I spit on your happiness!

A while back, everyone's favorite cucurbita Lady Pumpkin wrote one of those all about me posts, and I was surprised to find that we have the same favorite play, Jean Anouilh's Antigone. I thought this was pretty awesome. It's not the best known work of literature in the world. It's not like I discovered, wow, we both like Harry Potter books or something. (Which, by the way, I do.) So when she offered to make an embroidered onesie for Bun Bun, I felt like I really had to choose something from the play to honor the weird coincidence. I chose the most famous line from the most famous scene: I spit on your happiness! It seemed oddly perfect for a baby. After all, Bun Bun spits on my happiness multiple times a day.

At the time we didn't know Bun Bun was a girl, but now the full quote seems even more apt.

I spit on your happiness! I spit on your idea of life--that life that must go on, come what may. You are all like dogs that lick everything they smell. You with your promise of a humdrum happiness--provided a person doesn't ask much of life. I want everything of life, I do; and I want it now! I want it total, complete: otherwise I reject it! I will not be moderate. I will not be satisfied with the bit of cake you offer me if I promise to be a good little girl. I want to be sure of everything this very day; sure that everything will be as beautiful as when I was a little girl. If not, I want to die!

I mean, I want to die is not exactly a sentiment I'd like my daughter to feel. In reality, I'd rather she choose life, even if it is humdrum. But I do want her to have passion, even if it's a petulant adolescent passion like Antigone's, and most of all, I want her to have a whole lot of cake, not just a bit.

And for the record, Pumpkin is quite the needlewoman. Every stitch is perfect. As someone who can't embroider for shit, I think this is MOST IMPRESSIVE.