A very odd recollection came to me recently. Very odd that it came to me and very odd in itself. Hadn't thought about it in years. To preface: like so many kids, I was in a great hurry to grow up. When I was a teenager, the consummate age for a woman was "30-something." (no youth cult for us!) We had Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich, Eva Marie Saint, Kim Stanley, Lauren Bacall -- they were always "30-something." Eternally. And since I didn't exactly enjoy being a kid, (I was 5'7" at age 12, in a time when 5'4" was the tallest a girl dared to be) and didn't have any idea what I looked like or the potential impact of my persona or the power of my mind -- I couldn't wait to be that 30-something, film luminary image. Right! We were totally star-struck in Brooklyn in the 1950's.
It didn't seem to be happening, that metamorphosis -- even when I left teen-dom. I married right out of college; had my first child a year later; and took all the other lovely walks down paths deeper into the maze of self delusion, mayhem and bewilderment. I certainly was not becoming a celebrity icon.
And then one day -- and I really don't remember exactly when this was or the circumstances of the incident -- but one day I crossed a city street and was poised to enter a large office building. Coming toward me through the broad glass doorway, was an attractive 30-something woman, in high heels and camel-hair coat, collar up, Lauren Bacall hairstyle; strolling with great composure toward me. I stopped right there on the street. And thought rather calmly -- "there she is; there's the woman I always wanted to be like."
She stopped walking, too. And I realized so suddenly I made myself laugh -- I realized so stupidly that it makes me laugh now -- that the woman standing there facing me was me -- my reflection in the glass. With an 'oh for God's sake' response, I continued into the building, the incident impressing me less at the time than it does in retrospect. I didn't mention it to anyone. but it made me laugh out loud whenever it came to mind. All that registered was that I'd mistaken myself for somebody else. Not that: when I found the perfect prototype for me --it was me!
So what was this journey I was taking? Trying to become someone or something I thought I wasn't and already was. Too often I don't really know where I'm going or what it is I want. And so many other people will say to me: I don't know what I really want to do. Or I don't know what I'm supposed to do or was meant to do. Like me, they become blocked and can do nothing or we do something we don't want to be doing. As though there were a master plan for us and we haven't figured it out yet. My brother used to say: We should on ourselves. I should do this or I should have done that. And time moves us along until we thnk it's too late to begin. Which I've discovered it never is. Well, one might not become a ballerina at 60 or a gymnast at 55. But we can dance and we can work out. We can begin. Brings to mind Lewis Carroll's wonderful children's book, THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS. "If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there." I might say, what the heck is that? But if I think about it for a minute: if I have the courage to start the trip -- to just go (or 'go for it'), who knows where I might arrive? "Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop," Carroll writes. How simple is that? And if I don't arrive anywhere, couldn't I turn left or right and continue on until I reach some destination? And if I see someone coming toward me who is who I really am, well -- messages come in many disguises. And, like ALICE, I might reach wonderland after all. Or at the very least, make it all the way home.
"Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
It didn't seem to be happening, that metamorphosis -- even when I left teen-dom. I married right out of college; had my first child a year later; and took all the other lovely walks down paths deeper into the maze of self delusion, mayhem and bewilderment. I certainly was not becoming a celebrity icon.
And then one day -- and I really don't remember exactly when this was or the circumstances of the incident -- but one day I crossed a city street and was poised to enter a large office building. Coming toward me through the broad glass doorway, was an attractive 30-something woman, in high heels and camel-hair coat, collar up, Lauren Bacall hairstyle; strolling with great composure toward me. I stopped right there on the street. And thought rather calmly -- "there she is; there's the woman I always wanted to be like."
She stopped walking, too. And I realized so suddenly I made myself laugh -- I realized so stupidly that it makes me laugh now -- that the woman standing there facing me was me -- my reflection in the glass. With an 'oh for God's sake' response, I continued into the building, the incident impressing me less at the time than it does in retrospect. I didn't mention it to anyone. but it made me laugh out loud whenever it came to mind. All that registered was that I'd mistaken myself for somebody else. Not that: when I found the perfect prototype for me --it was me!
So what was this journey I was taking? Trying to become someone or something I thought I wasn't and already was. Too often I don't really know where I'm going or what it is I want. And so many other people will say to me: I don't know what I really want to do. Or I don't know what I'm supposed to do or was meant to do. Like me, they become blocked and can do nothing or we do something we don't want to be doing. As though there were a master plan for us and we haven't figured it out yet. My brother used to say: We should on ourselves. I should do this or I should have done that. And time moves us along until we thnk it's too late to begin. Which I've discovered it never is. Well, one might not become a ballerina at 60 or a gymnast at 55. But we can dance and we can work out. We can begin. Brings to mind Lewis Carroll's wonderful children's book, THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS. "If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there." I might say, what the heck is that? But if I think about it for a minute: if I have the courage to start the trip -- to just go (or 'go for it'), who knows where I might arrive? "Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop," Carroll writes. How simple is that? And if I don't arrive anywhere, couldn't I turn left or right and continue on until I reach some destination? And if I see someone coming toward me who is who I really am, well -- messages come in many disguises. And, like ALICE, I might reach wonderland after all. Or at the very least, make it all the way home.
"Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
(The Hidaway on Flickr)
