On some days, I wake up, and I have a tidy mind. I feel the urge straighten things up . . . to re-organize my book shelf . . . to read (or watch): Cold Comfort Farm.
These are my Flora Poste days, January days. 1930s modern. I straighten my hair and make up my face. I write out my calendar for the next five months and make eleven lists. I shut all the closet doors and take all my vitamins and throw away old letters without regret.
Flora reformed a family of dirty tragic figures into people of sensible fulfillment. She is poised and neat and even believes in arranged marriages. And on these days, like her, I am order reforming mess, common sense coolly defeating neurosis, humor quipping romance, sweeping dust out of attic corners.
And the image I always have in mind is this. Peace and order with a hint of glamour. No untidiness. And, at the end of the day, Charles Fairford in his airplane to take me to London. Because, after all, things will get messy again. Tomorrow Flora might be subsumed in Hardy-like melancholy.
But for now, the clean cold brisk January order. The satisfying starkness of black branches against the winter sky. All new, in order, everything arranged.
"Jane Austen and I have so much in common. Neither of can stand mess."
-Flora Poste, Cold Comfort Farm
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