Scarlett O’Hara was a bad influence on the way I experienced real life romance in my younger days. A dark growling brute carries you to bed and pretty much rapes you. So you fall straight off in love with him. My first marriage got me over that screwed up way of thinking because I’d pretty much found that brute. Which wasn’t the least bit romantic after all.
On the upside – Scarlett will never stop being a positive influence on my rom
ance with life. My favorite Gone With the Wind scene isn’t the one where Rhett hefts Scarlett up the wide staircase with her red dressing gown trailing. The truly indelible scene for me is at the end of the first act just before the Intermission. I’ll bet you remember it too. Who could forget?
Scarlett stands on a hillside as daylight fades. She faces the devastated landscape of what was once her beautiful Tara. In the distance she sees the war ravaged wreck of the gracious antebellum mansion where her story began. She was beautiful then too with her waft waist and ivory complexion and perfectly coiffed hair. Now she’s ravaged too. But she is not devastated.
Scarlett balls her fist tight as she clutches what looks like a grimy radish root. She’s taken a bite of this filthy root then spat it out. With the vile taste of defeat in her mouth she finds what she will need to raise herself up from this rock bottom moment and the patch of scruffy earth where she now stands. She lifts her fist toward heaven and cries out.
“As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again.”
The first time I heard that I knew instantly what it was – a warrior cry. Even as a little girl I understood somehow that this was the spirit I would need in life – a warrior spirit. I was exactly right about that because it is the spirit we all need. We must be warriors on behalf of ourselves if we are to rise above our own inevitable scruffy-dirt-patch experiences.
What Scarlett failed to recognize of course is that one of the most effective ways of lifting ourselves is to lift others also. To become warriors on behalf of one another. Especially on behalf those whose fingers are trembling too badly at the moment to make a fist and brandish it at heaven. We take hold of their shaking fingers. We lift them high with ours and cry out.
“As God is my witness, we’ll never be defeated again, because we’ll never be alone again.”
So – we must work our fingers until they are strong and able. We don’t need a squashy ball either. Life offers lots of opportunity to exercise muscles of resistance. We practice making tight fists by shaking them at every obstacle in our path. We grow our own version of Scarlett’s warrior spirit and have it at the ready as we strike out toward each new scary challenge.
And if the pushback pushes back too hard at times and we have to go to ground for a bit. We simply say. “Fiddle dee dee. I’ll think about that tomorrow.” Because tomorrow is another warrior spirit day.
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My latest story is A WRONG WAY HOME – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series – Book #1 – Matt & Kara’s Story. Available at amazon.com/author/aliceorr. This is my 12th novel and – believe me – it took a warrior spirit to get here.
Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com
(Yeah, that, Alice…right on. But all I could think of was pizza.) I’m rather tired of all the fighting I have had to do for myself and others. It never seems to stop, yet I go on, battling my way through life. I could wish with all my might to have an easy go, but in all these years, it just hasn’t happened.
I think the trick is, as you pointed out, to keep going, face your foes and subdue them. Use your wits and love to confound them. But never give up. People depend on you–those who need you–so for self preservation and the good of others, you fight.
But a pizza every now and then can’t hurt.
Yes Dearest Irene. You can’t give up. But that doesn’t mean you can’t take a rest. As we continue through life we have the need to go to ground occasionally – even regularly – to recharge and take care of ourselves. You need to consider this permission to do that. Sometimes when folks come to you with their problems your role is to delegate. Refer them to somebody else who can do the caretaking this time. Sometimes you have to tell them you have to take care of yourself right now. That doesn’t mean that you’ve closed your generous heart to them. It means you are opening your heart to yourself. That is not only appropriate it is essential. You were given your heart to spread love and first you must spread that love over yourself. We were given this life to cherish and to experience joy. You can’t do that if you’re in a state of fight or flight too much of the time. So Sweet Irene I implore you to be gentle with yourself and let others learn to take care of themselves at least some of the time. They need to develop those skills after all. And we need to keep you in the world. I need to have you in my world. Because it’s a better world with you here and healthy. I send you love and blessings and you can count on the certainty that you are in my prayers. And I do good prayer.