Not a good morning
Jeannine always “hates to get out of bed.” She would “lie on her side and look at the ailanthus tree” until “her back began to ache.” The she would just “turn over,” and “fall asleep” again. She lay in bed “like a puddle and the cat would climb over her.” “On workdays” Jeannine got up early “in a kind of waking nightmare: feeling horrid, stumbling to the hall bathroom with sleep all over her.” Even coffee “made her sick.” She couldn’t even “sit in the armchair, or drop her slippers, or bend, or lean, or lie down.” This imagery evokes a feeling of exhaustion.
Whileaway
Janet was born “on a farm on Whileaway.” When she was “five,” she was sent to a school “on South Continent.” When she turned twelve, she “rejoined” her family. When she was “thirteen,” Janet “stalked and killed a wolf.” She has worked “in the mines, on the radio network, on a milk farm, on a vegetable farm,” and “for six weeks as a librarian” after she broke her leg. “At thirty” she bore Yuriko and when she was taken to school “five years later,” Janet decided to take “time off.” This imagery makes a head spin. Janet is definitely not a lazy one.
Life as it is
Janet bore her child at “thirty.” They all do it. It is “a vacation” that lasts “almost five years.” The baby rooms are full of people “reading, painting, singing, as much as they can.” They sing “to the children, with the children, over the children.” It reminds Janet of “the ancient Chinese custom of the three-year’s mourning, an hiatus at just the right time.” There has been “no leisure at all before” and there will be “so little after.” Everyone works with “feverish haste.” At sixty Janet will get “a sedentary job” and have “some time” for herself again. This imagery evokes a feeling of great sadness, for it is clear as a day that Janet has no control over her life.
