Blue Book

Jenna was busily working at her desk that Monday morning when she received a call from one of her friends that his grandmother had passed. She had never met this woman or known this person for very long yet she found herself weeping in her office like she had lost a dear companion. Brushing away the tears, she saw an image of pale white hands, shaking, controlled, beautiful and holding onto glass rosary beads and grasping a faded blue book.

As she questioned herself, the image disintegrated and she was left with an indelible portrait of this tiny beautiful old woman dressed in pink, cream and navy with delicate white porcelain hands sitting pensively in a corner of a quiet cool garden surrounded by white roses. Jenna could hear children playing, the sounds of their giggles floating through the air beside her and she smiles as she recalls playing as a child herself.

…………….Her hands shaking, holding glass rosary beads, she grasped tightly to a small faded blue book. Jenna saw in her minds eye, that the blue book had an old fashioned hard cover – like the inside of a book without its removable printed cover. Was it Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy? It was most certainly an old classic, well worn and well read.

Jenna watched in her imagination as the old woman beckoned to a small fair haired boy to leave the games and come over to where she sat. The small boy dallied as he walked carefully over to his grandmother and stood silently beside her white cane garden chair as he waited for her to speak. She grabbed his stubby little hands tightly and shoved the faded old blue book into them firmly. The boy was quite reluctant to take it but as a very well mannered child, he accepted her gift in grace.

There was something special about this boy in her eyes. She had a special relationship with him and shared a bond that no one else knew about. It took another 33 years before the boy actually remembered the bond that they had shared. He looked at the world through her eyes – piercing blue green eyes that could sparkle regardless of the disappointment they may be hiding.

The boy was a little afraid of his grandmother as there were times when her severe manner took him by surprise. Several members of the family looked upon her as harsh or mean in many ways, however the boy also saw her softness. It was only years later that he understood full well the perception by others of his own perceived meanness - just as she too was judged.

His grandmother grew up in an era where appearances were everything and she quickly learned to behave and suppress who she really was for the good of her family. There was an element of the rebel in her which leaked into her silent rejection of the hypocrisy of her generation and social caste. She kept herself locked away in a secret mythical world which was easier to control and live as she pleased. Her husband was a solid choice and was heartily accepted by her family as a worthwhile breeding partner. Yet he betrayed her from the moment they married but he did his best to hide it out of loyalty to his family name. She knew but never addressed it out of fear that it would be confirmed without a doubt. There is no doubt that he loved her but as in so many mythologies, he was cruel to himself and this cruelty sometimes bled into his relationships. He was endlessly remorseful about his hurtful behaviour and she appreciated this about him.

Of course the small boy was oblivious to his genealogy and simply saw his grandmother as a graceful old lady who smelt of lavender and was ever present in the landscape of the family dynamic.

He held the book tentatively and listened as she recounted tales from the blue book and how important it was for him to love the characters and embrace the story for it was HER tale in every essence. The blue book was an ancient key to a tunnel where she could escape and express who SHE really was. Reading this gave her great comfort and she read it over and over again in times of great desolation and loneliness. This book contained clues to her history and she really wanted her grandson to treasure this tale in a bid to get to know the real HER.

The small boy thanked his grandmother quietly and took his leave taking the book with him and placing it on the plain brown desk in his bedroom. There it sat unnoticed and unthought of for years. It was packed away into storage boxes when the boy went away for work and was unpacked and filed in new book cases upon his return home as a man many years later.

Jenna wondered about this man now. Why did she see this blue book and what possible significance could it hold for him? This year had sewn a new seam of experience for him and the parameters of his life had been quite shaken as a result. He had been questioning everything and actually looking at the world not as he’d like it to be but the beauty of it as it is right now flaws and all. This philosophy was most definitely a recent addition to his evolution.

He remembered the blue book and opened it at page one. Almost immediately he looked in the mirror of the characters and saw his grandmother and reluctantly himself. His great love for the people in his life, his expanding sphere of influence, the natural artistic streak in his expression of language, art and music and his earthy vulnerability were all alive in this book.

The central character suffered constant bullying and abuse at the hands of his father and brother enduring his mother’s over protective smothering love. As soon as he could, he left the family farm and took a ship to a far off land to work and establish a name for himself away from the domain and shadow of his father. However no matter how far and wide he travelled, his father was still the voice in his head and the tongue that could shred people in a moment. To balance this, his breeding dictated his polite and cordial treatment of women and this more than emotional attachment motivated his relationships. He was a good man, willing to be accountable and always supportive of those around him. Yet he remained a bachelor with his heart firmly locked away.

A great love for babies, he remained childless, yet in business was addicted to the excitement of creating something new, building it and reaping the rewards of watching it grow. He was safe investing his love for creation in business. As his grandmother had invested in her family empire, his business empire grew as he proved to the father he carried in his top pocket that he was capable of success on his own.

Jenna woke from her day dream and stared blankly at her laptop screen. Where did THAT come from she asked herself? How could one blue book in her imagination hold such a tale? It was as if she in turn was reading about herself. She quickly rubbed her eyes, got up from her desk to stretch her legs and walked over to her bookcase. And there on the middle shelf, filed between various training manuals sat a faded old blue book.

So Jenna plonked herself down on the sofa in her office and began to read the tale of a tiny beautiful old woman dressed in pink, cream and navy with delicate white porcelain hands sitting pensively in a corner of a quiet cool garden surrounded by white roses.