My dear Mermaid Darlings of the Stillwater Petticoat Society,
I wish you could come round for tea this evening. I would put out the good cups, move a sleeping cat from your chair, and tell you something I have been turning over in my mind while I go about the cottage.
Years ago, I shared my plans with a woman I thought a friend. We wrote to one another, spoke of books and the lives we hoped to make, and I was glad to show her work to those who followed mine. Then my little corner of the world began to grow, and her warmth disappeared so quietly that I spent some time wondering whether I had imagined it. I went on writing. One must; the washing will not hang itself, and a dream will not build its own front door.
Now and then I see an idea I once spoke of appear elsewhere, dressed for an outing and introduced as though we had never met. I cannot tell you everything that has passed through another woman’s mind, nor do I wish to spend my days looking through her windows. Still, I remember our conversations, and I know what it feels like to have someone step away from your friendship while remaining near enough to see what you make.
That is the part which hurts. I would have welcomed a kind word, a little acknowledgement, even the simple pleasure of seeing us both do well. I have never begrudged another woman her tea room or her circle of friends; I should have liked to visit and bring a cake.
I have worked for eleven years to make a world of my own. Stillwater, A Petticoat Society, did not arrive in a pretty parcel with a ribbon round it. It grew while I wrote books, tended animals, made lovely what I could afford to make lovely, and kept faith with plans that had not yet shown themselves to anyone else. I know this dream when the table is laid, and I know it when the cups are unwashed, and I am tired. I know where I am taking it.
Perhaps some women borrow the furniture of another woman’s dream because they hope it will make a home for them, too. I can understand wanting that sense of purpose, but I found mine by sitting with the things I once wished to escape.
The inner work was seldom picturesque. It asked me to see where I had been hurt and how I answered that hurt; it asked me to return the next day and look again. We may speak very prettily of healing, but our conduct tells the tale when a friend prospers, when we owe an apology, or when someone asks us to be plain with her. If our own worth feels uncertain, her happiness can seem to accuse us, though she has done nothing but open her door to the morning.
I am telling you this as a friend, because I suspect you may know the weariness of putting your heart into something for years and then wondering when your turn will come. I wonder it myself. Yet each time I have been brought low, I have risen and taken up the work again. I may pause for tea, or for a good cry, or to find where I last put my spectacles; I shall not quit.
They have called women like us black sheep for wandering beyond the fence. Well, let us keep climbing, my dear hearts. A black sheep who reaches the top of the hill may give them cause to call her, to their considerable surprise, the G.O.A.T.
Most affably yours til my next enchanting swim,
Lady Raquel
