Did He Say, "Pollyanna"?

By Terry Ward

You know, when I was in college, one of my professors, my advisor, in fact, told me that I reminded him of Pollyanna. "Out of the blue of the western sky...!" Where did that come from? There I was, right smack dab in the midst of my middle-aged craziness, trying my hardest to be this smouldering, slinky, Rita Hayworth clone, and what do I remind people of - a very proper, British-accented, pre-adolescent. Sort of shakes your self-confidence a bit. I think I gave up smouldering soon after that.

But I was still baffled. What did he mean by that? I don't think I really understood what he saw in me until this past year. I probably shouldn't be airing my dirty linen, but as I seem to do it on

a regular basis anyhow, c'est la vie! I found myself in a situation that was completely, utterly hopeless. The job that I had wanted was mine. I worked hard at it, nights, days, weekends. Pulled out all the stops. All to no avail. One day I woke up (figuratively speaking, I was at my desk at the time) and realized that no matter how hard I tried, no matter how hard I worked or how good I was at my job, my boss was going to find a way to fire me. Why? There was that one little thing that I couldn't work hard at. I was a woman. He wanted a man in the job. Now this isn't an article about women's issues - though, boy, could I sound off on that (I'm still pretty hot under the collar about this episode!)- it's an article about surviving.

I think that it was almost as soon as I realized how truly hopeless the situation was that I turned myself around, I smiled. I smiled a lot. I refused, refused, to be negative. Being fired, being treated as a third class citizen, was a very new experience for me. It was like knowing that you're going over a very high waterfall and there's no way to stop it. There's no way to know if you'll be O.K. at the end. I had to grab on to the here and now, I had to find the positive. And I did that. Alright, so one of the most positive things that happened during that time period was when I didn't see my boss all day - but it still counts!

Well, as my mother has told me many a time, everything happens for the best. (Does this phrase automatically enter your psyche when you give birth or something? I know that mothers immediately gain all wisdom and knowledge as soon as the little twerp makes its appearance, but do you get all the pithy sayings in the deal too? It must be hormones. They have to do something good for you.) Now, I've got to say, I haven't landed in a tub of butter, um, make that money, since then, but I've been happier. Playing the "glad game" came through for me. (The truly ironic thing about all of this is that I LOVE the movie POLLYANNA. I can't even tell you how many times I've watched it - or how many times I've made my poor kids suffer through it. Michael Eisner might have a sullied reputation, but old Walt was a genius.)

Once I looked up the meaning of smiles. I found something on it in an Anthropology book. It said that "smiling" was originally used to scare away harmful predators. Very profound. It certainly did the trick for me. Making myself smile turned away the only thing that could truly harm me - my own negativity.

Look around you, if you don't believe me. How do you feel when someone smiles at you? I know some people that have great smiles - Fr. Dave Simon, my friend Manda, my students, and of course, the most beautiful children in the world, my kids (it's my column, I'm allowed!). These are smiles that bubble, and warm. They're smiles that help you through the bill-paying, and the insurance hassles, and the fights with your husband.

At the risk of sounding like Pollyanna, maybe it wouldn't hurt you to smile a bit more. And maybe when you're tempted to say something mean about somebody, say something nice about them instead. Honest - it doesn't cost you anything. But it can pay you back a lot. And besides, you'll probably make your mother happy.

There, now are you happy Frank Czerwinski?

*note: Dr. Frank Czerwinski was my advisor at SUNY Cortland, and a very fine advisor he was. Thank you, Frank, for everything.