Alice in Wonderland

Yesterday was a difficult day for me emotionally.  My children are grown with children of their own and their own grown-up problems.  My father once told me his children grew up and left home but he never stopped worrying about them.  He thought he worried more about them because they were no longer right there with him where he could over see the activities in their lives.  I find I am the same.  I can no longer rescue them.  My children must face their demons on their own terms but that doesn't mean that I do not feel their pain.  And so it was yesterday.  Both of my children are facing some very difficult times and all I can do is advise and worry.  I worry that I have given poor advice or that I should have stayed out of their business or how will all this effect them down the road.

To help lift some of this burden off my weak puny mind, I often rent a funny movie.  Today I decided against comical and try something totally different.  I rented the new version of Alice In Wonderland starring Johnny Depp.  I've considered renting it many times but always put it back on the shelf believing it to be much too bazaar.  I truly love the old Disney cartoon version of the classic story by Lewis Carroll.  The movie was quite different from the book.  The movie was more like a part two of Lewis Carroll's book.  This was the story ten years after Alice initially visited Wonderland. 

I found myself relating to Alice and I wonder if that is not quite common.  The introduction of Alice is of a young woman who is constantly being told what to do, how to behave and what to say.  Isn't that the way we all are treated in our youth?  As if we don't have a brain in our head.  She is called a "stupid girl" repeatedly.  When her mother tells her proper young ladies wear corsets she replies "What if it was agreed that it was proper to wear a codfish on your head, would you wear it?"  When I was a teenager my mother insisted I wear a girdle every day to school, something I hated.  When I asked why I was told proper young ladies do not wiggle when they walk and even skinny girls wiggle when they walk.  Not one to disobey my parents, I wore the wretched thing.

One memorable scene is when Alice falls down the rabbit hole and ends up in a circular room surrounded by locked doors.  Isn't that just the way life is?  We stumble, fall, twist and turn this way and that only to end up against a locked door.  There is no easy way out of this life.  We keep trying different things until we find something that works.  And so it was with Alice until she found a way to get the key that fit the door.  Poor Alice had to shrink herself down to something she wasn't before she could proceed to the next room.  Don't we often have to do the same to fit in, so that we are socially acceptable or just to get the job done.  It is no wonder the dormouse and caterpillar don't recognize her.  After all she's been through she barely recognizes herself.  We do the same.  Everyone of us come to a point in our lives when we look in the mirror and wonder who that strange person is.  What happened to the brave young person with all the incredible dreams?  Life happened.  We were distracted by life and no longer recognize ourselves.

The story is not over for Alice or for you and me.  What seems to be impossible is only possible if you believe it to be.  As the Hatter puts it "The only way to achieve the impossible is to believe it is possible."  Alice replies "Sometimes I believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast."  Hatter wisely says "That is an excellent practice."  Count your impossible things, Louise.
        1) I can transform my old beat up house into a magic cottage.
        2) I can write a book
        3) I am an artist.
        4) I can dance.
        5) I can love again.
        6) I can conquer my technophobia.
What six impossible things have you thought of today?