Marnie -- Throw Back Thursday

Write 31 Days Day #5

A hundred years ago I sat down on a Saturday night to watch the movie Marnie on network television. Understand this was the dawning of the age of VCRs. No Blockbuster. No Hollywood Video. No TiVo. No Netflix.

I'd never seen the movie before. I was in the basement of my parents' house watching on a portable black and white TV with adjustable rabbit ears. There were COMMERCIALS! I was in college dating the man I would ultimately marry. The phone rang. There was no caller ID. I don't think we even had an answering machine. 

It was my boyfriend (my eventual ex-husband). I explained that I was watching a movie and I'd call him back as soon as it was over. I really wanted to see how the film ended. Hitchcock, you know? You can't just walk away in the middle of it.

Thus began a lengthy discussion about my lack of love for him. Was he not more important than some old movie? Didn't I want to know how his shift at work had gone? Personal relationships are the bedrock of society. Television was destroying the world.

I argued. I cried. I swore my undying love. I begged, for the love of all that is holy, let me see what happens to Tippi Hedren!

By the time I disengaged from this ridiculous conversation, the movie was over. 

Fast forward to yesterday. I checked out a copy of Marnie from the library, and after my counseling session I sat down with my lunch to finally watch it all the way through. Oh my gosh! There's a reason I needed to see this movie to its conclusion. In many ways, the movie was trying to tell me my own story.

Let me tell you a little about me. I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. I didn't know that at the time. I had repressed most of the experiences, and the one I did remember I couldn't label as abuse. My boyfriend was quirky, but he was a lot better than where I'd been, so I didn't hang up on him or tell him to take a flying leap. I just rode it out the best way I knew how. Twisting and turning emotionally trying to figure out how this had escalated from watching a movie to the depth of my devotion to him. 

"Mark marries Marnie although she is a habitual thief and has serious psychological problems, and tries to help her confront and resolve them." That's how iMDb summarizes the plot. Barely scrapes the top layer. 

Marnie is suffering from repressed memories, undiagnosed PTSD, flashbacks, and molestation among other things. She is frigid and can't bear to be touched by a man. She spouts religious rhetoric and acts out impulsively to deal with her unexplained issues. Mark is a cold fish who is a widower with an interest in zoological behavior. He suspects Marnie is up to something, but rather than confront her he lets the whole thing play out before he blackmails her into his loving (?) arms. And it just grows from there.

It's a masterpiece of a film, and it's no wonder it wasn't well received in 1964. A psychologically taut piece that was far ahead of its time. Nobody knew about PTSD and dissociation. Mark was trying to be a 1960s man and handle his woman. A firm hand, that's what she needed. Both Mark and Marnie are flawed characters aching for redemption.

I didn't have Marnie's coping mechanisms, and my ex-husband didn't have Mark's exact issues, but we had our own weird methods that were mirrored in the movie. He pushed me into therapy after years and years of digging at my psyche. He pushed and pushed and pushed until I finally broke down and went. And then he wanted a play by play of every session. That was nearly 17 years ago. 

By the time I finished the movie, I had a better understanding of what that argument had really been about all those years ago. I also had a pounding headache, upset stomach, and massive anxiety. After some medicine and relaxation, I realized how glad I was that I'd watched the movie all the way to the end this time.

(this is an edited repost from 8/11/15)

Throwback Thursday -- A Repost

Stained Glass Epiphanies

originally posted 2/6/13

I grew up in the center of the Bible belt -- Nashville, Tennessee. I am the daughter of a conservative, evangelical minister who was a literature professor as well. In his spare time, he loved doing community theater.  A strange amalgamation.

I married a man raised in the Methodist church. His mother had been raised Catholic. We are an odd compilation. 

The first time it happened was in a church in a Key West, FL. My husband and I walked into an episcopal church just as tourists. I sat down in a pew and began to look around at the stained glass windows depicting different scenes from Bible stories with which I was all too familiar. And I began to cry.

It may have been the first crack in the armor I'd been using all my life. Armor established in early childhood to protect myself from the horrors of abuse, but also from the dissonance of my home life. A conservative minister, who gave me Stephen King and The Catcher in the Rye to read. Who took me to see The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds and Equus by the time I was 14, and quoted Mark Twain more than the Bible. 

I looked at those stained glass windows, and for the first time instead of seeing gaudy, papist opulence, I saw devotion and love between God and man. I saw a God who was in love in with me, instead of a God who held a rule book in one hand and ledger of misdeeds in the other. My husband sat beside me, and understood what I couldn't articulate. 

I've spent a lot of time since then looking, seeking, and reading. Trying to decode what were merely religious traditions from what God actually wants from me and for me. I still have more questions than answers, but it doesn't scare me the way it once did. 

Stained glass epiphanies.

A Girl's Best Friend

This is Dahlia (daylia). She was my first ever Christmas doll. I was about 18 months old when I got her. That same Christmas, Santa brought me a little red rocking chair as well (which I still have).

My mother says that I walked right up to her, picked her up and sat down in the chair and began to rock and sing to her.

She was my constant companion. By the time I'd had her a little more than a year, we had to restuff her body, as I had loved her flat! I remember sitting in my grandparent's living room (we were living with them at the time) with my mother. She explained that she was the doctor and I was the nurse and we were going to operate on Dahlia. It was all very serious. We plumped her up with cotton balls!

For years she was half bald, because I carried her around by her hair.

Once when I was in high school, I came home from some activity to find Dahlia sitting on the mantel in a new dress. My mother had been home alone and made Dahlia some new clothes -- just because.

A few years ago I found a doll repair specialist and turned Dahlia over to her with very specific instructions. 

It was a lot like leaving a child alone at the hospital. What was I thinking? What was SHE thinking?

A couple of weeks later my husband picked her up and I dressed her in the new outfit I had bought for her.

I love her just as much now as I did that first time I saw her. She now sits at the foot of my bed with other beloved folks. She is a treasure!

(this is a repost from 10/1/10)

linking up with Writer's Workshop

Christmas Eve Cinnamon Buns

(reposted from 12/19/11 -- Merry Christmas Week!)

These have become a Christmas tradition for us over the past few years. Quick and easy to put together and yummy to munch on while playing with our gifts on Christmas morning.

Christmas Eve Shortcut Cinnamon Buns

Makes 20 buns

These are made the night before and popped in the oven Christmas morning when the kids are attacking their stockings!

20 unbaked frozen dinner rolls (Bridgeport is a brand I have used)
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup instant vanilla pudding mix
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/3 cup butter, melted

Lightly grease a 10 inch bundt cake pan. Place frozen rolls into the pan and sprinkle with brown sugar, the pudding mix, and cinnamon. Pour melted butter over the top. If you don’t have a bundt pan, you can use a muffin tin, but they turn out better in a bundt pan.

Cover with a clean, damp cloth and leave overnight at room temperature to rise.

In the morning, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Bake rolls for 25 minutes, until golden brown.
Turn rolls out onto a serving plate and dig in!

(For more recipes please visit FlyLady’s Kitchen)

link up to Made by You Monday at Skip to My Lou