AUTHENTIC ADULT WOMAN

VAINGLORIOUS!

Webster says vainglorious is: boastfully vain and proud of oneself...YUCK.  Who likes someone like that?  Nobody.

SHOWING OFF...was one of the many cardinal sins in my family.  You couldn’t even LIKE yourself or your pretty dress or your little watercolor painting. You were humble.

For example, I was shocked when my dear older friend Elizabeth (who was indeed quite famous) came home from Nieman-Marcus in Chicago and said, “Aren’t these shoes adorable, I think they look great on me”.  I was 27. She was 58. I still remember that I thought she lacked character by ‘showing off’ that way.

But honestly, isn’t it a temptation - when one is rather down, or unrecognized, or undervalued or demeaned or diminished in some way, or overlooked...or old and wrinkled...isn’t it human to drop a few hints into the conversation that remind folks of your moments of glory, your publications, or your famous friends, etc.  :)

Speaking of famous friends...did I tell you that I once rode in the Presidential cavalcade of Richard Nixon, of all people?  I was driving a red buick convertible with a 4x8 sheet of plywood propped up in the back seat...when, by accident, I entered an on-ramp the security people had failed to close off and suddenly I'm forced to merge between the huge black presidential limo with the stars and stripes aloft and a station wagon with 3 armed security guards sitting facing me... gesticulating wildly for me to get out of the cavalcade.  But all the off-ramps were closed...so, with heart racing I sped along Pennslyvania Avenue at 60 miles an hour - past the tidal basin, past the White House ... almost all the way to the Capitol...where I am questioned, and released!

Another silly remarkable moment was seeing Liberace about 1’ away from me in a pink blazer outside of Woolworths on Michigan Avenue in Chicago!

 

Once, about 50 years ago, they ran an article about me in the Chicago Sun Times...and the photographer who took the pictures won an award for 'best photojournalist'. 

 

Here’s one of his pics in which I now think I looked quite glamorous - for a librarian :)  That's hard for me to say 'out loud'.

 

Did I mention that once, in the 60’s, I was a speaker on the same program with writer Clifton Fadiman (is anybody old enough to remember CF?) at the Mark Hopkins hotel in San Francisco?  Yep. 

 

It is actually a bit of fun to SHOW OFF - on purpose.  A bunch of us old crones threw a ‘shadow party’ up in Canada one year, and we all came dressed as parts of ourselves that we daren’t express. 

 

One friend came bearing her dissertation abstract, a picture of herself with the Dalai Lama, an award trophy and a book she’d written ....we loved it.

It is such a relief to be just a wee bit proud of yourself!  But don't let it go to your head.  And let's encourage our friends to strut their stuff too...why not?  

 

ROCKED IN THE CRADLE 'O THE DEEP...

It was the fall of 1911, exactly 100 years ago, that my 26 year old father set sail for Canada from Glasgow, Scotland. The old sailing ship met with a furious storm in the Atlantic and while wild waves crashed and shipmen frantically lowered the life boats, young Garden Campbell Anderson scaled the main mast, and, in his rough Scottish accent, sang out over the screams of the passengers...

"ROCKED IN THE CRADLE ‘O THE DEEP...I LAY ME DOON IN PEACE TO SLEEP...

                            SECURE I REST UPON THE WAVES....”

 

Watching the waves bashing against our rocks this morning I remembered Daddy’s oft-told tale of his perilous climb up the slippery mast...and how the terrible winds tore the song from his lips...  

 

Mother and I heard this story with a grain of salt. But more than 40 years later I was walking with my father on the streets of Regina, Saskatchewan, when, out of the blue, another old man stopped us...stared at Daddy, and said, “Could it be you, Gardy...you who sang Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep...when we were almost lost at sea!???”

 

Well, they fell into each other’s arms, and wept and re-lived that long-ago moment of panic and bravery.  

 

Daddy went on to serve for Canada in World War 1, 1914 -1918.   As a Sargent Major Instructor, he set aside his pacifist preferences and taught bayonet fighting and fencing in ‘THE GREAT WAR FOR CIVILIZATION’.

 

He was a Victorian...(Queen Victoria herself being on the throne in 1885 when he was born), and, as such, he never truly believed in all the fancy modern things, like the automobile (which mother always drove, when we finally got one)...or the television which he saw as an abomination and pure nonsense. 

 

After years as a business man, and then a preacher, he finally opened his own bookstore, a dream come true for my bookish Scottish father.

 

TIME JUST SLIPS AWAY...

Where did this year go?  How can it possibly be almost Christmas? I can't even remember the summer...it certainly wasn't warm and lazy.  Will time just keep slipping away faster and faster as I hurtle toward the END???        

There's a lot of talk out there about savoring every moment, loving the life you live, etc. BUT what does that really mean...in an ordinary day?  For me, 'LIFE' keeps getting in the way of LIVING. There are so many things to do...and MAINTENANCE!  I hate maintenance.

Body maintenance; teeth cleaning, spinal adjustments, cholesterol labs, refilling prescriptions. House maintenace; the gutters, the furnace, the sprinkler system, the leaks, the termites.  Relationship maintenance; thank you notes, gifts, inquiries, little lunches, emails...And the everlasing dishes, garbage, laundry, cooking, eating, and shopping.  As Wordsworth says, "GETTING AND SPENDING, WE LAY WASTE OUR POWERS".

So how on earth can we carve out TIME FOR OUR SOULS?  And what would that look like if we could? What if we carefully scheduled time for our 'soul's' and then just sat there thinking about what we SHOULD be doing instead? 

I think we have to ALLOW time for our souls. Like when we feel the soft fur of a beloved pet, hear the deep strains of a favorite piece of music, see the eyes of a loved one, sense the slowing of our breath when we lie down for a nap...we need to notice it, stay with it. Experience it...

That's what I thought when I watched this seagull...just sitting there calmly amidst the wild chaos of the waves bashing on the rocks.  She seems to be 'gathering herself'...quietly holding her still-point, her standpoint.  

Maybe, as someone said, "The days of our lives must become precious..enjoy the perfection of what you are doing..."

Take YOUR time".

SHADOW SHAPES

It's 7am and I'm sort-of dancing along the bluffs above the ocean...to the sweet soul sound of Al Green on my iPod, "You're only promised one more day...you're sleeping your life away...STAND UP!..."

I'm alone out here under the big sky, the vast sea.  All of a sudden the sun rises golden behind the rolling hills.  And I see my crazy shadow moving ahead of me on the gravel path...arms flung wide...I hardly recognize this wierd shape with its thick leg and tiny head.  Through the lens of my self-image, this distortion is unfamiliar - even frightening.  My ego doesn't really own this shadow figure. 

 

 

 

Very funny!  And very DEEP!  The funny part is how strange it is to dance out here at 77...weird and wonderful.

 

The deep part is this:  You have to have light coming from behind you in order to see your shadow!

 

 Ergo - my shadow is invisible to me when I'm only looking into the light.  I need someone or something to shine a light on the path before me so I can find my way...

 

AND then I can see unfamiliar parts of myself...in this case, I see myself DANCING! 

THE SHADOW KNOWS!

SHADOW...what a concept!   It is all the stuff we don't know about ourselves.

The fact is, all of us have disowned parts of ourselves - and we've repressed them for many reasons, often because these attitudes or behaviors were unacceptable to our parents, teachers, the culture, etc.

In my family ANGER was absolutely forbidden...so it had to go underground, along with jealousy, greed, ambition, pride, gluttony (alas) and a host of other 'sins' of omission and comission.

But lots of wonderful fun stuff was also frowned upon...like dressing up cute, singing "worldly" songs, being wildly creative, showing off, dancing - and reading trash!

                                     So shadow isn't all 'bad'.  Although it often is.

 

 

 

 

 

But shadow also includes many aspects of one's strengths that have been difficult to own, such as special talents, self-confidence, courage, etc. So one's SHADOW is an unconscious storehouse of ENERGY and POTENTIAL...just dying to be seen and reclaimed.

Why on earth would I want to own my pride or my anger?? Or my silliness, or my urge to communicate?  Because I'm human, that's why.

 And if I don't realize that everything that is human is potentially in me... I will project my shadow stuff onto others, and hate it, or love it, or judge it in them.

Whew....BUT..the beauty of owning my shadow is that I become more and more WHOLE and less and less judgemental of others.

Here is a picture of a shadow aspect of me that I discovered recently.  I struggle to integrate her into my self concept.  She knows who she is, and is shamelessly showing off!

                       I call her 'TANGO CRONE            

 

By the way, A great little book on shadow is OWNING YOUR SHADOW by Jungian analyst Robert Johnson.