So obviously I just stopped blogging on this platform. I'll get back to it eventually. Or not. I'm taking a break from all social media. It seemed necessary for my mental health.
The last few years have been busy and … challenging:
- 2015 Happened. - 2016 Let's call it The Lost Year. (Obviously words failed me.) - 2017 about broke me. Literally. Mentally. - 2018 was ridiculous, proving 2017 was just a warm up. (Good thing I was already broken so it couldn't hurt as much.#2018TrashCanFire I thought things were going okay, but maybe not?)
- 2019 was such a blur. I know there were highlights, but then stuff happened and carried into the next year...
- And then in March#2020 really took a turn. Who can even categorize 2020? Do we dare?
I kinda want a do-over of some of the last few years. But life doesn’t work that way.
So for now, I'm hunkering down. Regrouping. Trying to stay safe and sort some stuff out.
Why am I sad about an actor playing a character? An actor I never met? Because ... He was "my" Gilbert. Even now, I can spend hours comfortably binging on the hours-long series watching him - as Gilbert - tease and taunt and grow up and in love with his "Carrots." And, apparently, unlike some actors who feel "pigeon-holed" or "type-cast" or "resentful" for only being known for one role, he embraced the spirit of the Anne-fandom. And, at 43? 48 is just a blink away. And feels too young. You grew up with him. The boy next door is not supposed to die. EVER. He and Anne grow up, get married, and grow old together. Here's more, by other more eloquent people. Per The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/arts/television/jonathan-crombie-actor-known-as-romantic-lead-in-anne-of-green-gables-dies-at-48.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=nytimesarts&_r=0
Jonathan Crombie, Romantic Lead in ‘Anne of Green Gables,’ Dies at 48
Jonathan Crombie, a Canadian actor who was known to a generation of fans as Gilbert Blythe in the mini-series “Anne of Green Gables,” died on Wednesday in New York City. He was 48.
Mr.
Crombie rose to fame as a teenager when he was cast as the handsome and
confident love interest in the 1985 Canadian television adaptation of
“Anne of Green Gables,” Lucy Maud Montgomery’s 1908 novel about an
orphan (played by Megan Follows) growing up on Prince Edward Island. It
was shown in the United States on PBS the next year.
The
role made him a household name in Canada, and he reprised it in two
sequels: “Anne of Avonlea” in 1987 and “Anne of Green Gables: The
Continuing Story” in 2000.
“I
think he was really proud of being Gilbert Blythe and was happy to
answer any questions,” Mr. Crombie’s sister, Carrie Crombie, told the
CBC. “He really enjoyed that series and was happy, very proud of it. We
all were.”
Mr.
Crombie appeared on numerous TV shows and in stage productions in both
the United States and Canada. He made his Broadway debut in 2007 in the
hit musical comedy “The Drowsy Chaperone.”
He
was also well known in his home country as the son of David Crombie,
who was mayor of Toronto from 1972 to 1978. After leaving the mayor’s
office, his father represented the city in the Canadian Parliament and
later held several cabinet positions.
“On
behalf of the people of Toronto, I extend to the entire Crombie family
my deepest sympathies on sudden death of actor Jonathan Crombie,” John
Tory, the current mayor of Toronto, wrote in an update posted to Twitter.
Mr. Crombie was born in Toronto on Oct. 12, 1966. Survivors include his sister and his father.
Kevin
Sullivan, the producer of “Anne of Green Gables,” told the CBC that Mr.
Crombie was chosen as Gilbert at the age of 17 after the casting
director saw him perform in a school play.
“I
think for legions of young women around the world who fell in love with
the ‘Anne of Green Gables’ films, Jonathan literally represented the
quintessential boy next door, and there were literally thousands of
women who wrote to him over the years who saw him as a perfect mate,”
Mr. Sullivan said. [emphasis my own]
Like the author of this article in the New Yorker, I had a girl-friend with whom I bonded over hours of the Sullivan films in the mid-80s. I had fond memories of a sleepover, those innocent teenaged sleepovers, with popcorn, and a copy of the films that some parent had taped (on a VCR) during the PBS pledgefest that inauguarted the films to USA audiences. To this day, we're still friends. We still talk every week. It was she that I immediately turned to for comfort. (She was sad, but not sad, sad like me. We're bosom friends, but like Diana - she had her Fred. I had dreams of a Gilbert.) Per The New Yorker, http://www.newyorker.com/culture/sarah-larson/jonathan-crombie-why-we-loved-gilbert-blythe?mbid=social_twitter
In “Anne of Green Gables,” Jonathan
Crombie, who died Wednesday, gave Gilbert Blythe caring, intelligence,
and dreaminess: qualities that enchant seventh-grade girls.Credit PHOTOGRAPH BY DICK LOEK / TORONTO STAR VIA GETTY IMAGES
Many were saddened, this weekend, to learn of the death of Jonathan Crombie,
the forty-eight-year-old actor who played Gilbert Blythe in the CBC’s
film adaptations of the “Anne of Green Gables” books. People on the
Internet were using the phrase “depths of despair,” as Anne Shirley
would. Gilbert was many people’s first love.
A
kindred spirit of mine—a bosom friend I’ve known since girlhood—once
observed that the best kind of romantic movie involves impassioned
gazing. (She told me this while recommending the 2004 BBC red-hot
starefest “North & South,” which features I-see-into-your-soul
staring of the Mr. Darcy variety, the kind that says, I see you—and I am too respectful to do anything but dream from afar until I deserve you.)
“Anne of Green Gables” isn’t a romance, exactly; it’s a series about
growing up. But it’s no coincidence, I realized yesterday, that this
same friend first alerted me to the phenomenon of Crombie as Gilbert
Blythe. It
was 1986, and she and I were in seventh grade, in an airport. We were
taking a trip to Disney World with my mother during our spring vacation.
We were excited, but, my friend told me, we were missing something very
important on television: part something-or-other of the PBS broadcast
of “Anne of Green Gables,” which had just burst on the scene from
Canada, a gorgeous agrarian world allowing for both puff sleeves and female ambition. She told me about Gilbert Blythe in great detail. When we were able to watch, I admired it all for myself. L.
M. Montgomery, the author of the “Anne” series, described Gilbert as “a
tall boy, with curly brown hair, roguish hazel eyes, and a mouth
twisted into a teasing smile.” Crombie was kinder—lively eyes, nothing
twisted about the mouth. His affection was evident all along. Crombie
gave Gilbert caring, intelligence, and dreaminess: qualities that
enchant seventh-grade girls. As in “Pride and
Prejudice,” things begin badly between our heroes. Gilbert admires Anne
(Megan Follows) when she arrives at their one-room schoolhouse; she
registers his handsomeness but ignores him, in part because of his
cockiness; he calls her Carrots; she smashes a slate over his head. The
“Carrots” slate-smash is “Anne” ’s “tolerable, I suppose, but not
handsome enough to tempt me” moment, setting in motion a whole course of
standoffs and shenanigans which, after many years, finally end as they
should—with mutual understanding and perfect bliss. In between: oh, the
staring. Crombie was an expert gazer. Through
meaningful looks and other subtleties, he showed that Gilbert wasn’t
threatened when Anne could spell “chrysanthemum” and he couldn’t; he
appeared deeply concerned when she fell off the ridgepole, and didn’t
mock her for braving it; he was kind during the “The Lady of Shalott”
escapade, while executing a dashing rescue. In this video, a young Crombie explains that the moment Anne breaks a slate over Gilbert’s head is the moment he starts growing up. For
girls my age, that was an important moment, too. The “Anne” series let
us dream about adolescence while holding on to childhood. The world of
Avonlea—Matthew and Marilla
Cuthbert, the apple blossoms and the knickers and caps, dance cards,
hay rides, Gilbert’s patient and steadfast heart—was gentler than what
we might have imagined about adolescence. It wasn’t “The Breakfast
Club,” and that was, on some secret level, very exciting—a last moment
of being able to enjoy gentler childhood ideals. “Anne of Green Gables”
appealed to those impulses without condescending to us. It wasn’t
exactly cool. It had no edge. You didn’t want to race into school and
announce that you were obsessed with “Anne of Green Gables.” But, to
your bosom friend, you could discuss its many joys to your heart’s
content. And Gilbert Blythe, because he was the
romantic ideal and a feminist, in his way—always respecting Anne’s
intellect and ambitions, competing with her and admiring her
academically—was an encouraging example of what teenagerdom and a loving
gaze might have in store. Here he is calling her “Carrots” and getting his just desserts.
[emphasis my own.]
My nieces are reaching the age at which Anne-girl and her friends enter their lives. I was looking forward to introducing them to "my" Gilbert. I still will. But when I start crying, that will be harder to explain. Until they are older and can read this.
Back at the beginning of the year, when I started jotting down the preliminary notes for what would be the seeds for these future Dreaming Out Loud installments, I made the following entry:
NOT a cruise, but a smaller boat trip – maybe to:
Prince Edward Island – for my Anne of Green Gables
addiction, and to find the port of entry where my ancestors came in from
England
Or
Alaska
I don't think I had ever articulated this dream to Christine. There are more times than I care to count, however, when Christine and I have been on some weird karmic connection when it comes to calls, cards, e-mails, jokes, observations and other odd things.
After talking to her I got the details of this proposed cruise, and while it may not be the EXACT dream, it's pretty darn close. I've
learned to start taking advantage of opportunities like this when they
come up. Call it a prompting. An opening. What have you.
So I'm getting on a boat. A big boat. A ship even. This Carnival Glory cruise liner, actually. With over 5,000 other people and spending a week doing something I never envisioned at the beginning of this year when I started to dream. Cruising. Me. The introvert. Who would have thought? It will be an adventure to say the least. I hope poor Christine realizes what she's in for. (And, hopefully, The Shushing Librarian is coming with us, so who knows what will happen.)
While it turns out this cruise won't be heading to Prince Edward Island,
we will be getting close enough ... this time ... and spending a day exploring Saint John, New Brunswick and Halifax, Nova
Scotia. While Saint John is also a port city, Halifax was a major port of call, especially back when my ancestors were migrating to North America and I feel there's this mysterious connection calling to me.
I just can't tell you where and what and when that connection is ... but it's there. In the seas. In the land. In the songs. In the breeze. And, in the genes.
This trip is just whetting my appetite for the Canadian Maritimes.
With a day in port in both cities, there is not time for major island hopping or genealogical explorations, so the plan includes touristy things, like:
As more of our family history has been explored, more and more of the "pull" back to PEI can be explained due to family connections. I thought it was just my love for that "Anne Girl," but turns out my father's ancestors ended up settling in, and being buried, in the same mid-Island area that are close to the roads and lanes of L.M. Montgomery's beloved books.
About two weeks after I agreed to go on the cruise, I got an e-mail from Cousin Frank, (the aforementioned author of the book about a paternal grandfather), outlining plans for the first Annual International Reunion scheduled for Prince
Edward Island from July 25-29, reconnecting some of our family
lines which have long been severed ("slightly") since the family left the
island in 1850. 40 odd "cousins" were planning to visit family sites on the island, including homesteads, the port from whence the family sailed from PEI to the USA, the graveyard where a great+ grand-father and mother are buries, AND, (this is what got to me):
"All of the Anne of Green Gables "stuff" ... Mongomery gravesite,
schoolhouse, etc."
People who don't believe in mysterious heavenly influences having a tug on our heart strings and collective consciousnesses ... I don't get them.
*MY* ancestors are definitely up there trying to get us all headed in the right direction --back up north -- but as usual, my timing is all off and I was overcommitted.
I still dream of PEI, but for the next week or so, I'll just be out to sea, coming close to "home" port, but not quite. I have a feeling I'll still be having sweet dreams.
Wish me luck and ... Bon Voyage
until my return to the Attic and blogging in general.
Any girl of a certain age who loved reading the Anne of Green Gables series by L.M. Montgomery also loved the Kevin Sullivan productions of the films based on those novels.
This poem was excerpted for the production and was the "gateway" through which many new narrative poem lovers were introduced to this epic poem by Albert Noyes.
(Purists, please note: I know the second to last line of each stanza should be indented. I just can't get it to format on this post!)
The Highwayman
Part One
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees, The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, And the highwayman came riding— Riding—riding— The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.
He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin, A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin; They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh! And he rode with a jewelled twinkle, His pistol butts a-twinkle, His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.
Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard, And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred; He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there But the landlord's black-eyed daughter, Bess, the landlord's daughter, Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.
And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked Where Tim, the ostler, listened; his face was white and peaked; His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like moldy hay, But he loved the landlord's daughter, The landlord's red-lipped daughter: Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say—
“One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize to-night, But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light. Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day, Then look for me by moonlight, Watch for me by moonlight, I'll come to thee by moonlight, though Hell should bar the way.”
He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand; But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast; And he kissed its waves in the moonlight, (Oh, sweet, black waves in the moonlight!) Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the West.
Part Two
He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon; And out of the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon, When the road was a gypsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor, A red-coat troop came marching— Marching—marching— King George's men came matching, up to the old inn-door.
They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead; But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed; Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side! There was death at every window; And hell at one dark window; For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.
They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest: They had bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast! “Now, keep good watch!” and they kissed her. She heard the dead man say— Look for me by moonlight; Watch for me by moonlight; I'll come to thee by moonlight, though Hell should bar the way!
She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good! She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood! They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years; Till, now, on the stroke of midnight, Cold, on the stroke of midnight, The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!
The tip of one finger touched it; she strove no more for the rest! Up, she stood up to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast, She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again; For the road lay bare in the moonlight; Blank and bare in the moonlight; And the blood of her veins in the moonlight throbbed to her Love's refrain.
Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs ringing clear; Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear? Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill, The highwayman came riding, Riding, riding! The red-coats looked to their priming! She stood up, straight and still!
Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night! Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light! Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath, Then her finger moved in the moonlight, Her musket shattered the moonlight, Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him—with her death.
He turned; he spurred him Westward; he did not know who stood Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood! Not till the dawn he heard it, and slowly blanched to hear How Bess, the landlord's daughter, The landlord's black-eyed daughter, Had watched for her Love in the moonlight; and died in the darkness there.
Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky, With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high! Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat; When they shot him down on the highway, Down like a dog on the highway, And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.
And still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees, When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, A highwayman comes riding— Riding—riding— A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.
Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard; He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred; He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there But the landlord's black-eyed daughter, Bess, the landlord's daughter, Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.
~Alfred Noyes
Pgs 96-100 Story Poems: An Anthology of Narrative Verse selected and edited by Louis Untermeyer, Washington Square Press, New York 1961
Excerpts as used in the Sullivan film Anne of Green Gables, as performed by Megan Follows.
If you can't see it, click here or cut and paste this into your browser: http://youtu.be/wcAzEea4j-w
It can be surprising to no one that I'm a voracious reader. As a kid, I was notorious for preferring to read rather than play outside, clean, practice the piano (sometimes I did both), or watch t.v. In school I won those awards for reading the most books, and was one of those kids who was so far ahead of my reading level that I had to have "special classes." Yes, I was one of those kids. I remember skipping over the books recommended for my age group and reading Greek, Roman, and Norse myths. I know I skipped many of the "classics" of girlhood, like the Narnia books, the L'Engle books, and thankfully ALL of the Sweet Valley High crap, before I jumped into Sci-Fi/fantasy with Pern and Valdemar.*
One of the series that I very glad I didn't miss was the L.M. Montgomery classics, especially the Anne books ("Ann with an E," thank you very much). Part of the appeal had to be the release of the K. Sullivan television adaptations with Megan Follows and Jonathan Crombie (who will always be Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe to me.) The rest of the appeal is that they were good books. A whole shelf in my personal library is now dedicated to just my L.M. Montgomery collection.
Can you believe that Anne of Green Gables was written 100 years ago? There are huge celebrations this year on Prince Edward Island. I am totally annoyed at myself that I didn't make it there in time for the festivities. One day I will cross the visit to PEI off my "bucket list" and I can say that I visited the home of that Anne-girl.
Nova Scotia, watch out.
* One notable teenlit exception that I'm glad I didn't skip were some of the books by E.E.White, aka Ellen Emerson White, particularly the books about Meg, the daughter of the first female President. I was FRAKKING ecstatic when the long overdue sequel, Long May She Reign, was released last year. Not only was it worth the decades!-long wait, I was delighted that the writing style and 600+ pages more than satisfies my now-adult tastes. Plus, Ms. White is a Battlestar Galactica fan. How totally excellent! (Am I gushing too much like a fangirl or what!?)
