Goodbye Damsel in Distress, Hello Princess Adventuress

The day after New Year’s day I did a boot sale with my sister. It was freeeezing. It was also a magical mystery tour into the mind of the boot sale attendee – how comes £1 for an angora beret is a steal in a charity shop, but something to be tutted at and bartered with at a boot sale? Oh, and it was a lesson in what not to buy my parents for Christmas.

Cinderella was a real bombshell...

Throughout the de-cluttering boot sale stock accumulation process we came across a few former treasures: diamonique encrusted watches which had stopped in their tracks; books we’d meant to read; and a Cinderella figurine, with her now mutilated Prince Charming, I’d bought as a souvenir from Euro Disney when I was 16.

Sis thought it made an intriguing image and snapped the pair on the window sill. Dad thought the prince’s headless, one legged and de-slipper-proffering-armed-ness was somehow symbolic.  It struck even me that I’d donned a not dissimilar Cinderella-blue gown at my wedding.

Cinderella nailed her fella…

Of course, instead of happily ever after it all turned out more like that scene from Labyrinth where Sarah, the whiny teen damsel in distress, declares David Goblin King Bowie has no power over her; and the whole magical mirrored spellbinding façade  cracks from side to side.

Unlike Jennifer Connelly I decided on the simple boob baring demo during the first dance instead.  This impromptu act – my husband’s wrist was apparently caught in my dress strap – proved beyond a doubt I was not the princess bride, but a stick-on chicken fillet sporting damsel.  I think I cried for 3 nights after that.  So what?  I hear you cry.

Damsel in a puffy dress

So, I’d been reading Caroline Myss‘ book Sacred Contracts; a book where “…Myss explains how you can identify your own spiritual energies, or archetypes, and use them to help you find out what you are here on earth to learn and whom you are meant to meet.” And one of the first archetypes I’d identified as playing a prominent part in the pantomime which is my life, was the damsel, aka the princess; or the shadow side to the princess proper.

It’s not so easy, identifying your archetypes, I found it a bit like Three Men in a Boat when the narrator diagnoses himself with every disease described in a medical dictionary – except Housemaid’s Knee. In a way this isn’t surprising: Myss asserts we have 12 prominent archetypes; these all have a light and shadow side.  We’ll see influences of others too – rather like an archetypal kaleidoscope I like to think. However the damsel in distress princess archetype screamed out at me; it was obvious: I am … I was… I have been the damsel in distress all my life.

Pink peril

It’s funny what a simple revelation can do.  Suddenly I could see lengthy tressed damsels stressing their way through my (hi)story. First, there was the Perils of Penelope Pitstop where the hapless heroine was dangled over alligator infested pools by the Hooded Claw; and Nosferatu climbing the stairway to terrorise that foolish girl who doesn’t hide under the duvet. Then, when I was 8 my first male teacher, Mr Lymer, said I reminded him of Princess Diana because of my aloofness.

Let Sleeping Beauties lie...

My parents bought me Sleeping Beauty, for my 16th Birthday – somewhat ironic considering my somnambulist-esque existence. Then there were all those Pre-Raphaelite fainting fairy maids I fancied myself as at art college – someone once asked me to pose as Ophelia. Geez.  Then there were all the guys who wanted to save little ol’ me, from the big bad world in my head.  I even asked Mr Glittery to tie me to a tree and play highway man – he wrote me a story instead. Typical.

"What, what," said the Lady of Shallot

At uni John William Waterhouse’s, wilting waif, the Lady of Shallot was one of my style inspirations.  And obviously the long blonde hair said ‘princess’ to more than a few peeps, but even when I tamed and tied it into knots I’d just become a silver screen Hitchcock Heroine (aka modern-day cinematic damsel). Eeek.

He was expecting a frosty reception...

I went to see Matthew Bourne‘s Blitz-based  ballet, Cinderella, just before Christmas. There’s a copy of The Constant Princess on my desk at work. And when my work mate, Funny Girl, told me she was going to buy me a book, she said, “I thought you’d like The Princess Bride or that one about the ugly sister.”  So I’m still surrounded by distressed princesses.  But I guess like the ugly sister who’s getting the chance to put the record straight, it’s about time to step out of the forest of shadows and into the light, bright side of this archetype stuff and tell a new tale.

Maybe?

The question is: what to wear?

The Sandwoman Cometh – What Do Our Dreams Mean?

Whodunnit? You dunnit...

We all like a Whodunnit – well at least my mum does – but what if you dream you dunnit? According to Psychotherapist Philippa Perry, who led the Dream Workshop at the School of Life recently, you’re the best judge of your dreams – not those one size fits all dream dictionaries.

Philippa, looking like a kind of futuristic fusion of Pierrot and Hitchcock’s fave costume designer, Edith Head, presented us with a variety of ways to interpret our nightly forays into the land of nod. With the aid of her almost saucer-sized, fluorescent framed glasses (like magic wizard specs!) she took us on a sneaky peek of our psyches; urging us to roll up our sleeves, participate in our dreams and role play.

Role playing, for me, is the sort of thing nightmares are made of. But there were some only too willing to treat the audience to a re-enactment of the recurring riddles which haunt them in the wee hours. One woman’s nocturnal race against the clock to catch a plane, saw her play herself, the person hanging on the telephone, and the piles of paper she was stuffing willy nilly into her suitcase. Weirdly it was the piles of paper which had the most to say – notably she was taking the rubbish and leaving the good bits behind.

Lay down comic...

New perspectives are what Philippa is all about – this is where the magic glasses come in I reckon. Indeed her new book Couch Fiction – A Graphic Tale of Psychotherapy gives the reader a fly-on-the-wall glimpse into one man’s sessions with his therapist. In using the medium of the graphic novel – illustrated by Junko Graat – we are also treated to a deity’s eye view of the minds of both the characters; this, along with strategically placed footnotes goes some way to de-mystifying the psychotherapeutic process.

As the wife of Turner Prize winning artist Grayson Perry, famed for his darkly plotted pots and Baby Jane frocks, it’s a given that Philippa would have a singular view of the world. But having witnessed a guy decipher his own body-buried-under-the-bush whodunnit it became clear we all express ourselves in weird and wonderful ways. And it seems that dreams are a way of communicating with ourselves, like personalised bedtime stories packaged by our own psyches.

“You don’t need help with interpretation now,” says Pat, the therapist in Couch Fiction, to James, the man-on-the-couch, who replies: “Ooo I do! I would never have got to vaginas without you.” And I have to say, I echo those sentiments. Philippa’s whistlestop Dream Workshop has led me to take a different view of my dreams; almost like I’ve been given my own pair of virtual magic specs – very illuminating! 

Although I’m not sure I want to find out why my dad turned up looking like George Clooney other night…

Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered – Hitchcock & Halloween Style…

Keats said autumn is a time of ‘mists and mellow fruitfulness’, but it seems to me it’s more masquerades and fruity madness.  From Halloween to Christmas it’s the done thing to don a disguise, over do it and carve faces into your cucurbita pepo.  With the long dark evenings providing ample time for reflection and getting some Hitchcock action I got to thinking about the masks we wear day to day. 

Vertigo:  Kim Novak plays a woman (Judy), playing another woman (Madeleine), who falls in love with the guy (James (Scottie) Stewart) she’s stringing along.  Unfortunately he’s developed an infatuation with the faux Madeleine, portrayed by Judy as an elegantly disturbed, icy blonde with a penchant for staring wistfully into whirlpools; and twisting her hair into knots tighter than the tangled web of lies Judy has conspired to create with the genuine Madeleine’s wife-murdering husband.  Pant pant. Phew. Anyone feeling dizzy yet?

Anyway… the real Judy is actually a brash brunette with a line in big brassy earrings and even bigger eyebrows; and however relieved we might feel that scatty Scottie has taken it upon himself to give his girl a Gok over, when Judy-as-Madeleine-part-deux steps out of the bathroom, bathed in a ghostly green glow, it’s obvious this weird menage a trois is a menage gone mad… 

Scatty Scottie is driving both himself and Judy crazy by insisting Judy agree to be Mad-eleine (again).  And more to the point, what the hell is Judy thinking, if she is ‘thinking’ at all?! Even if Kim-Judy-Madeleine-Novak hadn’t unwittingly given the game away and pushed James (Scottie) Stewart even further to the brink of insanity, by waving that necklace around, you just know that either Madeleine-Judy will be forever reminded that her real brash brunette self is not good enough for James (Scottie) Stewart, or eventually he won’t believe in the make-believe-Madeleine any more.

Vertigo is always a film conoisseur’s fave, and I wonder partly whether it’s because we’ve probably all played one or other of the characters ourselves in real life.  We are often bewitched, bothered and bewildered by beloveds who are Frankenstein-phantasms we’ve fashioned from fairy tales.  Or, perhaps worse still, we try to squeeze our proverbial foot into the glass slipper of a guy’s imagination, and are destined to forever feel like the ugly sister. Compromising some je-ne-sais-quois-ish intangible part of us we thought we could live without can only ever end badly because two’s company but bringing along your masked alter ego for comfort ends up being a bit of a crowd.

Just a thought…