The "OF" Complex

Moving makes me feel awfully weird. And I am fairly certain that it is not just a shock reaction to the strain of lifting things (being the sort who writes primarily in cursive to avoid excessive lifting of the hand) but is instead the product of a more intangible funkiness.

[Aside: Man, I just can’t believe that “funkiness” is a real word. As I was typing it I was steeling myself to ignore the red line of Word, so ironically wiggly for representing the rigidity of spelling within the oppressive Word-world. And yet, no red line. I guess there is no other way to say “funkiness.” I could have said “a more intangible thing with elements of funk included.” I'm getting quite out of control, I know. Maybe I miss school.]

But back to moving. It’s entirely probably that I always get a little unhinged about moving because I yearn for the epic imagery of cheese-ball novels. In my youth I saturated my brain with books from the vast field of novels featuring sprightly young women as heroines in a more moral provincial past. Think covers of a “grass in motion” motif.

You know the sort of books I am talking about. The female version of your epic boy-and-dog tale, which often boiled down to girl-and-horse because no child in their right mind wants to read a book about a kitten. I was never happier than if these whippersnappers occasioned upon a horse that was untamable to all hard-hearted men-folk and easily won over by the offer of an apple or the playing of a fiddle, or maybe just automatically because the horse cleverly realized that he and this chick were similarly misunderstood by society, horses being great sociologists. The horse theme in this kind of literature is optional, but that stuff is gold. I could watch The Notebook about 30 times and never cry as hard as I would reading My Friend Flicka.

To return to my point (if I did indeed have one), these books warped my impressionable young mind and thus I suffer to this day from an “OF” complex. Oftentimes these books include the the name of the whimsical farm or region where the saucy young heroine lives in the title of the novel. Looking back, I guess it's possibly because these books frequently pushed a theme of ownership and home-making and the space that's being claimed is as important as anything else. And because it is important, it becomes important that you are “Of” there, to use the hokey phrasing. Hence the “OF"complex.

The prime Canadian example is the epic Anne of Green Gables series, featuring 8 whole books using the “Anne of whatever” title structure. But there is also American stuff like Rebecca of Sunnybook Farm. Or the Little House series, which doesn't state the OF so blatantly, but instead completely eradicates the main character Laura from the title and makes the House the constant [Farmer Boy excluded, ewww] and connects it with a series of “on” and “in”s. In short, the literature of my childhood taught me two things: tame a horse with some sugar cookies and a fiddle; and your home is a defining characteristic, or in some of the Wilder [ha..ha..] cases, more important than you altogether.

So moving makes me feel weird, because it deserves due consideration and weight. I spent many formative years (and long weekends in college) reading about people drawing their identity from their home and only conceding to leave their home in when sheer desperation left no other option or when dragged along by the cruel bitch of Manifest Destiny. Maybe I'm being too American today, but I can't help but want some sort of great gurgling reliance on my home. And although I adore my apartment to pieces, I wouldn't risk any sort of prairie fire to keep it, and I don't feel too bad leaving it.

Mostly I am nervous about my job interview tomorrow and rambling on insensibly.