A Woman of Letters

“One must, in one’s life, make a choice between boredom and suffering.”
~Germaine de Staël


Are we not again in the age where we are of need of Women of Letters? Where we have a need to gather in a salon and discuss the next age of reason and enlightenment?

This conversation can't happen in social media or in the ethers. It needs to happen again where we can see the dilation of someone's pupils and the hear the excitement in their voice.

I got here after following a very obscure trail of breadcrumbs. Doing some research about Marie Antoinette and her portrait artist Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun; I bumped into Germaine de Staël. That is the thing about the late 1700's, you run into everyone.

Stick with me on this one because it gets a bit hair pin turn like here. My children and I have an acronym, CAKE, the letters of our first names which we came up with ages ago. When I went to log into to my iTunes account the other day after an update it begged me for a username which was something new. So after repeated attempts of all my old standards which were taken, I typed in "eat cake", in a semi-annoyed fashioned as a play off of, "let them eat cake". It accepted my off handed offer to my shocked surprised.

I called my oldest daughter telling her I was going to run with it and do a personal brand. Having some fun with it seemed natural since I have a "not in the closet" love for Rococo era everything and would take a job as a professional duster for Versailles, painting conservation and restoration profession aside. So tonight I went down the lovely rabbit hole to do up a little profile photo-ohhh rabbit in Alice's voice-here we go...

-Marie Antoinette's portrait artist's name is Elisabeth (born April)-my first name is Elisa (born April)
-Marie Antoinette was executed on 10/16/1793 on 10/16/2017 I found out my husband was looking into divorce attorneys
-CAKE-see above

Which brings me back to how I bumped into Germaine de Staël. As I moved chronologically through French History and the influence of women, I wondered about the telling of women in history as I often do. Clearly it is told by men, the stories from their male perspective. Like Marie's alleged comment of, "let them eat cake". And in my own life, this very moment, I see how I am so miswritten like the bullshit propaganda handed out by French factions. My own husband is doing the same thing right now to drum up sympathy for himself, maybe not nicely illustrated leaflets but you get the picture. Props to anyone who takes the time to do a nice leaflet these days.

So yes, one must make a choice between boredom and suffering. I hope Marie wasn't telling the peasants to eat cake but the aristocracy that spent so much time criticizing her to fuck off. That is the story I tell myself. That is the Marie I wish her to be.So yes, let them eat cake. I have not had a whole lot of encouragement from the people in my husband's family, or from my husband in the last 7 years. He informed me that he didn't think he could continue to do his personal work while living under the same roof as me and that he has felt this way for the entire year. Napoleon exiled Germaine de Staël from France and Marie Antoinette got her head cut off. At the end of the day I would rather be either of them then spend one day being Napoleon, the men that told lies to slander Marie or my husband.

So gather together women of letters to write a history for yourselves that inspires creativity, compassion and a future that makes men want to be a better version of themselves.



"Scientific progress makes moral progress a necessity; for if man’s power is increased, the checks that restrain him from abusing it must be strengthened."


Disclaimer from the author:It isn't that punctuation isn't important to the author. Grammar and punctuation are one of the backbones of civilized society, but it is always late and I don't often proof my work. I am literally overjoyed to get anything posted at all. If you would like to volunteer to edit my work please send me a message.