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Show Kathleen Norris Says: Everyone's Life Is Poor Stuff, Too . Bell Syndicate. WNXJ Feature!. I 1 I i I fldk V "The love of a tired, puzzled man who needs her, who comes borne to her at night, is the greatest miracle of all." By KATHLEEN NORRIS ' ARE there times in every woman's life when 1 x she thinks that unless something unexpected happens hap-pens she will simply go mad? " asks Mrs. Perry Allen of East St. Louis. "Such a time has come to me and I can tell you it frightens me. I have a nice seven-room, two-story house; we have a car; Perry is steady and affectionate; my mother lives near and is devoted de-voted and helpful and I'm afraid I'll go mad. "I'm sick unto death of putting the same clothes in the washing-machine for the children, and ironing the same clothes and carrying them upstair, and putting them into the wash again. I'm sick of putting the tame pot roast into the same pot, and cutting biscuits with the same cutter, and buying three new dish-towels dish-towels this week and three pairs of socks for each of the boys next week, 'm sick of my beauty parlor, my book-lending library, my bridge club; I'm sick of giving my husband hus-band steak only twice a month, and having him tired and grateful about it; 'my favorite dinner, Mommy.' "And I'm deadly sick," continues this spirited letter, "of kindly advice ad-vice from older women, who remind me of starvation in Poland and China Chi-na and practically everywhere else, and I'm sick of being told that if any real sorrow came to me, like Perry dying or one of the boys being k-illprl in thp street, how erateful I'd DULL AND POINTLESS Life is so drab, so dull and pointless, complains Mrs. Perry Allen in a letter, 'that she fears she will go mad unless something some-thing unexpected happens. She : has almost everything a woman wom-an can rightfully expect; a loving, lov-ing, dutiful husband, two healthy little boys, a suburban home. The family income is adequate for her needs and there are no bills or other financial worries. Nothing really is wrong, but Mrs. Allen is just weary of the routine of household cares, cooking, marketing mar-keting and all. Her club connections con-nections are not interesting enough to give her much diversion. di-version. She is looking for something bizarre to give her a new interest in life. Miss Norris replies that life settles down to a dreary sameness same-ness for nearly everyone, in time. Wealth and beauty and fame do not make much difference. differ-ence. The only element, says Miss Norris, that can lift anyone any-one out of monotony and despair, de-spair, is religion. A realization of the supernaturel part of life, she says, transforms everything commonplace and makes it sparkle. The dull, daily routine rou-tine becomes thrilling. be to go back to where I am today! Of course I worry myself sick every time the children or Perry have colds, or are late for dinner; they are dearer to me than life. But here am, 34, married 10 years, no debts, loving my husband, loving my restless, dirty, troublesome, noisy boys and afraid I'll go mad!" 'Terribly Dull.' "Well," the letter finishes in a quieter vein, "just writing this to you has been an enormous relief to me. I'll start the rabbit pot-pie and the creamed carrots in better spirits, t'd like to have crab cocktails for dinner tonight, followed by fat little steaks and fresh asparagus, and ended end-ed with my famous baked Alaska. We've had baked Alaska twice in six years. But if it must be rabbit and carrots so be it. Only believe be-lieve me, life can be terribly dull in a seven-room suburban house on 4,000 a year, even when you love your husband, buy bonds, go to church Sundays, entertain the bridge club every fourth week and have every Sunday dinner at one or the other mothers." Park avenue just as plentifully as they do the crowded tenements of Silver street. Wealth and fame and beauty are only fresh exasperations when they cannot hold a man's loyalty, loy-alty, save a child's life, or build about her the home fireside, the books and friends, the dear sense of being loved and needed that are every woman's dream. Supernatural Goal. The history of failures, divorces and suicides among the apparently great and favored prove this over and over. Life if you live it only in terms of this world, is a dull and discouraging business for everyone. Earthly life isn't enough for us, we are geared to something else. We need supernatural help. Once sure of that, there is no more dullness. We are the servants then of an invisible master. Nothing is humble then, nothing is monotonous. Life sparkles; the commonplace seven-room house, the two sturdy boys; the garden, friends, club, market mar-ket all combine in one absorbing absorb-ing miracle. And the love of a tired, puzzled man, who needs her, who comes home to her at night, is the greatest miracle of all. To make his life comfortable and complete is a daily and secret delight. Once you come to feel that disillusionment dis-illusionment and drabness are the fate of us all, your own share of it becomes easier to bear. You begin to reach about for that hidden alchemy al-chemy that transforms life in an ordinary or-dinary city flat into the most thrilling role a woman can be called upon to play. Believe me, the materials are all there, ready to your hand. Or rather, ready to your heart and soul. A ballroom and a swimming pool don't keep hate and fear and despair out of a house. Income has nothing to do with the joy of living. That is something for which you must seek as a certain merchant did a certain pearl, knowing that its heavenly luster would light al) the rest of his days. Yes, I know it can, Roberta, and I know how hard it is to carry on so apparently aimless a routine from pear to year. But when you get to my age you realize that life is much the same for everyone. Life itself, this queer brief time of sensibility between birth and death, isn't what It seems to be. Nobody has as much tun as you think. Millions of lives snow actual want, fear and suffering. suffer-ing. Millions of others are like yours, just in the comfortable, dull, safe middle zone. A few thousand seem to escape all that, and the women wear diamonds and take trips on private yachts and have leading parts in movies. And between them all there is precious pre-cious little to choose; that is the stupefying fact. The tiny details that make us happy or sad, proud or ashamed, exist in the mansions of rTTfy - N "My restless, troublesome, noisy boys . . ." |