A Different Kind of Shaker Character

The Gifted was my fifth Shaker story. At the time I wanted to write about a different sort of female character. I wanted her to be sweet and loving and yet have a difficult time fitting in with the Shakers. Then I wanted to contrast the Shaker life with the nearby Harrodsburg Springs where the upper crust of society went to partake in the healing spring water while enjoying elaborate social gatherings.  I introduce Jessamine in a journal entry written by Sister Sophrena who is the one trying to turn Jessamine into a proper Shaker. Here is some of what she writes about Jessamine.

Two of the young sisters have gone out into the woods with buckets to gather the raspberries. The thought of raspberry pie for dinner is a pleasant one. But I worry I shouldn’t have given Sister Jessamine permission to go. She will find the berry vines. I have no doubt of that, but will she be entagled by the briars and end with her dress and apron ripped and ruined? Will she remember to bring any berries home in her bucket? Ah, Sister Jessamine, a sweeter little sister one could not have. Yet, she is often the subject of discussion among the elders and eldresses. What will we do with Sister Jessamine?

Jessamine came to life as a character for me as a young woman who loves her Shaker sisters but continually has to fight against her curiosity about the world and the family she had before she was brought to the  Shakers as a young child. She has a lively imagination and wants to know more about so many things. Here is a little of the story where she is being taken to task by Sister Sophrena for how she can’t seem to stop wondering about the pleasures of the world outside the Shaker village.

Sister Sophrena went on gently. “You have ever been tempted by your imagination.”

“But is it not good to have an imagination to wonder about things? To come up with new and better ways? To welcome the spirits in meeting? Is not such a gift as good and true as the gift of song or industrious fingers?”

“Properly constrained, such ability to imagine can be a gift, but I fear you have no desire for such constraints. You want no rules over what is proper to imagine. And now you are imagining much about the world outside our borders.”

“Yea, you speak truth. I like to imagine freely as though I am clinging to the tail feathers of a giant bird and flying through wondrous worlds. I want to see everything, to know how things came to be, to understand about the love my granny told me my father had for my mother.” 

It’s been a while since I wrote Jessamine’s Shaker story. I had forgotten I had made her such a joyful young woman, often carried away by her imagination into problems with her Shaker sisters.

Sunday, I may share a character interview I did for her when the book was published. I think Sister Jessamine came to mind for me tonight because I am coming up with a similar joyful character in my current work in progress. It’s not a Shaker story, but is set in one of those Springs hotel resorts where people did go for the healing waters and sometimes for romance.

Do you think imagination is a gift?