Making the best of what we have....is not second best. It is rather, a demand for active engagement in caring for what and whom we value. That is what's touching about Groundhog Day.
-Ellen Goodman-
Happy 126th Groundhog Day!
If you received this post via email, click here to get to the web version with all the links.
If this post looks familiar to you--it's not because you're suddenly trapped in a some cosmic Bill Murray-like Groundhog Day Life--stuck seeing the same HHLL post every morning! Although, I'm guessing it must seem like that for some of you.
No, it's just my not-so-annual Groundhog Day post--that I first wrote in 2008 and reposted in 2009 and I'm now reposting it in 2012!
Living the Groundhog Day Life
I love Bill Murray's 1993 movie, Groundhog Day! It's my favorite kind of film---funny with a profound message. We can get stuck in the same place, doing the same thing, every last day of our lives, until we finally get it right. Until we change ourselves.
Phil Connors is an arrogant, cynical, sarcastic weatherman who has come to Punxsutawney, PA on February 2 to cover the annual Groundhog Day celebration.
He's the kind of guy who no one can stand--and he could care less! To Phil this is a backwater town, and the assignment is beneath him. And to make matters worse, he discovers he's in the middle of huge cosmic joke that condemns him to living the same day, February 2 over and over again.
Every blessed morning he wakes up to Sonny & Cher singing, "It Ain't Me Babe". Eats the same breakfast & covers the same Groundhog Day festival, sees the same annoying people.....until he gets it right!
Before I saw Groundhog Day I had read Ellen Goodman's column about the movie. Now, nineteen years later I still think about what the movie meant to her and I just have to share her Zen-like meditation on middle-age:
In the middle of the movie Phil says in utter despair to a man sitting next to him at a bar:
"What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was the same and nothing mattered?"
Here's what Ellen Goodman had to say back in 1993:
"What would you do if you woke up in the same place and every day was the same?
For most people, middle age is a little bit like that. It's long past the time of life when most of us were building our careers, beginning our families and nesting.
It's the maintenance stage when an extraordinary amount of energy is going to upkeep - keeping up the commitments you have. One morning inevitably looks a lot like the one before it.....
But in real life, those of us who do not want to start over in the middle face a different test of renewal. Daily renewal. Getting up in the same place, doing the same things - only making it matter.
So we have to figure out how to make the best of what we have.
Making the best of what we have....is not second best. It is rather, a demand for active engagement in caring for what and whom we value.
That is what's touching about Groundhog Day. Our trapped weatherman has to learn this the hard way. His life is reduced to one inescapable day. It's the entire deck he's been dealt, the allotment of flowers he can arrange, the cast of characters in his life.
He goes through stages of feeling trapped, depressed, and living as if there's no tomorrow. He finally comes to the not-so-profound-but-still-pretty-rare realization that he can change his world by changing himself.
..it's about making the best of what you have...over and over. Making small repairs and improvements so that the commitments of midlife--the work you do and people you love--don't become a trap. They become and remain the town in which you choose to live even when you have options.
"Groundhog Day" is the perfect renewal movie when we're trapped in the middle of one of the coldest & snowiest winters (and the most challenging economic times) I can remember in a long time.
Note: That might have been true in 2008 & 2009. But, this winter it feels kind of nice to be trapped in the middle of one of the warmest & least snowy winters I can remember. As the for economic scene--doesn't seem like much has changed in that department.
And the Pursuit of Happiness - How About That Maira?
If you've never had the opportunity to see Maira Kalman's gorgeous artistic essay, "And the Pursuit of Happiness" in the 2/01/09 New York TImes --please take a look & say "Hallelujah!"
Feast your eyes & spirt on this! Click here! Her artistic column "And the Pursuit of Happiness," about American democracy, appeared on the last Friday of each month in 2009 in the New York Times. You will find all of Maira's pictorial essays at the bottom of the link. Enjoy!
Happy President's Day month, too!
That was fun. Thank you. I love the way you introduce us to people and ideas we likely wouldn't have found on our own. The surprise of it is sometimes such a delight.....
Posted by: Carol | February 02, 2012 at 08:35 AM
Love that post!
It is good to be reminded that the important thing is to change ourselves.
Posted by: Silvia | February 02, 2012 at 09:12 AM
Thank you thank you. It's serendipitous that your posts frequently speak to something I'm confronting. In this case, it's changes in my life over which I have no control. Ah, but I can change myself . . .
Posted by: Carol | February 02, 2012 at 10:01 AM
Groundhog Day is one of my very favorite movies. In fact, after we got married in 1996, missus charley and I stayed overnight in Punxatawney on our way from Baltimore to Niagara Falls (although the movie was actually filmed in Illinois).
One correction - while "It Ain't Me, Babe" is an excellent song, the Sonny and Cher tune that Phil hears again and again and again is "I Got You, Babe" - and then, at the end, he and Rita do finally have each other.
Posted by: mistah charley, ph.d. | May 04, 2012 at 04:34 AM