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A Faded Southern Rose

Fragile, wilting and tragic are just a few words to describe Tennessee Williams' Blanche DuBois. "The two together are French, DuBois is woods and Blanche is white; so, the two together mean white woods, like an orchid in springtime." She is tissue like, soft and constantly in danger of a late spring freeze that might paralyze her delicate mind. Blanche ambles as a sleepwalker through the paths of a changing world, teetering on the edge. Change is not in her vocabulary as she is fastened in time to a more gentler repose of the elements around her.

She holds reverence for Whitman and Poe as an English teacher would, but she is not able to cope with the brutality of the world around her. Taking long walks at Bel Reeve, drinking lemonade under an old magnolia and becoming uneasy as she glances at the family burial ground brings her back to reality.

A catastrophic revelation, the untimely death of her husband would seal her fate as a woman of what might have beens. She depended on the kindness of strangers, as she put it, and never found solitude with friends or family who had either predeceased her or would not tolerate her dreamlike demeanor.

There is a little bit of Blanche in us all as we hold on to the past. Closing our eyes and counting the what ifs. But, unlike Blanche, we must not dwell on the past and be caught in its time warp. You learn from the past and it is not to be repeated. With a knowledge of living it and a sigh, close the door upon it. It is to be but a worn memory "yellowing with antiquity" and wrapped with a satin bow to be untied only on occasion and placed back in the strong box or vault of the person who has grown from past experiences.

Mark Edward Rogers

March 22, 1999