Would be very for any WW's who have read the story pasted below and can provide feedback/analysis. Thank you in advance.
Jack
Edna’s Mansion
Edna lived with her husband in a beautiful but old mansion on the top of a grassy hill. She had spent almost her whole life there and loved it very much. It was such a part of her that most of the things she liked could be found there even though it had many different and interesting aspects to it that did not come from her at all. She always felt safe there and never wanted to leave it. It was one of the reasons she chose to live there in the first place.
In most ways the mansion reflected Edna’s taste, as well as her likes and dislikes. Over the years Edna had decorated it and even remodeled it herself. Other people admired it greatly and they thought Edna was fortunate to have it, especially for as long as she had. Edna felt lucky too, and was proud to be the owner. There were some things she did not like about the house, and some things that definitely needed fixing, but overall its condition was very good. Some of the changes she would like to have made were just too difficult. The people who built the house had put in some things that just could not be removed and it had various features that would have required major demolition to alter, so Edna just worked around them and made it as nice as she could.
Even with all these attributes however the mansion at times was a bit tiresome. It hadn’t changed substantially in all the years Edna lived there, and no matter how she rearranged things from time to time it always looked and felt pretty much the same. The paint was dull and old, the furniture worn, and occasionally it all simply bored her. Part of this stemmed from her feeling that just about everything she could do had already been done and she hated watching it deteriorate almost as much as she hated having to do things over and over again. She had to admit that she missed the days when she first moved in, when she was young, creative, and busy fixing up the mansion, and the excitement she felt at being its new owner. She began to feel and to fear that her life was over in a way, and that someday she would die in the old mansion and it would be just as it was, nothing more, nothing less.
One day, in an unplanned sort of impulsive, and very spontaneous way, Edna filled out a contest entry that she saw on a cereal box top and mailed it in. Although it was very much unlike Edna to do such a thing, it didn’t require any real effort of any kind such as an essay or puzzle solution or anything like that. Just her name and address, that was all. It was that easy to enter and the fist prize was fascinating to Edna. The contest winning entry would receive a brand new country house by a lake.
Edna really wasn’t seeking a second home and did not expect to ever have one. But, barely a week after she entered, a telegram arrived informing Edna that she had won. Edna was completely astonished and for days she was in a state of shock. She was amazed that sending in such a tiny little entry blank could actually result in her receiving a new house for free, but it did. She didn’t quite know what to do with it, and was even scared at first, but that was part of the fun, and she became increasingly excited by the prospects. It felt strange to have something she hadn’t worked for or earned, but there it was. She could do with it as she pleased.
Edna visited the new house soon after and liked it almost right away. It felt great to have something all her own, something that was brand new, and it was the perfect respite from the mansion. In the past she had read about such places and seen movies about them and such, and had even daydreamed about having a place just like it. It was hidden in a secret patch of woods that nobody seemed to know anything about, it had no telephone, no one could see her or reach her there, and there was no work to do there unless she felt like it because it was all brand new. There were no bills to pay, no one clamoring for her attention, and no responsibility. Unlike the mansion, which was in a built up part the city and somewhat confining, the country house was in the middle of nowhere surrounded only by trees and water and wide-open space. She was enthusiastic about being in a new area that she could explore. Most importantly the house was totally empty inside and very quiet. Edna could decorate and furnish it anyway she wanted, she didn’t have to match any existing features or styles or anything. She didn’t have to take advice from anyone else and always had the final say. She could plant gardens wherever she liked, and go there whenever she felt like it and never be disturbed. She also liked the fact that no one even knew she had it and decided at once to always keep it that way.
The country house lacked many of the amenities and conveniences of her mansion but these were minor and easy to live with, after all it was just a country house, she didn’t plan on ever living there full time. Besides she thought, the price was right! It was free, and that’s another thing she liked about it, because that meant it came with no pressure of any kind, if she made a mistake or changed her mind about anything, it wouldn’t matter. It was also fun to experiment, something she didn’t risk doing much of at the mansion, because she couldn’t. The mansion was much different, it was more valuable, but with that value came obligations and responsibilities, it was a place for seriousness and caution not whimsy.
Edna never thought that having a country house would have any negative effect on her mansion but it did. Things that needed fixing in the mansion were often let go, and she became more interested in working on the country house where the results of her labors seemed much more noticeable and appreciable. She found it easier to decorate and plant gardens when she was starting from scratch with an empty house and an empty yard. Working on the mansion always entailed moving heavy things or digging up deep roots and was more difficult. For a long while she spent much more time in the country house than she did in her mansion returning to the mansion sometimes just to sleep or answer the mail or pay the bills. It began to look more and more stale to her. Her friends and family saw much less of her as well. But the combination of having the two homes was pleasing to her and she had no interest in giving up either. There were times when she wished the mansion could be more like the country house and times when she wished the country house could be more like the mansion, but she liked having them both. Mostly she liked having the option of staying at either place, but this was about to change quickly.
One day when Edna was at the country house her mansion caught fire and burned to the ground. It was a small fire at first, one she could easily have noticed and put out had she been there. But the fire burned unchecked and in moments everything was lost. Edna came home at once and stood before the smoldering ruins and thought to herself that if she hadn’t been occupied so much with the country house this never would have happened. But there was little time to grieve because very soon she had an important choice to make.
Her choice was either to move to the country house and live there or rebuild the mansion and live there. But she could not afford to do both, so if she decided to rebuild she would have to sell the country house immediately. The country house was ready to move into however and she thought she could be fairly comfortable there. But the absence of the mansion was too painful of a thought for her to bear. Suddenly, now that it was gone, the parts she hadn’t liked about it seemed trivial, and she started to remember all sorts of details and aspects of it that she truly loved but had put mostly out of her mind. The thought of losing it forever was overwhelming to her. She realized how deeply she loved it and had devoted most of her life to it and was ready to do so again if it could only be rebuilt. Fortunately the foundation still remained and the landscape was as beautiful as ever.
The country house was put up for sale with scarcely a look goodbye. It seemed odd that after putting so much energy into it she was actually kind of happy to see it go. It had burdens of it own she was coming to realize and its disadvantages were clearer to her. Even at its best it was still a pretty small cabin in the middle of nowhere she thought, and its limitations became more apparent. Even the adjacent lake was small and muddy. Suddenly, the thing she had once been so excited about meant nothing. At first she missed it but she soon had to focus all of her attention on the task of restoring the mansion. The country house turned out to be worth far less than she had imagined, she was surprised at how fast it sold, and it didn’t leave her with much money. A great deal of the work needed to restore the mansion she would have to do herself. She even enrolled in a course in home building and repair.
Edna felt strange and vulnerable now to not have any house at all, especially without knowing if she would be able to rebuild the mansion successfully. Occasionally, friends would drive by her old country house and call to tell her how great it now looked. The new owner had repainted it and redecorated it to her own liking, and moved in right away. This was easy to do, Edna thought, the house was very basic and sort of lent itself to that, as though it were a rental unit. This made her feel a bit sad at first, and later even jealous in a way, especially when the new owner pulled out all the flowers she had planted and put in a swimming pool. It felt like her efforts were all for nothing and all the neighbors talked about was how nicely the new owner had fixed up the house, never mentioning what she had done initially when it was empty. The house of course was just a house and didn’t care who owned it she supposed.
In time Edna built a beautiful new mansion on the same foundation as the old one. In fact, Edna was amazed at how short a time it took. Having the site, the foundation, and her memories of the old one to go by made it much easier to recreate. To most observers the new mansion was not only newer but much better. It looked very similar, much the same actually as the old one to most people, but in its new construction it was even stronger and more solid. Most of the things Edna hadn’t liked about the old mansion were now changed but all the things she loved about it were recreated as best as she could. Sadly, there were some things about the old mansion that could not be replaced at all, even if she had wanted to.
Some of its old furnishings, paintings, and collectibles were irreplaceable and were only memories now, good memories though they were. This meant that a delicate form of richness and texture was lost and impossible to instantly recreate, not necessarily because of the things themselves but because of the feelings that went with them. It would take a long time, maybe as long as it took for the old mansion, to have this again. The old mansion also had a peaceful feeling of invulnerability that was naturally shattered by the fire. No matter how many times you looked at it, the image of the charred ground and the smoldering ashes could be brought to mind too, but in the end the comparison was a happy one and the rebuilt mansion stood all the more proudly. There was something triumphant about that and this was something even the old mansion couldn’t boast. It was as though the old mansion was also a part of the new mansion, like the new mansion was now actually both, and had a shared history with the old.
Something else was gone too. The old mansion had a quaint kind of special quality, a subtle understated uniqueness that made it very different, but in a beautiful way, from any other house, which the new construction just could not duplicate. Now it looked more like many of the other houses in the neighborhood, it was still beautiful, perhaps even more so, just not as different, and sort of modern in a way. It seemed to remind people of the fact the old style mansions just weren’t being built anymore, not many were left, and every day it seemed another one burned down or was demolished, and that something rare had been lost.
In truth Edna liked the new mansion better and was happy now to look forward to spending the rest of her life there. Because it was new she did not feel as restrained as she had felt in the old mansion, it was as though all of the constraints and responsibility she had to deal with in order to preserve and maintain the old mansion went away with the fire, and were replaced with an easier kind of responsibility, for creating and building up the new mansion, which gave her much more enjoyment. Likewise, the new mansion required far less maintenance than the old one and she worried less, if at all, about losing it, except of course by fire, but that was natural she thought.
Edna had come full circle, from having the old mansion, to having both the country house and the old mansion, to suddenly and briefly having only the country house, to a time of having neither the country house nor the old mansion, and finally to having the new and rebuilt mansion. Sometimes she would lie in her bedroom and think to herself, how did all this happen, and be thankful that she survived it all and be grateful to be where she was. Once in a while she wondered what the old mansion would have looked like today if she had been able to devote all the time and resources to restoring it that she had devoted to the country house back then, and now to the new mansion, but it was gone, and she could never know, so it was pointless to imagine. More importantly, Edna believed that even with all the turmoil, she was happier now than she could ever be, and she especially loved living in the new mansion with her husband. The view from her window was wider, and the room itself was more spacious, but she felt just as safe and at home as she always had.
The new mansion also one thing the old mansion never had. The new mansion had a chapel.
