why jo, anne, heidi, mistress mary and even amy are my fictionary soulmates

so because i plowed through the recently popular books that i'd been holding out on (such as the help and all of the millenium series), i decided to fall back on those free books i'd downloaded with the desperate to need to have a full kindle, a full library abroad.

in fact, i resorted to the books that i'd read once as a young girl and had either a) discarded in favor of the babysitters club or b) decided to enjoy the movie versions more, with the likes of christian bale and maggie smith.  

can you think of it?

yes, i fell desperately, deeply and irrevocably (a la bella) in love with the lovely classics written about women.

like, little women.

and the entire anne of green gables collection.

and the secret garden.

and even heidi.

if you can believe it, jo is far more endearing on paper than when winona ryder played her.  and, even better, i absolutely fell for miss amy, who started out as a silly little girl and turns into this actually really sweet, kind-hearted, woman who has the ability to...

forgive other women with grace, humor and genuine understanding when they maliciously try to take credit for her awesomeness; make laurie realize that he needed to get back on track and grow up; was willing to marry fred vaughn not out of some haughty love of money but really because a girl growing up in the 1860's realizes that some daughter has to find a way to take care of the family.

why, i actually found myself wishing i had the temperament not JUST of miss jo, but of blonde, snub-nosed miss amy even a bit more.

and then there's anne. my god, how i AM anne.  i was am such a strange little creature unto this world, such that when i was little i spent hours entertaining myself wherein my mother would come looking for me, because i was so quiet, imagining games and worlds for myself.  i love everything there is to love about anne.

why, when she was facing marilla and ever so politely trying not to cry as she imagined her return to the orphanage, i was actually crying for her.  me, all misty eyed, because you just know this little ten year old girl deserves the amazing world of green gables.

and then i cried when she got to stay, and i instantly longed for a bosom buddy such as diana and i just know that a girl is meant to have ever so many bosom friends throughout life, as anne does as she travels from avonlea to the island to her dream home on the coast, and i just believe that women should be allowed to shout out "i love you!" to each other, even when they both have husbands, and children, and many other interests.  because love just shouldn't be constrained, even platonic love.

le sigh.

and even though mistress mary quite contrary in the secret garden is such an unloving, unloved little thing, my heart just reached out to her, playing on the moors, and i could feel the cold wind in my hair and the earth build up under my nailbeds as she and dickon resurrected rose bush after rose bush. 

and all i want now is to speak to sparrows and rescue foxes, like my own little dickon-ess.

so, as it turns out, the classics and their heroines are so much more wonderful when read through the eyes of a twenty six year old, rather than a nine year old.

do tell me, who reaches out to you from the yellowed pages of classic novels and speaks directly to your soul, like the deepest of bosom friends?

and tell me, if you could have just one young woman for the lifetime of bosomness, just who would you choose?

i can't choose between anne from her house of dreams, or amy from her time living abroad. i do think all three of us would get along just splendidly.