Chapter 10: 1890

Amelia Harper Edison - 1890, 

Playing piano in the home courtyard was my escape from the mundane, the tedious things required of a woman during this century. I've always had a yearning for something more, something beyond my physical senses; felt but not seen. At the age of just twenty, I was past marrying age, but no suitors ever to my likening, and I came from a wealthy enough family to reject offers. So I run my fingers through these keys and call out for something, someone to hear my desires and dreams. Rêverie by Claude Debussy is one of my favorites. I can be in any mood, and this song speaks to me. His music is dreamlike and makes me feel like I am back in my dreams when I play. 

From a young age, I have been told I am in my head so much that I will become trapped there. I always remember thinking, would that be such a bad thing? My dreams have, in a sense, become my reality. My most recent dream I flew. Can you imagine flying—what a wonder.  In the plan, I recall just running free of shoes; I was running in an empty street. No one around, no judging eyes, no distracting little noises; it was just me and the open road. So I ran. I ran until I could run no more until every fiber in my body screamed out in pain for rest, but even then, I ran. I ran from dresses, ran from the world of men, ran from lack of choices as a woman of the 1800s, all the while screaming inside of my head that if I could fly away right now, I would feel weightless as I ran. Then I did; I felt like a light feather falling from the sky as it moves with the wind. Then, as I continued running, I thought if I have the force beneath my feet, I will thrust myself up, up to the heavens, to float like the clouds that live on the winds. So I did. I willed it so in my dreams, and at a single moment of connection between all thoughts and idea, in a flash of a moment, I halted my run, exhausted but focused on feeling weightless and thus squatted down and jumped with one clear desire in my mind. So I flew, I trusted upwards solid and steady like a rocket ship, hands by my sides, and I was free. 

I wake in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, and I still feel the cold air on my face. To dream is to live; everything else is just clay. I've come to know all of this on my own, but of course, I've also had the honor to have the best of teachers in all of the subjects. After gathering my data, I am often researching dreams. My family is one of many inventors. Worldly things, this, of course, has never been my focus, and I am often scolded about it by any mother and father. But I will continue my work until my last breath. I know there is something more to dreams. There must be. In so, I will make there be.  At least for me. 

It is a warm spring day, and I am wearing one of my favorite dresses. It is a Belle Époque Parisian opulence Gypsy Style Corset;  Turquoise brocade with cascading ivory lace down to my feet. I am sitting in our family's garden reading Edwin A. Abbott's book "Flatlands: A Romance of Many Dimensions.". When I am approached by my father, who greets me with an afternoon kiss on my forehead, he is chatting this afternoon. Speaking of the past, of how proud he is of me, and then it comes up. The one topic I know leads to the topic I loath. He speaks about my beauty and that such a thing should no longer waste just sitting in our family home. That as he grows older each day, he wishes for the comforts of knowing his legacy, his Amelia will not be alone. As always, I assure him that I want nothing more than to be free to do as I may and to choose of my own who I shall love. It is at this point my father lowers his head which is not like him to do so. He is quiet for a few minutes. Then he speaks, and the words that come from his mouth are unreal. They cannot be actual words spoken aloud to me into the world. He says the words that my marriage has been negotiated and that I am to marry in one month to a gentleman by the name of Arthur Camden, he who sold manors for a living. So it was a perfect match, and his heart promised to give me a life of perfection, happiness, and children. I do not to this day recall anything else he was saying as the music began to play on a loud volumed phonograph, and the song was Chopin's No.20 " Nocturne" in C - minor. It played so slowly in my head that I began to cry. Tears filled my eyes, pain-filled my heart, my life flashed before me in moments. Married to someone, I could never love, living in a house that I could never call home, to have children with someone I would detest. I could not be this role so many women played. I wouldn't do it. So I run. I run for all the women who never could, who never dared to; I ran for me. 

It was dark; I remember it was very dark when my feet began to break down, and I could run no longer. My dress was tattered and the bottom and browned from dirt. I look around, and the marshes surround me; I feel cold, but my body is hot even to the touch. I am so tired, and so I lay. I collapse in defeat, for this is nowhere I can run far enough in such times. The certain unfairness is overwhelming, and I feel I will be hurt with all the emotions ebbing in me. I feel like I am drowning in all of the emotions that are leaving me at this moment. I have come so low to found myself here. There has to be a way to leave it all. So I will make it, and I will go.