Shadowlands is a film from 1993 about the relationship between academic C.S. Lewis and American poet Joy Davidman, and how she challenged how he saw himseIf and his entire way of life. I just watched “Shadowlands” for the fifth time after quite a few years. Watching it this time I understood much more deeply and clearly why this is one of my most favorite movies of all time. To summarize:
The triumph of emotions over logic!
I was raises to be seriously logical and intellectual. My father, the academic, took great pride in his transition from the son of a railroad man to a college professor. He attributed that success within himself to discipline and reason, and so he taught his children to restrain from emotions in favor of rational thought and science. In the film, Joy’s introduction to the grand age-old traditions of British academia at Cambridge represent to me that world, the comfortable, safe rule of rational thought.
Enter Joy Davidson, with her refreshingly straightforward honesty in the face of Mr. Lewis’s pomp and circumstance. This was me. I played that role in my father’s life. I would challenge his beliefs all the time. I was threatening because in his world, where everyone was younger, weaker and looked up to him, I was direct and honest in challenging those things that made no sense to me. For example, his praise of emotionlessness. He once said that the word love made no sense. There was no clear definition for love, so in a way, it does not exist. This needed to be challenged! His whole life I challenged him and he didn’t like it.
In contrast, in Shadowlands, Professor Lewis comes to appreciate Joy’s candor and deeply loved her for it. She brings him back to life. She was a bright spark with her passion for honesty and saying-it-like-it is. My father never became very comfortable with me or his emotions. He only acknowledged deep feelings when he was overcome by them.
I have learned that I was raised with far too many rules about everything from both my mother and father, and I have been breaking them ever since. Mike has been instrumental in pointing this out to me and I so appreciate that aspect of our relationship!
I have learned that there is no proper way to see and live your life, only the way you choose. By setting your own rules, you learn who you really are inside, for better or worse. That can be quite satisfying. It is a major part of your own uniqueness. And if you don’t, you may discover when it’s time to die, you have not lived.
Mike is 66 and had 13 polyps removed yesterday and I had my own anxiety attack waiting for them to come out and tell me what was going on. They said it would only take about a half hour and they still hadn’t said anything to me in over an hour. He has a very bad family history with cancer in general and specifically colon cancer. His Mom died of it at age 53. Hopefully we saved his life yesterday. Still waiting for the microscopic report on those polyps, but the doc was very thorough and he said he saw no cancer. I’m freaked. Every time he makes any noise in the next room I go to see if he’s OK.
Is this enough to convince you to get that colonoscopy? Yes the prep sucks, without a doubt, but compared to colon cancer, not so much…
I have discovered a magazine I really enjoy lately: Travel & Leisure. I like their first-hand accounts of experiencing a new place. First of all, I have been to many of the places described in this journal. I have also always been a bit of a master at taking vacations in my own head. The Internet has made that so much easier. And at a time when so many of us are seeking escape from our predictable daily lives, I look forward to the next issue of this magazine to help me decide where I want to go next.
Yesterday, I started reading an article about escaping anxiety at a Riviera Maya healing resort. The writer spoke of “living with anxiety for many years; my mind wanders constantly.” Luckily, this author found themselves relaxing into “extreme calm” surrounded by nature, chimes, horns, drums, and gongs.
When I spoke to Mike about this, he immediately pointed out that “going on vacation can be quite anxiety-producing.” Mike, always the realist. Yes, first choosing a trip to take, buying tickets, flying, etc. can be quite stressful, especially with my new handicap, being on oxygen full-time. Did you know that most portable oxygen machines aren’t allowed on airplanes? Who knew?
So is a trip the best way to escape anxiety? Well, that depends on where your anxiety comes from. I learned the most about my lifelong case of anxiety (really fear of others) by moving away from society.
Almost seven years ago now, Mike and I built a passive solar home out in rural southern Colorado. On our three acres with very few neighbors, I finally found myself truly relaxing after a few years. I believe living close to nature instead of others was the main ingredient in this process. Yes, we have some serious snowstorms and amazing wind storms down here, but I feel secure and comfortable looking up at the Spanish Peaks each morning. Nature feels so much more safe to me than most other human beings.
What was most interesting to me was my eventual perception of the nearly unconscious vigilance I apparently felt my whole life in cities. That slowly melting away out here. Whenever I’m in cities now, I feel that subtle fear slowly creeping back. I believe it is the simple equation of having too many people per square mile, the constant possibility of someone disturbing us or worse. When I’m at home, that need for keeping a careful watch over my life and my loved ones slowly recedes and I find peace like I have never known before.
So, where does someone like that go on vacation?
It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength. — Vincent van Gogh
I was finally ready yesterday to take an honest look at my feelings from my last visit to see my Mom in Denver. When we first arrived there, my brother went to take a nap because his lower back always hurts him. I sat down with my Mom and we had a lucid and serious discussion of many things. Even though it only went on for thirty minutes or so, she seemed completely there and asked a few truly revealing questions about my life, and I thought,
“This is what I wish my relationship had always been with my Mom.”
It seemed relatively healthy and honest, but within just a few minutes she disappeared completely into remembering very little. The next few days were a confusion of her feeling anxious because she needed to ask every few minutes “What day is it?” and “What are we doing today?” I learned that she doesn’t eat well or take her pills on a regular schedule, etc.
How does that feel? I know it sounds irrational to say that aging makes me angry, but to watch someone I love slip away so very slowly, and to know that what I am losing is gone for good, is truly devastating. At first I felt angry, and as always, the sadness soon followed. My Mom will never be the Mom I remember from the past 65 years again. She is vanishing so slowly but permanently, and I can do nothing about that.
Neither one of my Mom’s parents lived as long as she has. Her Mom died in her mid-70s of cancer and her father lost it after that, dying at 81. I remember most my grandfather’s anger that his dutiful wife had abandoned him when he needed her most. He finally just gave up. So we really don’t know about dementia in her side of the family. She has outlived everyone in her family’s past.
Personally, I have experienced my share of “aging” in the past few years, where I have gone from a healthy 60 year old, who exercised regularly and never smoked, to someone on full-time oxygen. Yes, aging sucks! I have one gigantic constant reminder. Life on a tube is so frustrating. I guess I see now how so many of our elders end up angry and so sad all at once.
Adventures of the NEW??? Old Farts 