While rummaging around the attic known as the internet I ran across the online magazine, The First Post. It’s a British outfit with bite-sized essays on all sorts of things – from art to sports to meat pies. Perfect for my quasi-ADDish brain.

Also, I like the look (clean, refreshingly bright) and as I read the essay below (which brought me to the site in the first place) I thought, ‘Wow! I really like the POV, the language and it’s attitude. I like it and it’s fun!’ But all is not well in the state of England or Denmark or somewhere. Read on!

Choose life (or a husband)

Last week I went round to the house of a second cousin twice removed. Bridesmaid at my great-grandmother’s wedding, her name is Nancy and she lives in a manor house which had not been touched for several hundred years. She came to the front door holding a magnifying glass and led us down the passage to a dining room heavy with the smell of sweet peas which flopped from a vase in the middle of a table awash with maps, old photographs and opened letters.

We drank apple juice from dirty glasses (not that I’m criticising a 97-year-old’s washing-up skills) while an exquisite lion swathed in cobwebs glared down at us from a high shelf above the fireplace. “Get him down,” said Nancy, “and we’ll give him a wipe.” She’d brought it back, she explained as I wiped several decades of dust off it, from Iran when it was still Persia and she was an archaeologist trawling central Asia for treasure.

Why is it that women who never marry have wonderful, adventure-filled lives? Is it possible to have adventures and still get married? Or do you have to choose?

I thought of some old ladies I’ve known. There was the woman who married the drunk who killed a policeman. She lived the most inspirational life I know – it probably started when the husband was inside. Then there was the lady whose husband used to drag her around by the hair (until he got Alzheimer’s that is – he spent the last years of his life drilling holes in the lawn for “the people down there to breathe”). Despite these hindrances, her life also was a complete inspiration: love, compassion and scorching talent.

It seems that you can have an adventure and a husband. Perhaps the key is not to expect too much from the latter.

I was all on board! I nodded knowingly while I read along wishing I lived in a manor house several hundred years old with all sorts of interesting collectibles from my amazingly adventurous archaeological life.

But a wee bit later (I won’t tell you exactly how much of a wee bit because then you’ll know exactly how slow my synapses synap) I realized that I had just been bamboozled by slick writing and an aesthetically pleasing graphic design! Dang! I hate when that happens!

I have now changed my mind and vehemently disagree with the author! OK, maybe strongly disagree. Afterall, it’s only a fluff essay and not some treatise on a meaningful subject like the subjugation of the female identity in post-modern literature of the 20th century, which is very serious.

She’s wants me to consider that having a husband predisposes one to a boring life and that being unmarried predisposes one to adventure. That’s complete rot as far as I’m concerned. I know plenty of boring unmarried women (and men) and have met some amazing couples who share a terrifically adventurous life.

The error in the author’s conclusion has nothing to do with the state of one’s union with another human being, but is economic. The main figure of the essay, the 97 year-old cousin of the author, isn’t living la vida loca because she hasn‘t had a husband. I’m sure this has allowed her some freedoms beyond the ordinary. She’s lived adventurously because she is both inclined to do so and had/has the financial freedom to make it happen.

Let’s look at a case in point…me! I’m husband-free and am not having even one teeny bit of adventure in my life…at all. Unless you count attempting to organize my ADD-riddled CPA brother so he can ‘work more efficiently’ thus seeing more clients and making more money while paying me a paltry $10 an hour.

Why no adventure in my life? Because I don’t have enough money to keep my tract home up and running while I head off to parts unknown to do MY archaeological thing. Jiminy! I can’t afford the graduate school training to get the PhD so I can be hired as an archaeologist! And can’t even afford to buy a fake lion’s head to pretend I’ve been somewhere amazing.

So, the fact that I don’t have a place to keep all the cool stuff I would collect during my travels keeps me from traveling. Also, I can’t afford the traveling.

Yea…old granny clearly had some cash flow rolling throug her family coffers. How do I know? I don’t, honestly, but I here a significant clue.

She lives in a manor house! Do you know what a manor house looks like? No? Well, here’s the wiki entry to give you an idea. And here’s a few pics to give you an idea of what a manor house looks like.

This one above is the home of Sir Issac Newton!

Notice there is some variety in size and grandeur. It seems that not all manor houses are grand homes, but it seems to me that all manor houses are largish affairs with some grounds about them. And that takes money.

It seems that granny lived in one that’s a few hundred years old and is chock full of all her ’stuff’ from her adventurous life. Who kept the house while she was away? Who paid the taxes on it? Who is providing for poor granny now that she’s 97 and puttering away in the manor house?

Inquiring minds!