Vocation Better Endings

One of my favorite classic movies is the Deborah Kerr/ Cary Grant version of An Affair to Remember. One of the reasons for the enormous popularity of this story is not just the romantic kismet between the main characters Nickie Ferrante and Terry McKay but also because of what they represent to each other as opportunities to Follow Their Hearts and Realize their Dreams, apart from the normative, mediocre lives/ relationships they have been oriented to before they meet.

They each have ardent vocations: Miss McKay’s as a working class children’s vocal teacher and Nickie’s as a painter.  Once they meet Nickie vows to give up his money-seeking, playboy lifestyle to earn a living for his wife from his painting, though he could instead marry into money and continue with a carefree, empty life instead. Terry is willing to risk pursuing true love with Nickie rather than settling for a predictable life where her own career is likely to be sacrificed or to come second to her husband’s.

Both Terry and Nickie’s vocations fulfill their deeply artistic natures.  They are following their hearts as well as recognizing kindred Souls in one another.  Both have “gone to Sea” on an ocean liner seeking deeper truths than their engagements of ‘convenience’ offer. So, An Affair to Remember is a Better Endings tale, through and through.

images are from pixabay.com

Of course the ending of this film is itself a Better Ending conclusion, wonderfully acted by Grant and Kerr.  It is Nickie Ferrante’s art that saves their relationship: a painting of Terry wearing his Aunt’s shawl, in Terry’s bedroom, that Nickie had been told “a crippled woman” had purchased.

“If you can paint, I can walk!” 

May you, too, Follow Your Heart. Listen closely to the beat of your own drum. This way you, like Terry and Nickie, can embark on the Journey to Live Your Best  Life!

I welcome YOUR Comments and STORY

 

A Better Endings Love Story: An Affair to Remember

Why do so many people, myself included and maybe especially women, find Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant’s An Affair to Remember (1957) to be such a “classic” and satisfying love story? Apart from the dated elements from 50’s movies depicting men and women being almost different species (!), nevertheless the story still works for many of us today, as evidenced by the annual Christmastime reprisals and several attempted remakes which, however, never quite get the fabric or tonality of this story quite as well as Kerr and Grant did.

Terry McKay/ D. Kerr: “I was looking up; it was the nearest thing to heaven. You were there!”

…

Nickie Ferrante/ C. Grant: Why didn’t you tell me? If it had to happen to one of us, why did it have to be you?

Terry McKay/ D. Kerr: If you can paint, I can walk… Anything can happen, don’t you think?

(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050105/quotes)

I believe the reason this story speaks so deeply to all of us admirers is simple: this is a classic version of a Better Endings love story. The star-crossed lovers are each otherwise engaged to be married in relationships in which they would be ‘”settling,” but kismet brings them together so they can realize true love; a love which supports and strengthens each of their deepest life ambitions.

 Sleepless in Seattle is the best contemporary version of the same underlying Better Endings love story theme as An Affair to Remember. Of course it is a parable with many allusions that refer directly back to the original throughout. It culminates with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks meeting on top of the Empire State Building, so bringing to fruition a better-ending retelling of An Affair to Remember wherein McKay and Ferrante do meet up there as promised. And Sleepless in Seattle (along with You’ve Got Mail, which clearly is in the same genre of Better-Endings love tales) has the same classic longevity as An Affair to Remember, showing the universality of this theme; the archetypal character of this story.

images are from pixabay.com

Click below for your enjoyment: 

Better Endings News!

For regular or occasional readers of this blog: I’m happy to report that a Better Ending story appears to be brewing for my self-discovery/ personal development book, Your Life Path. My Super Agent (called as such in a recent article about her ), Linda Langton of Langtons International Agency, has received an offer from a publisher, and we are approaching a contract! This has been a labor of love for over 15 years in the making, with plenty of final polishing still in process but Whew! Thanks all for reading the blog and I will keep you posted. I’ll put up a widget to announce the book when that is appropriate.  My blessings to all of you and Better Endings to your Life Dreams, too!

ART to the RESCUE: A Popular Better Ending Theme

One of my favorite all-time movies is the original “An Affair to Remember” with Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant. Of course it is a highly romantic tale of star-crossed lovers who find each other on an ocean cruise while both are otherwise engaged with the ‘wrong’ people back on land.  What interests me this month as we are exploring the ARTIST archetype is how in “An Affair to Remember,” it is the ARTIST to the rescue, to save the day and make sure not only that these two destined lovers marry, but more importantly, that each is able to manifest their fullest potentials.(Click to see scenes at  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050105/ )

Nikkie Ferrante, global playboy about to marry for money to perpetuate his high living lifestyle, is in reality a frustrated Dreamer, an Artist.  Meeting Terry McKay, who teaches voice in New York City to children, brings Nikkie face to face and heart to heart with his true inner calling, not just to marry Miss McKay but to return to his Art at any cost in order to support a family on his own. When these two promise to meet after six months at the top of the Empire State building to forego their prior engagements and declare their love for each other so they may marry, Nikkie gives up his aim to ‘marry into money’ and live off his wife’s inheritance and he vows instead to be an ARTIST, destitute if need be, even alone if that must be what occurs after the six month hiatus.

It is also quite literally Art to the rescue in the pivotal scene at the end, when Nikkie visits Terry to bring a gift of a shawl from his deceased Aunt after he and Terry have become estranged. He had been there at the Empire State building and believed that Terry was not, although the audience is quite aware Terry was hit by a car and crippled on her way to their meeting place:

“I was looking up; it was the nearest thing to Heaven. You were there!”

Terry visits Nikkie at her apartment where she remains seated on her couch; it is only when Nikkie enters her bedroom and sees his own painting of Terry wearing his Aunt’s shawl (which he was told had been purchaesd by a lady in a wheelchair), that he understands. Terry also wanted her independence and to be true to herself; she needed to be able to walk before she would have sought out Nikkie on her own.

The song Terry coaches children to sing in the movie is about listening to one’s “conscience;” again, to be true to one’s innermost callings rather than taking the easy, obvious pathway in life.  Many people defray or submerge their own ARTIST’s WAY; that is, they may not listen to what their unconscious, archetypal ARTIST part of Self is trying to express, either to the world or to their own conscious sensibilities.

images are from pixabay.com

Express your own Inner ARTIST’s Nature! What would it have you do today? In an important situation? Heed the Call!

I welcome your Comments and Stories!

Happily Ever After

 

What do we so love about classic love stories? We call true love of a romantic sort ‘kismet’; two wandering souls find in each other a magical congruence or mysterium coniunctionum that lifts each of them to greater at-One-ment not only with one another but within their unified Selves or however the story defines the enhanced quality of these ‘charmed’ lovers being able to Live Their Dream, Now! (i.e. to “live happily, ever after”).

Mythology and literature, drama and film and poetry—all artistic forms of expression—are replete with the image of predestined lovers finding each other and in the process, finding or completing their Selves.

Many of the great love stories bring major change into the lovers’ lives. They thought they would “settle,” but no, the Universe has another plan for them. They stumble upon each other as a form of serendipity and as if it is unavoidable, they take notice and take the plunge! “Happily Ever After” awaits—so we are told anyway—just around the bend.

Let’s review some modern love stories from cinema:

Casablanca

Here Bogart as Rick Blain sacrifices his own feelings of devotion to Ilsa, an old love, for the better, higher interests of all concerned. His heart changes as a result; he drops remorse for his earlier loss and attains a higher perspective.

An Affair to Remember

Here Deborah Kerr (as Terry McKay) finds her one true if unlikely love while on an ocean cruise, just before each of them is scheduled to marry the fiancees awaiting their return. Both are willing to make sacrifices in order to ultimately be together. Cary Grant (as Nick Ferrante) renounces his inheritance to earn a living through his art—forging a more authentic Self in the process—while Terry almost sacrifices the love affair altogether after suffering an accident that paralyzes her. She wants to be whole and able to carry her own part if she is to deserve to marry Nick. But Kismet has its way, weaving a pathway by which these predestined lovers are able to unite in the End.

Sleepless in Seattle/ You’ve Got Mail

Nora Ephron produced a pair of similar contemporary tales of Kismet, even casting the same two lover-actors with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.  Sleepless in Seattle alludes back to An Affair to Remember, having the lovers eventually connect, as based on that film, at the top of the Empire State building, achieving an apex of higher connection. With You’ve Got Mail the star-crossed lovers meet online as well as outwardly, needing to each transcend their Pride (Joe Fox) and Prejudice (Kathleen Kelly)—yes, based on that Jane Austen allusion—before they can earn their own balanced love that will suit them from then forth, “happily ever after.”

In all three of these ‘classic’ films, Love does more than simply triumph by bringing appropriate partners together into longterm romantic relationships. It cancels the inappropriate, immature relations they had been settling for or holding onto in memory while preparing each lover to gain self-realization so that their ultimate, true marriage can ring true and benefit the Whole of their families and worlds.

Do you have a tale of kismet to share? I welcome your insights and stories!