New Archetypes for Old Babes: One Table; No Waiting
Thoughts about “The Becoming Process”
by Kanta Bosniak
My icons are artists. Painters, actors, writers, designers, music people. Like a preadolescent girl imagining life as an adult with her Barbie, and calling up her own inner maiden, I’m calling up my mature woman as I notice and appreciate archetypal models.
I recently viewed some mesmerizing footage of Georgia O’Keeefe at 92. Voice clear and full of vital energy. Ditto the fabulous Chanel, in her late 70’s, stabbing the air for emphasis as she expresses her views on fashion. Quotes from the late Rue McClanahan, whose “Golden Girl” character, Blanche modeled active sexuality.
I’m musing about shifts in how I think about life as a mature woman as I approach a birthday that used to seem like a big deal. Truth is, it is a big deal, but not for the reasons it used to be. You were supposed to retire from life and fade away. I’ve rarely done the things I was “supposed to.” I feel strong, beautiful, and energetic. I’m having fun and living a vital, productive life. I’m in touch with all the ages I have experienced and they still live inside me very actively. It’s just that now, I’m more relaxed and confident.
Love is just as exciting, more exciting than it has ever been, but much more peaceful, because the yearning for completion by “the other” has ended with the realization that I am already whole. Realization not in the sense of recognizing the validity of a concept, but of actual body experience of peace in the heart. Layers of life as a woman do not cover over. Peace and fun co-exist.
I’m not sure that Rue’s Blanche had peace. She was always on the prowl. But it was her restlessness that made her funny. And part of what we were really laughing at was that she was getting away with being herself, despite of outmoded cultural norms. We loved and related to her hungry selfishness, which really is the trait of a narcissistic child, always wanting more.
“Golden Girls” aimed to show “that when people mature, they add layers,” she [Ms. McC.] told The New York Times in 1985. “They don’t turn into other creatures. The truth is we all still have our child, our adolescent, and your young woman living in us.”
And what of the mature woman? More relaxed and confident. And not waiting. No waiting for something or someone “out there”, or even for oneself to become some sort of improved, better version. No waiting for life to be some other way. It simply is. There is only doing, being, enjoying, living and loving. The hunger is over and we discover that we share one big banquet table, filled with everything.
