Mary Shelley was pregnant five times in her eight year relationship with a man whose dreams, which she shared, may have driven their children to an early grave. She was rejected as an outcast in her society due to the reputation of her radical mother and father, and later, because of her relationship with the promiscuous Percy Shelley and Lord Byron. While initially seeing it as an occasion for her own domestic fulfillment and a bid for some respectability, Mary later realized that she carried the burden of the suicide of Harriet, Percy Shelley's first wife. She felt that the death of her own children and husband were linked to her complicity in that former death. Finally Mary was rejected and abandoned by the very father who questioned the importance of marriage and family. Altogether, this recurrent theme of blighted creation, before and after the summer of 1816, accounts for Mary's preoccupation with marriage, family and responsibility in her novel Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus. In her later novels, these themes become even more prevalent.

If there is any question about the fact that Mary is connecting the creation of Victor Frankenstein's Monster with the disruption of his relationship to his financé Elizabeth, it evaporates when we read the account of his dream:

Mary conjured a ghostly apparition of a recent event at St. Pancras' graveyard, a passionate kiss that turns to death, and especially, the transmutation of Elizabeth into the dead Caroline Beaufort, Victor Frankenstein's mother. This dream took place right after Victor was at the height of his creative powers. His creature was born but it was a catastrophe. After pouring his life into a project that cost him so much pain and suffering, dedication and preparation, he falls into sleep exhausted and deeply regretful about what he has created. The Creature is ugly, uneducated, totally dependent and nothing to be proud of. His offspring separates him from the love of his life, Elizabeth. Mary, ironically through Victor, shows what it is to be the vehicle of life. The critic Moers says that the novel is the first glimpse that men had into childbirth and its after effects.

The story of Mary and Percy Shelley's marriage is a remarkable backdrop to the novel Mary created; but, it is an even more incredible template through which to view our relationships and our projects. In my mind's eye, I see three celluloid transparencies laid upon one another upon an illuminated table. The first transparency, a blue one, visually illustrates the people, life and events of Mary Shelley. The story of Mary's marriage that I just told is on this celluloid tapestry. Upon this collage is placed the novel Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus, a classic comicbook style. It has a green hue. The aristocratic Shelley family and the Frankenstein's portrait lie one upon the other displaying a cordial, privileged and indulgent family.

The dream sequence and Mary and Percy's first encounter in the graveyard are co-mingled. The hard-working DeLaceys are there too. Etched lightly beneath them is a refugee family from the French Revolution who while poor still maintain an interest in literature and music yet through poverty are brought closer together. Transposed upon the images of Mary and Percy Shelley, I see the strained faces of Victor and Elizabeth, separated and distant from one another. A fire and a wall of ice separate the Shelleys; whereas, the Frankenstein couple are barred from touching one another by beakers and tubes and the fragments of living tissue that make up the Monster.

Now, I place the third transparency upon the other two. It is the tapestry of our own lives at Watershed. Some of the images are closer to me than the others. I see our families represented by the Shelleys, Frankensteins, and DeLaceys. I like it when I see Bev, Erik, Sean and I placed atop the DeLacey's rustic cottage filled with books, learning and loving. I am horrified when I see us shift over to the Frankensteins who care for each other's physical needs but do not care about how we create each other's characters. I am weighed down when the picture of Margaret Saville and Robert Walton become the faces of Bev and I, when we isolate and drift farther away from one another because our life projects have separated us.

I focus back to my own face and see beneath it Percy and Victor. The illustration contains wild revolutionary ideals, painstaking research, lots of debts, financial and relational, and a ton of ego. I see the Monster and I realize that upon that miserable creature, who contained his maker's hopes and dreams, is placed Cornerstone and Watershed - my Monster. Instead of test tubes and beakers, I see traditions, ideas, and techniques, all intended to be of great benefit to humanity. The eyes of the Monster and the eyes of Watershed reveal its soul which craves a mate, yearns for acceptance, and while intrinsically sensitive and intelligent lashes out in rage, hurt and anger. Sometimes mysteriously, almost comically were it not so sad, I see our children with arms extended walking Creature-like toward me. They too are the children of Prometheus, "made" but not yet created or truly parented.

Not focusing on any one story or transparency, I look down at all three in front of me and see the colors mingle, the lines co-join and a sense of pattern and beauty emerge. It is a hard won beauty. I can only visualize it though tears of recognition. It is as if we shed our tears on the transparency and the water from them blends the picture into something whole. It takes the tears of terror, the wholeness of horror, to blend our stories with that of others into a unified artwork. Only then is there even a chance that the man and woman, child and parent, monster and maker ever are reconciled. But you must want it more than your individual dreams, more than your domestic securities. When our tears have produced a desire, a deep enough regret of our pride, then we will be married, part of a human family which has accepted our limits, when we can love our monstrosity and recognize our origins not in what we think is our maker but in the Creator.