Plain Jane

My friend Jane D gently chided me when she discovered I had yet to populate my ‘Inspire’ Tab. Truth is, I had so many beautiful pieces I’d collected over the years to choose from; selecting something sufficiently profound became the challenge. A sleepless night, 3 am…inspiration!

As a child I spent a number of years in varying boarding schools as my Mum pioneered her way across the central west. My fellow boarders had names like Sally, Cindy, and Julie, and, embarrassed by my plain Victorian name and with a fervent desire to fit in, I wanted to be a Julie too. Why had I been saddled with this boring name, a name that invited fellow school kids to taunt me with ‘Plain Jane’ when in my mind I was anything but? Of course, as I reached my 20s, I became quite happy with its uniqueness; after all, I was the only Jane in a sea of Julies.

But it was when my Mum gave me my birth father’s Bible that I learnt to fully appreciate how very special a ‘Jane’ can be, for, nestled in the back, was a delicate piece of weathered paper on which a poem had been inked. A poem written after my birth by one of my father’s friends:

‘ Plain Jane? If Jane is plain then so is moonlight

Whose muted silver fades to brazen dawn;

So Violets who hid their heads from moonlight;

So too, the fleet and velvet dappled faun.

If Jane is plain, how common then are thrushes?

How dull the whispered cadences of rain

compared to any noisy brook that rushes,

all shy and sweet and subtle things, how plain!’

George Starbuck Galbraith.

Thank you, George…and thank you too, Jane D