JASMINE
Chapter Eight
So far, I have been discussing how I have
perceived Rose. Now let me concentrate on the way she sees the world. I am able
to do this through intense meditation. Via meditation, I am able to see her
soul!
It was late at night, and I was trying to go
to sleep. I am a night woman, so I oftentimes don't fall asleep until late at
night. I always meditate on certain topics as I am trying to go to sleep. Well,
sometimes, if I am very tired, and I meditate, I will fall asleep, and somehow,
I will dream through my soul. This is what happened when I tried to meditate on
Rose.
I am Rose. I am wearing a long, white dress.
I am reading a book, I look down at the title, and notice that the title of the
book is Pride and Prejudice. It's by Jane Austen. "Ooh," I
squeal. I look down and notice that I have gotten a paper cut from the book. I
sigh, and I feel as though my life is prejudiced! I mean, I have been trapped
in this upper class hell all of my life. I have to conform to rules that I
don't understand, I have to read things that make little sense to me, and I
have to behave like a lady! I tell you, I have no idea how to behave like a
lady! In despair, I feel my back sliding upon the wall. Sometimes, I
think to myself, I put on an act to keep from dying from the constant
boredom and humdrum that my life has become.
I move over to the table, where I have kept a
diary. I have kept it secret from everyone, but I pick it up, and I have a
sneaky look in my eyes as I thumb through it. I just might show this to
Jasmine. She should see this, I think to myself. I have flashbacks of the
many things that I have been writing about, that, for me, have served as
symbols of my life, that are in the journal. I wrote the entry about the cat
and the mouse. In this entry, the cat was torturing the helpless mouse in the
cage, and forcing it to either comply with a certain lifestyle, a certain way
of living, and strict rules, or face death. I lower my head and look at the
floor. I am lost in deep contemplation.
That mouse is me, and I have been encaged all
of my life in a world and lifestyle that I neither understood, or could conform
to. All of my life, I have simply acted to the expectations of society. I have
simply put on a big show and pretended to be someone I was not. I mean, for a
while, until now, really, it has been fun for me. In fact, it was almost like
child's play. I mean, in return for conforming to the rules of society, I was
treated like a real princess, wore fancy clothes, got nice jewels, and was
waited on hand and foot. I never had to do any real work, either!
My eyes shift, and I look up, momentarily,
and then lower my gaze, as I finish my contemplation.
Like Jasmine has! My God, though she has
never said so out loud, she must just love to be in my shoes. She has such a
hard life. I wouldn't want to be consigned to a life of hard labor and insults,
but she takes it in stride. I have never heard her complain about her life. She
is quite modest and humble indeed. Perhaps I could learn something from her!
Anyway, now, I am about to be married to a man who is evil! I don't love him
and I never have, and I see that I will be miserable if I marry him. I will die
if I don't escape. Now, it's not funny anymore. Now, everything is quite
serious, and I see that if I don't escape from this life, I will die, and so
will everything that has been associated with my life, as well as humanity in
general. I can't have that! I must escape!
Now, my eyes are wandering, as I think to
myself, but how! Then, I look around, and the word Jasmine pops out of my head.
I shove my journal underneath my mattress. If
Cal ever finds this journal, he will kill me. He will understand that I know
the truth, and that I have woken up in my mind, heart, and soul to the truth,
and to reality, and that I am woman enough to face reality, and to face my
soul, and to face down evil, and that I am not afraid to fight evil, and to
fight illusions.
I sit on my bed, and think about the bogus
upper class that I am in. They are a very fake and beautiful people. They
remind me of old, painted-over china. This type of china is beautiful on the
outside, but when you take off the paint, you realize that it's really quite
dull and ugly! I mean, on the surface, my fiancé and others appear to be
upstanding ladies and gentlemen, but this is only a show. Their prosperity
comes from the blood of others, and this is not right! It is not all right to
prosper from the suffering of others, as the class that I come from has. Anger
rises in my bosom as I realize that there is nothing that these people have
done that is decent, honest, legal, or ethical to justify their wealth. They
have amassed their fortunes by exploiting, manipulating, and in some cases,
even killing others. Their motto is step on others on your way up, because that
's the only way to prosperity.
I think some more, and as I am thinking, the
Hope necklace that Cal gave me catches my attention. I sigh, because for me, it
looks nice, but that's about it. It has no other value for me, other than a
nice accessory that I look nice in. I pick it up, and am blinded when I look at
the sparkle that the little diamonds make when they catch the light in the room
and reflect it. It is amazing, I think to myself, but, at the same time, it is
useless! It has not brought me happiness or joy, or prosperity, all it is is
something that looks nice. I look nice, but what have I done for the world? In
that sense, I see myself as being like this necklace. No, I think to
myself, I have to find a way to escape from this world, and to find true
love. As I finger the necklace, I wonder if the answer lies in Jack. He is
nice and decent. He comes from the lower classes, but I'd rather be his fiancé
than Cal's. I wonder if he could help me? I look into the blue diamond, and
shivers go up my spine. I realize that the necklace is cursed! And so will I
be, if I don't find a way to escape. I put the necklace back down on the
dressing table.
I sit down on my bed, and I think some more
about my life. So far, my life has been lived by someone that is not me! This
might sound strange, but I don't feel that the person sitting on this bed
telling this to you is Rose. The person telling this to you is a nice person,
who is very pretty and looks and acts like a very pretty doll, but has no
emotions and feelings of her own. I have to try to find my own emotions and
feelings, and I have to try to express myself. For all of my life, I have felt
as though I don't belong in the upper classes. I have always felt constrained
by this class. I have always felt as though the upper class has constrained who
I really am! I long for the day that I can spend time watching my hair flow
freely in the breeze, that I can let my long hair flow loosely down my back,
and fly away freely into the wind, and experience life as it really is. I'd
love to fly, to dance, to play baseball, among other things, but I can't do
this, because proper ladies don't do that! Well, to hell with all of the rules.
I make a resolve to myself, I don't care what anyone else says. I'm going to
break all of the rules of society, and experience life as it really is. I'm
going to be free, and I'm going to live life on my own terms, and not on anyone
else's. From now on, no one is going to tell me how to live my life. If it gets
me thrown out of the upper classes, so be it. It is better to be free, and to
taste freedom, and to live on the edge of life, than it is to be secure, but to
live by exploiting others. I look down as I think more about this class. I
know very little about them, and what little I know disturbs me immensely. They
have never worked at all in their lives. If someone handed them a bucket and a
mop, as they do to Jasmine, they wouldn't know what to do with either. Their
prosperity comes from exploiting and abusing others. They design laws so that
they can keep the poor down on purpose so that they can continue to live their
lavish lifestyles. The only thing that matters to them is money. To them,
you're a person only if you have money. Nothing else counts or matters. They
judge the world entirely on material things, and they have forgotten what's
important in life. Though I have never known anything else in my life, I know
that there has to be more to life than finery. There has to be something about
happiness and contentment that's also important in life. These people have
totally forgotten about that! But I intend to learn it!
I look at the clock. It's almost four
o'clock. Certainly, Cal is still downstairs having brandy and cigars with the
other gentlemen. He never notices me. To him, I'm just some trophy that he can
sport around, and brag about to his friends. It's like he's saying, "Here,
look at the nice beauty that I've caught. She's mine, and no one else can have
her!" My feelings and my humanity don't matter at all to him. To him, the
only thing that matters is money and power. He lives off of power, and I've
noticed, with a sickening feeling in my stomach, that he actually enjoys having
power over others so that he can exploit them. Also, he grows stronger by
usurping the power of others! To him, power is money, because power can be used
to procure even more money. I have never kissed him for the year that we've
been together. He doesn't respect me, he doesn't love me, and he doesn't care
about me. Tears well up in my eyes, they begin to burn, and I start to sob as I
think to myself that he even humiliated me in front of others by hitting me! I
start to cry as I say, "He doesn't care about me. To him, I'm some sort of
doll, some sort of possession that's to be controlled, won over, and flaunted
off like some trophy. Well, I've had it. Damn it, I'm not some sort of doll
that others can marvel at. I have real feelings, and emotions, and they're
going to show through whether he likes it or not." I think to my mother. Dear
Mother, I think. But she also doesn’t care a damn about me. For her,
this is a wonderful marriage of convenience. It will save our name. You see,
all of our family money is gone, and the only thing that's left is debt. If
left alone, we will be forced into penury and a life of hard labor, and she
can't have that! It 's better, from her standpoint, to keep your status in
society, even if that means that you have to humiliate yourself and end up
marrying your daughter off to someone who's mean. My feelings and emotions
aren't important to her. The only thing that's important to her is keeping our
name! I could care less about our name. I want to find my soul. For me,
being happy is much more important than what people think about you! I think
that's why I've had such a hard time fitting in in the upper classes.
I stand up, and I think about everything that
I would tell my mother if I thought she would listen. I look in the mirror very
hard, and I cry when I see my mother's image in the mirror, but I notice that
her eyes are clouded over, and I know that this means that she'll never see eye
to eye with me, and she'll never understand where I'm coming from, where I'm
going, and what is important to me. Never! Suddenly, it hits me--I wouldn't be
alienating my mother if I were to leave. She has never understood or known me.
I would just be leaving an old maid to live her life the way she understands
it, while I live my life the way I understand it. You see, though I am her
daughter, somehow, we must part ways. I must find my own way in life, and she
already knows her way. She is under the naive impression that the way she lives
her life is the way that everyone should live their lives. But her way of
seeing the world is fatalistic for me. I have to find my own way of seeing the
world if I am ever to experience true happiness. I have to start taking risks,
and find out who Rose really is, and start asking Rose what she really wants,
and what's really important to her. Otherwise, I can only blame myself for what
happens in my life, because I did not take an active role to try to change my
life! It is not up to my mother to change my life. It is up to me to change my
life. I am a grown adult now. In a short while, I will be someone else's wife,
and I will no longer be known as her daughter. It's time for me to grow up, and
it's time for me to find the internal strength in myself to stand up for what I
believe in, and what I know is right, and to pursue that, regardless of what
others think. People will talk, and let them say what they want. I just know
now that I can't be bothered by what others might say about me, because that is
how I will be destroyed. I must be independent by not caring what others say
about me, partly because I am a person who is capable of thinking and making
her own decisions, and partly because others are never going to live my life. Therefore,
what they think doesn't matter at all! I am the only one who will ever live my
life. Therefore, the only opinions that really matter are mine! It is time for
me to find the beautiful woman in myself, the woman that has been hidden for so
many years. I have to develop this woman, because this is the only way that I
will find happiness. My mother might mean well for me, but she can't see Cal
for who he really is! To her, he's just a gentleman with a good name and a lot
of money, and for her, that's all that counts. I have seen her stick to the
rules and norms of the upper classes unconditionally, because she thought that
that was necessary to save face. But I know that that can't be the way to true
happiness. The way to true happiness must be through your heart!
Since Cal won't be back for a while, I pull
out my book, and I resume reading, but I'm glad I'm getting to know myself
better, as well as what I want. I imagine I will be seeing Jack again. I say,
"I can hardly wait to see him!"