actions and beliefs -- about heroism, chivalry, and whatnot. He says that he knew everything he was doing was nonsense and that he had done it anyway for the sake of those good things, but now he was renouncing it. Sancho can't stand to hear Quixote say this, because, even though the things Quixote did were crazy, and somewhat pointless, Sancho has become infected with the ideals of heroism, bravery, and doing good. So even after Quixote has died, and renounced his own knighthood, those beliefs live on in Sancho Panza.

And that is kind of what happens with Olivia and Maddie. After Maddie dies, Olivia finds a note from her that says Maddie knew all along that she couldn't beat the cancer, and that she knew it was a helpless cause. She said she fought anyway, for the sake of fighting, and for being brave, and for others. Olivia, despite being a pessimist, starts to realize the point of fighting a losing battle -- not for the victory, but for the qualities you stand for in your fight.

I have a point. I'm getting there.

I live in reality. I'm a pessimist by nature. Bad things happen -- bad things are about the only thing that happen. I am convinced. But, I was raised on fairy tales, and I love them. I am an optimistic pessimist. I believe that everything is, by nature, evil. But I have this weak, pulsing, thing inside me that hopes that some things might defy their evil nature and make good.

It's a false hope. As with this situation with Han, the hope doesn't belong there. No matter if he says he loves me, no matter if I love him, no matter how hard I fight for hope of fixing this -- it won't happen. It's futile to fight, in this case.

And yet, and yet... there's that hope. That naturally shiny thing that the fairy tales have carved into me, and that little silver life line that Han has thrown to me by saying that he would like to come back to me and that he still loves me. The pessimist in me knows that that is probably not true. But that isn't enough to severe that life line. Because I hope what he said is true.

So is it time for Don Quixote to lay down his spear and set aside his armor and renounce his battles for love and goodness and the victory of all that is right? Or does he continue battling to keep the hope of those things alive?

<3 o.