'Anne' as a mirror ...

I'm near the end of "Anne of Green Gables" (the book) a year after Amber, Rachel and I made the PEI pilgrimage, a year after we listened to the book on CD up through Maine and New Brunswick, over the Confederation Bridge and on into Charlottetown. I dozed a lot during that mostly-middle-of-the-night trek, so I missed a lot of the story (again).

I read it as a kid; I read it again in college. But somehow, so much of the profundity slipped away. I've found that common with a lot of books I loved (or ought to have loved) as an adolescent: They may have been amusing then, but they actually mean something now. How odd.

Anyway. Where I am: Anne regrets not forgiving Gilbert (or telling him she had forgiven him), and her regret is haunting her through her term at Queen's Academy.

I can't say I actually regret not re-establishing contact, but there's somthing — or several somethings — nagging at me. I just can't put my finger on it. I had a dream last night: We were, at the very least, friends who were glad to see each other and to catch each other up on the goings-on in our lives.

Some days, I wish it could be like that. Other days ... Well. Other days, I'm moving away, and I tell myself that beyond the moment when I shut the door on the moving van and head outside the city limits for the last time, it just won't matter anymore.

Maybe I'm wrong.

But I'll be wrong hundreds of miles away. So you see — it really won't matter.