Make Up Your Mind: Life Lessons from Emily

Well, we shall see if I have the words for this today.

Emily Byrd Starr. I did not want to meet her because I did not think she could live up to Anne Shirley or Rilla Blythe or Valancy Stirling.

(We are talking about L. M. Montgomery’s work today.)

But, as it turns out, during this particular season of my life, I resonate with Emily more than any of the others.

Books have a way of “finding me” in divine timing. I never go hunting for my next epiphany. It comes when it wants to, when it must. This usually happens with non-fiction, but in this case, Emily of New Moon found its way into my online shopping cart, and I thought, If it’s not for me, I’ll give it away.

It’s kind of funny, in retrospect. I bought a book by my favorite author and thought I might have to get it out of my house. I should have known then and there that it was more than just my next read.

Inception

Emily is a writer. That much is clear from the start. Her brave, loyal, ambitious nature is perfectly suited for her quest of climbing the “Alpine Path” to literary success. Nothing, nothing can get in her way when she has her pen, her all-seeing eyes, and, occasionally, her “Murray look.” (If you see it—and pray you don’t—just give her what she wants, for heaven’s sake.)

It’s always interesting to read a book about a writer. It’s like Inception. A writer reads a book about a writer by another writer. That’s a lot of layers to peel back.

But there’s an authenticity in it that you won’t find anywhere else. What other profession goes this deep? No one can describe the trials and triumphs of their work more thoroughly than a writer. To explain the magic, they have to perform it.

I know. I can’t believe this is my real life either.

Second Sight

There is nothing like that creeping feeling that you know what is about to happen without knowing why you know. This happens to me a lot. It happened on Monday! Sometimes, intuition is not a still, small voice but a striking, magnified bellow.

Still, most of us aren’t psychics. Emily is one.

I like this character trait because it adds a fantastical quality to an otherwise grounded, life-like trilogy. Maud often wrote what she knew—of the joys and activities and places and pains with which she was familiar. But in the case of Emily, she created a person who can draw a picture of a missing child and his location in her sleep (literally). After returning from the brink of death, she can locate the corpse of a person she never met. In peering into a gazing ball, she can prevent the drowning of her best friend.

Maud crafted these scenes with such sincerity that you can’t help believing them. And, when you view “second sight” this way, it makes your own, “average” intuition a lot more convincing. At least, that’s been my experience.

Three O’Clock

Emily and I are a lot alike, and I have very mixed feelings about it.

If she sat down to take the MBTI, I am almost certain she would be an INFJ. That’s cool.

On the other hand—and bear with me while I treat her as a living person—we both experience those nagging life and career questions that are enough to make even the most well-adjusted person spiral. Maud calls this the “three o’clock” hour. Are you acquainted with it?

Emily is often woken by questions she lacks the context to answer. What if she had left Prince Edward Island and moved to New York City when she had the chance? Would her writing career look different? Would it be better? Mary Shipley Murray may have said, “Here I stay,” but maybe Emily should have gone.

There are other characters in the trilogy who experience three o’clock restlessness, too. Ilse Burnley has all the trappings of a great orator, but she gets homesick, not for PEI, but for her childhood, which she can’t get back. Teddy Kent keeps painting Emily’s eyes into every portrait he creates, but his success isn’t bringing her closer—it’s pushing her further away. And for what? Her pride? His?

I’m frequently overwhelmed by these character arcs because three o’clock is real. And I think we all experience it. We wonder if we’re doing the right thing, and if so, is it only right because we took a wrong turn earlier?

So, to be clear, three o’clock is proof that no one knows what they’re doing. We’re all just trying our best. And I think Emily is about to find that it’s enough.

I had my last three o’clock hour about four hours ago. I wound up thinking that there’s no such thing as a wrong turn.

Make Up Your Mind

Emily is darker than Anne. It’s even darker than Rilla. But the shadows converge over a really interesting topic: pride.

The “Murray pride” is the source of much pain for Emily. When she steps on a pair of scissors and takes a tumble down the stairs, she loses herself so completely that she agrees to marry a man she does not love. She believes she has wasted years of her life on writing, so she gives that up, too. If she can’t be great, she will have to settle for being comfortable. And if she’s not happy, well… she has to be.

Except Teddy Kent is about to board the Flavian, and she must stop him. She doesn’t know why. She just does. And it saves his life.

So she calls off her engagement, even though she’d rather die. The Murray pride can’t stand to be wrong—but the second sight has made her connection to Teddy irrevocable. Still, she does not believe he can ever love her in return—not since she decided to stay on the island while he moved on—so she seeks out her pen and settles for survival.

Even while he paints her eyes into the faces of others, she does her best impression of Florence Welch and pins their dysfunction on him.

I haven’t finished Emily’s Quest yet. I hope and pray she chooses love over pride. I think she will.

But even if she doesn’t, we—all of us on the Alpine Path—can choose it for ourselves.

And I think that’s why I need Emily Byrd Starr right now, as I begin another trip around the sun. To remind me that there is always a choice.

Hope over worry.
Intuition over fear.
Peace over anxiety.
Love over pride.