March’s theme at Life in Pencil is Beginnings

Posted by Elizabeth

As I’ve mentioned before, Anne and I share a deep and abiding love of movies and books, not only for their entertainment value but for their teaching value.  There is nothing more satisfying than a story that captures the human experience and helps me to better understand myself and the world around me.  In fact, as Anne aptly pointed out a few months ago, sometimes fiction does an even better job than nonfiction in relaying the slings and arrows of personhood.   I have been dying to see Alice in Wonderland since I learned that Johnny Depp and Tim Burton were once again joining twisted forces, if nothing else than for what promised to be a stunning visual panorama.  What I didn’t expect was the variety of life in pencil lessons that Linda Woolverton’s excellent script offered up.

Life is a process of learning to become yourself

The film begins with a fanciful and unsure 19 year-old Alice about to become married off to a stodgy aristocrat.  After falling down the rabbit hole at her engagement party and landing in Wonderland, it soon becomes clear that her arrival is much-anticipated:  she’s been brought here to sleigh the Jabberwocky and end the Red Queen’s villainous rule.  But first, there is some question as to whether she’s the “right” Alice for the job.  To clear up any confusion, she’s brought to the wise and Buddha-like Blue Caterpillar.

Blue Caterpillar: Who are you?
Alice: I’m Alice.
Blue Caterpillar: You’re hardly Alice

As the film progresses, Alice – who at first is confident she’s not the “right” Alice – slowly becomes convinced that perhaps she is the right Alice.  When she meets the caterpillar again towards the end of the film, the Caterpillar asks her once again:

Blue Caterpillar: Who are you?
Alice: I’m not sure.
Blue Caterpillar: How can I help you, silly girl, if you don’t even know who you are?
Alice: You yourself said I’m hardly Alice.
Blue Caterpillar: I said you were ‘hardly Alice.’  You’re much more like Alice than you used to be.

The film is, at its heart, Alice’s journey of becoming Alice.  Through drinking potions and eating cakes she continually grows bigger and smaller until she finds just the right size for her, literally growing into her own skin.  The tentative Alice we meet at the beginning of the film slowly fades away as she gains confidence in herself and her unconventional choices, fully becoming the Alice that everyone in Wonderland has been waiting for.  I think each of us is on a similar journey, as we are faced daily with choices and decisions that bring us further away or into closer contact with our true selves.  Alice does what “feels right” – even if it defies logic – and it’s these decisions that help her to grow into who she is.  We face the same crossroads each day, and in moments of uncertainty and indecision – both big and small – perhaps the question we should ask ourselves is, “Is this bringing closer or further from the person I was born to be?”

Each of us is creating our own path.

As much as there is a person we were born to be, each of us has free agency to create the path towards becoming that person.  Although the role Alice is to play in Wonderland has been prophesied, she creates her own way of going about the journey.  Helping her to deviate from the plan, the watchdog Bayard worriedly remarks to Alice, “I’ve ruined your destined path.”  “No you haven’t,” Alice confidently responds.  “I’m making my path.”    As we begin our journeys, it’s important to remember that there are many roads up the mountain, and we should choose the one that resonates most with us.  As the White Queen reminds Alice, “You can’t spend your life pleasing others.”

The life we’re meant to lead is waiting for us…when the time is right

We’ve all heard the quote “stop living the life you think you should lead and start living the life you were meant to lead” (or something like that).  I’ve always struggled with this credo, perhaps because I find it difficult to believe that it’s as simple as that.  Through the film, we discover that Wonderland has, quite literally, been waiting for Alice her entire life – she even went once, as a girl – but she hadn’t yet grown into herself enough to be able to live that life.  While our lives might be waiting for us, timing is everything.  As someone who is eager to begin new things, I often have to remind myself that perhaps I have some growing to do.  While I wait for new beginnings, I can make small steps towards preparing myself for the starting line, or simply focus on living the best life I have right now.

There are no beginnings and endings, only transformations

Towards the end of the film Alice observes the Blue Caterpillar weaving himself into a silky cocoon.  “You’re dying,” Alice says.  “No I’m not,” responds the Blue Caterpillar.  “I’m transforming.”  Each of us has the opportunity to transform every day, becoming more fully who we are.  We end each day a different person than we began, and each morning offers a chance for a new beginning.  But if life is nothing but a series of transformations, how do we embrace this inevitable series of changes while staying focused in the now?  Don’t the two seem contradictory?  Maybe, but I think some of life’s greatest transformations happen through living in the present.  Sometimes I think about the person I was at the beginning and end of my eight month round-the-world trip:  essentially the same, but different in so many ways.  Never have I lived more in the present moment, and in no period of my life have I transformed more.  Change means becoming a different person; transformation suggests morphing from one version of ourselves slowly over time.  We all have the opportunity to be Blue Caterpillars if we attend mindfully to the stuff of our everyday life.

We live in the now by attending to our real lives

At the end of the film, Alice is faced with the choice to stay in Wonderland or return home to London.  She states with confidence that she must return home, where there are “questions to be answered.”  For years Alice had lived in a suspended dream-state, enchanted with the dream of Wonderland which distracts her from fully living her life in the present.  While her adventures in Wonderland provide a welcome diversion, her real life is calling.

How many of us transport ourselves to other words through TV, internet, cell phones, and Blackberries, thus distracting us from the real lives right before our eyes?  Alternate worlds – be they video games or vacations – are fun for awhile.  But we’re avoiding the inevitable difficulties of our everyday lives that command our attention.  The only way out of Wonderland is through Wonderland, just like the only way out of our difficulties is by trudging through them.  I bet it’s not as daunting as sleighing the Jabberwocky.

Did you see Alice in Wonderland this weekend?  If so, what lessons did you take away from it?  Do you agree or disagree with the “lessons” I’ve cited?