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Just Jane

Guide to Romantic Living

Chapter Three | Chapter Five

Chapter Four: Thinking Romantically

In this book I'm talking to everyone, because everyone has the potential to be happy, fulfilled, romantic, and beautiful. Beauty doesn't come just from the pleasant arrangement of features on a face; it comes from an inner peace and an enthusiasm for life.

It's easy to write that. It is much more difficult to overcome the problems and bad ways of thinking and feeling that stand in the way of happiness and romance.

The old view of God and the Devil arguing it out up in your brain whenever you are deciding between a good action and a bad action isn't too far from the truth, is it, really? I'm constantly struggling not to be envious if some actress gets a part I wanted. But if you want to be the romantic heroine of your imagination if just won't do for you to be thinking grisly, murderous thoughts about the woman in the house next door or the actress who has your part. If you are going to have the time to live a rich, fulfilled life, filling it with beauty and romance, as well as a successful working life, you just have to learn to control your bad emotions.

And bad they are. I am fed up with the modern view that everything unpleasant in your brain is someone else's fault-your fathers's, your mother's, whoever's. Bad emotions are bad and should be controlled-whoever's fault they might be. Instead of going to an analyst and finding out whose fault it is that you find yourself loathing the woman down the road, just spend that time and effort concentrating on controlling those negative emotions. Don't respect the negative emotions. Tell them to get lost. Or learn to keep them in their place. Some of them are old friends-old familiar demons-and life would be empty without their occasional appearance, but they must not be allowed to run the show. As Shakespeare points out: "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

Here are some of the weapons I use to fight off the negative emotions and attitudes that can give you sleepless, unromantic nights and unpleasant lines of anger on your face. Not that I always succeed. But I'm not going to dwell on the times I failed. This book would be very dull if it droned about my failures.

First, you must face up to problems and deal with them. That is the positive, romantic way. Do not allow time and temper to be sandpapered away by friction. There is no time for wasteful thoughts and anger.

If you are upset, talk about it, and having talked about it, forget it. Whenever I don't get a role I want or if I get bad reviews, I feel it's an absolute disaster. I cry; I decide it's because people don't like me: I feel sorry for myself and I get angry with myself for feeling that way. But it only lasts for a short time. I cry and the anger goes away. It is necessary to express grief, anger, envy. But after you've expressed them, dismiss them-don't let them hang around ruining your life.

We all at some time get trapped in our own little worlds, our own little selfish prison of grievances and anger. We don't see anything but our own point of view. How can you be romantic if you're bitter and miserable? That's why talking is important. It helps you to understand what is going on in another person's mind-to understand their grievances.

Next, it is essential to think positively and to remember that the anger happens inside you. If you are angry with someone, it is your anger, not their behavior, that is upsetting you. Once you have talked it out and if there still seems to be no solution, just shelve the anger. Why bother with it? Why make whatever wrong was done to you worse by worrying over it? Just chuck it out with the garbage. Learn to control it.

After all, in a busy, romantic life there is simply not the time to waste. You have only one life. Live it, enjoy it, don't let bad feelings and wasteful ways of thinking fill your days when you should be kicking through fallen leaves, watching the waves come in, biting into an apple on a crisp autumn day.

Briefly, if you can do something about a problem, do it, and if there's nothing you can do about it, why on earth spend time worrying about it? For instance, I have learned to accept my failings, to realize they're part of me. I think everyone is anxious about at least some part of her body. Some hate their arms, some their hips; one woman I know of is horribly embarrassed by her knees. In the film business you are, of course, supposed to be body perfect. Since I've had my babies, my breasts have become even smaller than they were, but I make a joke about it. During scenes in Crossings I would simply say, "With or without breasts?" and if they wanted breasts, I'd turn around and pop in some padding. Also, I'm only five feet four, and my leading men all tend to be much taller. I think nothing of jumping on a box to make me taller.

I know I'm not particularly tall and I haven't got big breasts, but why should I worry about that which I can't change? It's me. If you think you've got a big nose or if you feel fat, just don't concentrate on those features. Look at your best features and accentuate them. If you eyes are nice, accentuate your eyes, always make them up well. My long hair is one of my best features, so I make the most of it and wash and condition it every day.

Each time I come across a problem I ask myself, "Can I do anything about it? If not, why worry about it?" Nobody can do everything well. Laugh about your disasters and failings-get them in proportion.

There are other helpful ways of thinking that I want to share with you-one made famous by the Chinese philosopher Confucius, who wrote: "When you have a problem climb up onto a star, and look down on the world and see the insignificance of your trouble." He is telling us not to get our own small problems out of proportion. If you put anything in context, in the context of time and the immensity and beauty of space and earth, the problem immediately dwindles to nothing. We are part of the beauty of everything. We belong here. But we are really very small, and our problems even smaller. So when everything is too much for you, just climb onto a star and look down, and suddenly, as if by magic, all the muddle will clear.

Fear doesn't always go away quite so easily, and to be romantic it is essential to be brave, to be daring. Romance is risky. It is romantic to climb mountains, to ski fast down a dangerous slope, to run away to live alone on a distant island. Romance is about changing normal perspectives, about reaching new states of mind and feeling, about taking risks. It is seldom the easy way out. But romance is also about being vulnerable, about laying yourself open to new experience, about being open and receptive enough to enjoy your family, to enjoy nature, to enjoy loving and being loved. And while this, too, is risky, the rewards are great.

It was Bertrand Russell who said that the way he dealt with fear was to consider "seriously and deliberately" the worse that could happen in any risky situation. Then he said, "Having looked this possible misfortune in the face, give yourself sound reasons for thinking that after all it wouldn't be such a terrible disaster. Such reasons always exist, since at the worse nothing that has happened to oneself has any cosmic importance...you will find your worry diminishes to a quite extraordinary extent."

You can't live your life crouching in corners, afraid of everything. You have to dare. Of course, as you grow older, and once you have children, it is harder to do so because you are risking the happiness of vulnerable children, of other people who need you. If you die mountaineering or move to live in a desert to follow your romantic notion about living like a Bedouin, it will be they who suffer. When you have young children, they need security and, at least for a while, a steady life, filled with a sense of romantic living/ For them, it is exciting and dangerous to climb along a wall with you there to catch them. There is the time for sharing their romantic view of the world, not for egotistically following your own desires.

What many people fear most of all is failure. And of course you need never fail at anything if you never do anything. Except that in that case you fail at life.

What I tell myself when I fail is that I have done my best. That is what prevents me fearing failure. I feel I can only do my best. You have to do you own best, not someone else's best. And not necessarily better than anyone else. But if you do less than your best, then you will always be upset with yourself.

The person who taught me that principle of romantic life was not Confucius, or Bertrand Russell, but my mother!

It is not possible to do everything well. You just have to do your best. You don't have to drive yourself into a mental breakdown by trying to be perfect: a marvelous cook, a brilliant wife, the best possible mother, a sparkling hostess, a top businesswoman. How can you? Fail at some things. So what? Often I don't look as good as I should or entertain as well as I'd like to. But I just say to myself, "Well-this is me." And if people are interested in me, this is the real me, not a pretend or fake me that has been carved and painted and porcelained. My nails are invariable cracked. I am not Supermom and Supercook: I have to have nannies to help me look after my children, and I have a cook to help me prepare the family's food. I'm not ashamed of that. I do my best and as much as I can.

Have an upbeat attitude toward your work and your children. Don't allow your responsibilities to bring you down. Enjoy yourself. Make sure that you don't live in order to work, but work in order to live. Make time to enjoy your marriage and your children and yourself. Dare to have the occasional decadent weekend away with your husband, have the occasional self-indulgent lunch all by yourself in a grand restaurant with a marvelous book, take the children off to the beach and watch how well they know how to take pleasure from life.

Don't always put the children first, or always put your work first, or always put your husband above everything. Order your priorities to fit changing circumstances: be flexible and open.

But if you want everything-marriage and children and work-and you don't want to be worn down into a world-weary, haggard creature, you have to learn to delegate, to let other people have the glory for some aspects of your life.

It is petty and unreasonable to try to do everything yourself if you can afford to have help. But remember to treat whomever you hire with respect: don't denigrate their work because you feel you're a failure as a woman for needing their help. Be romantic, be positive, and be kind.

You have to make a decision to let someone else have a proper relationship with your children, You can't always be interrupting the nanny when she's playing with them, when things are going well, to demand that they come shopping with you or that they sit while you read to them. You have to choose someone who has the same attitudes as you do, and then let them get to work. It is essential not to diminish their relationship. If you don't, it's bad for the children, and bad for you.

Choose someone warm and romantic and loving. Treat her well. The art of delegation is the art of mixing firmness with kindness. It is an error to grow so close to your nanny that you find it hard to give her instructions. You must respect her, and her job, and she must respect you, and your job. Your children should be encouraged to love you both and respect you both.

A good nanny will make sure that the most important relationship is with you. The best ones have a way of vanishing at the right times, and appearing at the right times.

And when things go wrong-when the nanny walks out, when it's her day off and you have to work-don't panic. Always keep calm. Sometimes my mind goes berserk and I think: I can't do it all. I have to go away. How will my children cope without me? Who will run the house? I don't know my part yet. I've got an interview today and some photographs and I look awful. Panic.

The way to avert panic in any situation-in a painful childbirth as much as on a busy day-is simply to take one thing at a time and concentrate fully upon it. That is the romantic way. Would Shelley have written his great romantic poetry if he had been fretting about where to buy a cutlery set? Did Isadora Duncan worry about buying broad beans while dancing? It is essential to deal with each problem separately, to take things one at a time.

Each problem is only one problem, after all.

I believe that if you do something wholeheartedly, with a positive approach, and give that one thing your full attention, you can do pretty well anything in life.

From the time I was a small girl I have had a habit of becoming obsessed with things, becoming totally involved. The image of a romantic is of someone vague and airy-fairy. Real romantics aren't like that. They concentrate hard on what they are doing while they are doing it. This ability to become absorbed in whatever I am doing helps my acting. When I'm acting, I become the character I'm playing. Kathy in East of Eden was a very depressing role. It was hard to escape from the part and return to ordinary life, even after we had finished filming. I felt schizophrenic, like Kathy, and I began to feel her arthritis in my own joints. But if I hadn't become obsessed, I couldn't have played the part convincingly. It's the same with anything you do. You have to throw yourself into whatever you do, whether it's having a party, organizing a business deal, designing a dress. That is the way to avoid panic. That is the way to live a rich, full life.

When I'm acting, I time-walk myself out of everything that is happening in my life, every distraction, and find myself in another place. I have to be sure not to be terribly rude to people at the same time. This ability to be somewhere else is a great help even in ordinary life. When things become too much and panic sets in, and none of your mental tricks work, try this one: Try to time-walk (daydream is another word for it) yourself away from the here and now. Drift away, mentally fly away, to a beach, to the sea, to somewhere peaceful, just for a while, to give your overworked brain a holiday.

When you're feeling overwrought and you need a lift, you could also drink a glass of champagne, buy some flowers, listen to your favorite music, anything special that makes you feel better about your life.

If a man puts a red rose next to your bed, or some chocolates on the pillow, that can give you a big lift. But why wait until you're spending a weekend away? Why wait until a much-planned grand occasion? Treat yourself, and treat your partner. There is nothing stopping you from elevating the ordinary with a little imagination, a little thought, a little flair. When I was filming War and Remembrance in Yugoslavia and Poland I noted how people brought flowers with them whenever they went out with friends for drinks or dinner or for no particular reason. It's an old European custom that used to be more prevalent, in England in particular, than it is now.

I actually believe in an emergency kits: candles, a bottle of fizzy wine or champagne, and some lumpfish roe or caviar should always be kept available to make an occasion of an ordinary day. For that is what romance is; it's making occasions out of every ordinary day of your life, turning each one into something special.