#338 Eleanor’s Music- Mary Gordon
I guess you could call Eleanor old-fashioned. Perhaps stubbornly complacent is a better term. It’s not that she is happy or content
with her life, as much as she doesn’t want anything to change.
She had a husband, but they divorced when he admitted his
homosexuality. They are still friends now, and for the last 18 years, she has
lived with her parents, a situation to all of them that seems normal.
“She knew that many people thought it odd, to say nothing of
unhealthy, for her to be living with her parents at age fifty-one…She had long
ago given up that last residue of her embarrassment, which at one time, like a
pile of dried leaves, could be set adrift by the slightest wind, and would
flutter inside her, cause her to put her hand splayed out flat against her
chest.”
“She considered the shape of her life not peculiar, but
original; she lived as she liked; real courage, she believed, was doing what
you believe in, however it appeared.”
Like her parents who never leave the house without
impeccable dress, Eleanor believes the details of her life should be kept from
everyone, including her family. She lives with small enjoyments. These will
rarely change, and anything ugly or new should be avoided or hidden.
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