Curse.
Right .. a dull, not depressing, post out of the way .. and .. back to sad stuff. Not really sad, exactly, but seems as if it should be. I was talking by e-mail to an old friend who lives abroad and I never see .. and thinking about how we met and our lives then.

How things have changed. Changed so much that I suddenly wondered if I was the victim of a w1tch's curse. It would explain everything. Twenty years ago ... if I had angered a withered crone in flowing black robes and she had screamed at me that 'It will come to pass that .. etc. etc. ... 'describing my present life now, I would have first been really upset and then thought 'Crap .. as if'.

Twenty years ago . I was happy and confident. I was not only the dominant person in my marriage but a divorced friend of ours had moved in with us 'just while I sort myself out' and never left. I dominated him as well and the two of them treated me like some superior being .. I promise. I had attractive small children who weren't a bore at all because I had STAFF .. well .. living in nanny, daily cleaner, someone to drive them to and from school and TWO gardeners. So I had no particular domestic duties and spent my days reading and pottering and chatting and making myself look attractive. I had a huge group of friends who all liked me better than my husband and people often fell in love with me and hung about. Although my mother had just died I was very close, mentally, to my father, possibly more than anyone in the world. I also wrote articles and book reviews for magazines and was treated with a certain amount of respect because of this.

We entertained constantly and had people to stay all the time and had wild parties, for which we were famous. I also went to London whenever I liked and gave huge wild parties there and lived in a 'social whirl'. (My life hadn't always been like this, of course, I had had all sorts of loneliness and pennilessness and dreariness at various times but I am thinking of the years when I first met the friend.) Lots of people were jealous of me around then and, I think, felt that I 'had it all' and it's true that I was a bit arrogant and careless.

So I could easily have offended a witch ... without realising.

I can imagine her standing there, pointing at me and sneering. 'All that you now see will drift away like mist. By the twentieth year after this day you will be gone from this place never to return .. all the friendship which surrounds you will have changed to hatred and resentment. You will be totally alone. Your HUSBAND will now live in the literary world amongst constant companionship and laughter and he will despise you and no longer care for you. Your male companion who swore he would live in your house for ever will have married for the SECOND time since he left you and will no longer wish to speak to you. Your beloved father will have withered under the influence of HIS new wife and you will eventually have ceased all communication and he will be dead to you.

You will have lost all confidence and will be beautiful no more. You will have no desire to write and so will have also lost the respect engendered by that. You will live as a recluse and see no one ... until the end of time.'

Spooky. I would have laughed. Not for one millisecond would I have accepted that ANY of that was going to happen. And then it ALL DID.
- posted by Iris @ 11/14/2005 10:49:00 PM comment