Some stories are easier to
hear/read than others. For me Bluebeard
was exceptionally difficult to read; and yet I could tell Mr. Fox, a variation
of Bluebeard, with no difficulty. I
believe part of the difference between the two stories was my introduction to
each of them.
Mr. Fox was a story on
Connie Reagan-Blake and Barbara Freeman’s cassette tape, Chillers, which I acquired back in the 1980’s. I heard Connie tell it in the bone chilling
way she has. It was my signature
Halloween story while I was working at a High School and Middle School
library.
Bluebeard is
one of the first stories Clarrisa Pinkola Estes puts forth in her book, Women Who Run with the Wolves. My mother purchased the book for me at my
request when it first came out. I tried
several times to read it and could not make it through Bluebeard without
whimpering. The first time the
phenomenon occurred, I kept looking about to see where the whimpering came
from. When I realized it was me, I put
the book aside. I’m happy to say I
finally made it all the way through the book two years ago, and I got a lot out
of it.
Beside the fact that one
story was heard, for the first time in a gathering of librarians, and the other
was read by myself with no one else around; what is different? Why was I able to tell one of them and could
not even finish the other?
Perhaps it is the fact
that in Mr. Fox, Mary is not married.
She is free to choose rejection and does. The youngest sister in Bluebeard actually
marries him and is captive in his castle.
Is that how I saw my marriage?
Was I a captive? Did I deserve my
fate? As a younger woman, I thought I
believed all that. Now, as I was two years
ago, I am wiser.
Our lives are reflected in
the stories we tell and don’t tell. Do
you try to tell difficult tales?
