mistaken epiphany

Apparently mild hypoxia is good for my brain. Yesterday I went swimming in the pool at work while Ted had a late meeting. I managed a whole ten laps, but only by taking a break after each one. I feel like such a weenie, even though I know I could do row 10,000 meters far more easily than I swim 1000, just because I’m not used to swimming. Afterward, I felt as though I couldn’t get enough oxygen. Not exercise-induced asthma; I know what that feels like and my lungs weren’t compressed at all. I could get plenty of air, but it felt as if the air just didn’t have enough O2 in it. I think it was an illusion – my nails weren’t blue or anything – just due to higher humidity than I’m used to. Anyhow, while I was showering off afterward – hot water does seems to bring ideas – for some reason I had a sudden realization. I’ve always wondered why Great-Aunts Peace and Plenty from Louisa May Alcott’s Eight Cousins never married, especially the bustling home-maker Plenty. My thought was that maybe they are meant to be “superfluous women” left by the Civil War. We’re told that Aunt Peace had a lover who died right before their wedding, but not how he died, so he could have been killed in combat right before his leave.

Unfortunately my epiphany didn’t stand up to research, From the clothing I’d thought the book dated to the 1880s or 90s, but it turns out that Alcott died in 1882 and the book came out in 1875. So it would have been the next generation, Rose’s father and Uncle Alec, who would have gone for soldiers, not their aunts’ potential lovers. Oh, well. My next best guess is that Auntie Plen didn’t marry just because she didn’t have to; the Aunts evidently have plenty of money, and they have lots of family around them and surrogate children in the form of their niece and nephews. They had each other as partners in life, too, a Boston marriage with plenty of love, clearly, if no romance.