Dear IF readers,

First I need to respond to a reader who is curious as to the nature of my family crisis that I mentioned in February. Our cousin is out of the hospital and is out of danger for now. She did hurt herself, and is now being treated for depression. She has asked me to travel to see her as she is finally ready for visitors and she wants things to look forward to. I will be flying up North in early April and we speak often. We used to always speak on Sundays referring to it as “family day” and we are trying again to honor that tradition. I feel as though I have a second chance to love better a family member that has been very lonely and sad for a long time. I want to reflect on her challenges with being in a wheelchair all her life, but she might think that was my making it trite or too easy. Her depression is anything but a stereotype. I keep myself from hoping. I can only love her, and the only person I can ever change is myself. I have learned that too often and with too much disappointment in the past. Finally though there is much laughter between us again and chats about family and music again. I cherish that.

Tonight I saw the movie, “The Other Boleyn Sister”, and so I again immersed myself into the life of Henry VIII but this time between two sisters, two siblings. As I have spoken of sibling rivalry in this month’s issue of IF mag, this movie brings that to light in a way that competes with the biblical story of Cain and Abel. In this movie, Mary the sister of Anne is a mistress of Henry VIII. I checked sources and there is truth to that in the history books. But this movie speculates on the fury with which Anne powers her relationship with Henry VIII as something built out of spite to Mary. And that, is a different history but one worth contemplating. History and politics which we study in such sterile terms at times, has many more intimate details and familial passions. History and politics involve humans and humans are so terribly human about things. Anger, jealousy, forgiveness, vainity, pride, lust, these are all very human emotions. And so, unlike the animal kingdom where emotions are played out without so many rationalizations, we write books about emotions and people and call it history. I wonder if the animals sit around their fires telling stories, histories. This fictional history of Anne and Mary as played out in “The Other Boleyn Sister” is as interesting to me as the facts. Who knows what played out between the text of what was written down? I know if Jax and Brody ever fight over a girl with the way Jax loves and needs to win, and the way Brody territorializes a person or a thing and his tempers over it, I can only imagine.

Good reading, good siblings, Cat Wayland

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