“I think you just have to get sick of hearing the accommodation in your approach to things. As there begins to be less time ahead of you, you want to be exactly who you are.” Meryl Streep (Vanity Fair Jan 2010)
I write this blog about things that inspire me. Hence Meryl, a person who seems to be unapologetically herself and having a great time. She’s on the cover of Vanity Fair for Jan. 2010 if you’re interested.
Mama Mia! is a film that Meryl was supposedly told not to do because it wasn’t serious enough for someone her age. We weren’t that serious, my own mama, friends, and I, who went in costume and sang along. It’s great not to act “your age.” Anyone watching the movie can tell Meryl also had a ball. Plus, the movie is reported to have made over 600 million at the box office so what do naysayers know!
Julie & Julia implanted great images in my mind of Meryl as Julia Child cutting a table of onions or jumping out of bed to get to the Cordon Bleu. I am grateful both to Meryl and to Julia Child for their energetic examples of pursuing one’s passions in life.
One director says of her, “Meryl is spacious in her imagination and yet clinical in her approach to the material. She asks questions and she doesn’t assume she knows the answer. She’s looking around for something, and it’s not about her; it’s not about power or the clash of egos.
It’s about the clash of ideas, which is a more fun piece of territory.”
(John Patrick Shanley via Vanity Fair Jan. 2010)
Mmmm. There are some great ideas mentioned in that statement. Let’s take one – What does it mean to be spacious in our imaginations? I love how it sounds.
Einstein says,
Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.
For a week I am going to pay attention to this topic of imagination and see where it takes me. Feel free to share any practices that you feel engage your imagination.
Enjoy!
In the fall, a leaf is released from the tree as the season changes; the leaf lets go easily, without resistance, and moves with gravity. Just like the tree our life situations are constantly changing. To allow change to occur with grace and ease, let go of anything in your life that is no longer useful. Then you will find a new and fresh sense of peace fills your life.
