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Show Kathleen Norris Says: Every Woman Should Make Some Plan to Avoid Dullness (Bell Syndicate WKH Service.) Sometimes a dreadful dullness comes into married life, for the woman. She remembers other days, eager joyous days of girlhood. Now comes a pause. By KATHLEEN NORRIS SOMETIMES a dreadful dullness comes into married life, for the woman. Not illness, not trouble, trou-ble, not money worry, but just insufferable in-sufferable dullness. Life for Betty goes on without excitement, ex-citement, without thrill. The kitchen kitch-en routine proceeds placidly; the children go to school; Ed comes home and has his dinner and goes out to his lodge meeting. Betty helps the boy and girl with homework, home-work, turns on the radio, yawns, mends a sweater and then decides to go to bed. Sometimes this even flow of uneventful un-eventful days frightens an intelligent intelli-gent woman. Earthquake, flood or fire might horrify her, but at least they would find her active, adequate, ade-quate, swept off her feet in the sudden sud-den new demand. . But monotony scares her. She remembers other days, eager joyous days of girlhood, dances, laughter, the glory of her engagement and marriage, the fun of showing off the new house, of telling her friends that she and Ed were expecting a baby. The baby's coming, too, was an occasion never to be forgotten; the flurry of getting him started; the happy, wearying absorption in his needs, and the needs of the second baby. All this might have been tiring, anxious, responsible, re-sponsible, but it was satisfying and triumphant, too. them would feel themselves rich with a steady husband, a steady income, two small sons, home, garden, gar-den, car, perfect health, and that security from aerial bombardment that is becoming a luxury in the world. Suggestion for Lola. But that isn't fair. For she admits ad-mits herself that she OUGHT to ba content, and really wants to cure herself if it is her fault that she is not. So instead of reproaching her, I am going to make to her several suggestions that may help her extricate ex-tricate herself from the rut into which she has fallen. To begin with, there is an inner spirit or subliminal consciousness or soul or entity in every woman. It is a correspondence with elements ele-ments that are supernatural. Call this thing whatever you like Karma, Kar-ma, Yogi, mental healing, the infinite, in-finite, Oneness it means that you recognize some influence higher than a merely earthly influence, and your values in life are formed on something higher than a purely earthly scale. Most of us call this imponderable, infinite, intangible but very real presence, God. We don't attempt to analyze Him, work Him out on charts and graphs; we merely go into that stillness called prayer now and then, and await with perfect confidence a renewal of life within Ten Years Later. But now, 10 years married, with the thirties beginning to slide by, with Ed taking everything quietly for granted, and only articulate when dinner isn't satisfactory or little Ned sleeps too late in the mornings now comes a pause. And somehow the wife and mother knows that it is a dangerous pause, and that something must be done about it or it may have lasting and serious results. "Floyd leaves the house at eight-thirty," eight-thirty," writes a Kansas wife. "I go to the door with him and kiss him good-by. Then I get the two boys off for school, and turn back into my quiet house for morning dust, planning of meals. At noon I have a cup of soup or malted milk and a sandwich, and afterward lie down and rest for awhile. Then perhaps shopping, a movie, a club meeting, a hospital call. "At five, I am occupied in the kitchen, with the table to set. Floyd is home, and there is quiet talk of what he did all day and what I did, not either interesting or important to either hearer, and then we settle down to evening paper and radio, or, on rare occasions, have guests for dinner and bridge very poor bridge all 'round, with nobody sure of the scoring or Floyd goes out and I am alone. us; a new sense of potentiality, trust, and above all delight and eagerness in the outwardly dull routine rou-tine of every day. The Happiest People. The happiest persons in this bewildered be-wildered world, in fact the only happy ones, are those who have found this secret for themselves, and revel in that unbounded glory of living which the orientals call "bliss." You can live in three rooms in a crowded tenement, and possess it. You can be the wealthiest wealthi-est woman in the world and miss it completely. Yet it's open enough to find, and it costs nothing. Ask, and you shall receive it, and to repeat, re-peat, it costs you nothing. It can be yours. Once this is achieved, a thousand interests and indeed fevers possess you. You want to live forever, so that you may have time to read a thousand books; accomplish a thousand thou-sand prison reforms and live to see them work; establish a Spanish class at 25 cents a lesson and watch it grow until you are besieged with class and radio engagements; plan a garden, and glory in its beauty; build a backyard grill and entertain enter-tain the boys and their friends there; find an old country place and move into it, and have chickens and a cow; raise fine-bred Persian kittens; kit-tens; gather a circle of their friends about your boys and be sure that the group in which they grow to young manhood is a safe group; study beekeeping, astronomy, bookbinding; book-binding; put up fancy preserves and sell them. Or, under slate supervision, super-vision, take three or four small children chil-dren to board. Tho state pays much more than they cost and the work of building little citizens Is a valuable one. Or go into politics, by the simple process of attending a meeting or two, accepting a position posi-tion on some committee, and contributing con-tributing your mite toward a better and wiser administration of your local atrairs. The country would ba better off if more women did this. A Plan Is Necessary. Some months nyo I was walking through a dark Boston slum with a your.g professional man. It was broiling summer, and the high tenement tene-ment rooms wore like so many little hot boxes glaring into the crowded night. To my exclamation of pity and concern, the young doctor said, "It all depends upon whether you ; have a FLAN or not. Feople with- ' out plans are to be pitied, no mat- j ter where they are." Goes On No Change. "Everything pleasant, friendly, just as it was last year and will be next year. Our income is small, but enough, we all have good health, questions of budget and allowance were long ago adjusted. My husband hus-band is a trusted employee in a rubber firm; his salary is $38.50 a week. Recently he asked for a weekly raise of $7.50 and was refused. re-fused. It would have made some difference to us, but not an important impor-tant one. "V.'hat can I do to make our lives more exciting and glamorous? I am a home woman; I know I should be more than satisfied with what I have. But I'm not. I'm restless and bored. Floyd's people are straight American. My grandfather grand-father was a general in the Spanish army 20 years ago; my mother S.vcai.-.h. Is it the mixed blood that makes me at once shy and eager? I d:d not Fpcak Er.gh.-h until I was eight years old." The obvious answer to Lola is that she has more now than nine-tenths cf the women of the world have, and that ninety-nine hundredths of |
