The Profound Weight

We have names, for the weak and the and they are not very complimentary.” wimp”, “wuss”, “girl”, “baby”, “hysteric” and others all convey the tendency we as humans have to admire a degree of stoicism when faced with any sort of situation. 

When people cry they are not trying to tell us how much it hurts but how much they are suffering.  We all cry as children, usually due to emotional distress or even the anticipation of a painful or scary event. But we cry for the attention, we cry to make ourselves heard. As our brains mature (the well-adjusted) cry a whole lot less and actual pain hardly ever does it. Yet it doesn't mean we don't cry, as adults we cry when for joy, when we are moved, worries , stress and just sadness. Crying is the emotional response that comes out of breaking theses emotional limits stretching the senses until they pop, and your body? It just cries and weeps tears, pools of saltwater drop out from the puckered clenched rims of your eyelids, rolling and sliding all the way down.

At best we may refer to an emotionally high-strung friend or family member we like as “sensitive” or "empathetic" but weepiness is not a trait we associate with our heroes, some of the more personal ones being Mahatma Gandhi, Aron Ralston and Marie Curie. We do value strength and our twisted notions seem to point towards that if we don't show our feelings, those which make us vulnerable, we don't seem to have them at all. While it might be a necessity to be stoic in situations like in a rock and a hard place, where Aron Ralston has to saw off his arm. There are other moments where stoicism isn't always the best route, but is certainly is the more well-travelled.

Being a tough girl myself, who has cried maybe  twice in my adolescent life, I don't like the wetness or the heavy absurd feeling that come with it. I have to be profoundly moved or sad to really cry. I don’t  like the clinical implications of crying, that the tearful human gets coddled if they can't hold themselves together and I do like the idea of stoicism, even though it is impractical. But maybe, for once, I could be wrong.

On Innocence and Lipstick

                Innocence isn't something that is given to us. We barely notice it's there until we lose it, which stands true for so many simple pleasures in life. Evie is no exception to loss. In “What I Saw and How I Lied” by Judy Blundell, Evie Spooner is fifteen in 1947; like all fifteen-year-olds, she dreams of being grown-up. Her story begins with a trip to the candy store with her best friend; they buy candy cigarettes so they can "practice smoking." Her friend considers smoking the ultimate in adult glamor; Evie finds that glamour in lipstick, which she's forbidden to wear until she's 18.

It's nearing the end of summer and Evie's stepfather Joe, recently returned from the war, wants to take his girls on a trip to Palm Beach. They stay in a glamorous, but near-empty resort, where Evie is reduced to playing hopscotch on the hallway carpet for lack of entertainment. 

But that all changes when Peter Coleridge shows up, Joe seems nervous around his former army comrade, but the Spooner girls take to him quite easily. Evie begins spending time with him, taking moonlight strolls, running along the beach and kissing, finding herself in the middle of her whirl-wind of a first love.

Although the first love plotline is the fluff of a typical coming-of-age story, What I Saw and How I Lied uses it (the fluff) as an introduction point for Evie's true growing experience. When Evie loses Peter tragically then becomes swept up in a murder investigation focused on her parents. The second half of the book centers on Evie's decisions about what she's capable of doing and her own decisions about moral right and wrong.

I've been reading a lot of books from the Young Adult section lately, but this is the first that really tries something different. Judy Blundell writes with a sharp  tone that adds a dash  melancholy to Evie's transition into adulthood. There's also a cinematic quality to the story in general - Evie's narration has that cynical, mysterious and the locations are very stylish, grand, and again, mysterious. 

Evie strives for glamour and poise every little decision is a lifetime of reputation. But she has a very innocent quality to her, Evie is smart and she knows her way around a dark city street. The reasons he feels so little, so unintuitive is mostly because of her mother, Beverly. Evie’s mother wouldn’t do anything to give Evie a sense of growing up, she wouldn’t buy the kind of clothes girls her age wore, she wouldn’t let her wear her hair the way she wanted, and she certainly didn’t let her date boys. It has less to do with the actions themselves but the gravity they hold. “It’s not all polka dots and moonbeams.” Beverly tells her daughter Evie about being grown-up, partially because Evie's mother was forced to be a grown-up so abruptly by getting pregnant at 17 and raising Evie on her own. And innocence is hardly issues when you have been taken care your whole life.

It's a story that stays with you, a stylish, thought-provoking, a believable coming-of-age story. But mostly, it's was a lovely book that I really liked reading.