“Only when she started working for herself, [doing what pleased her], creating her own standards, did she become enormously successful. Close your mind and your talent will forever remain little. Open it, and who knows what exotic blooms may flower.”
–The House of Elliot tv series (UK)

Created by Dame Eileen Atkins and Jean Marsh, The House of Eliott drama series (1991-1994), set in post-WWI London (1920s), centered around two orphaned sisters who establish a successful haute couture design house. Having watched all three seasons this past August, it is an unofficial Petit Plaisir, and you heard it in this post first. 🙂

One of the first and simplest parts of being a critical thinker is to begin by looking behind the scenes and ask (or look at the credits) to find out who created or wrote the series/film/speech/advertisement/artwork/etc. that you are observing/reading. Then, the next step is to dive into that/those persons’/’s background and life experiences. This is what we call ‘bias’. No, not ‘bias’ with the negative connotation often attached to it, but a neutral term that simply means, what lived experience are they bringing to the table as they created this piece (things they cannot change – gender, age, place of birth, ethnicity, parents, etc.) and the things they chose to do, what they think based on what they have shared in the past, or happened to them due to these choices (education, relationships, work, travel, historical events they lived through, stated beliefs, etc.).

Ever since I began teaching rhetoric to high school juniors, now more than 16 years ago, I am more discerning about the films I watch, series I view, as well as the content I read and listen to. I am regularly ‘peeking behind the curtain’, to use the phrase I would repeat to my students before they began to form any opinions about what they had read or seen. Objectively look and see. Be the critical thinker. Step back and discover the exigence of the work, and ask all the questions using Aristotle’s triangle (all of these skills are taught in my Contentment Masterclass – learn more here).

When it comes to television series from decades ago, it was rare to see a series such as The House of Eliott. To see two women running their own business, making their own money, and traveling to Paris from time to time to expand their perspective on all that haute couture could be (the first episode of season 2 is one of my favorites!). And also, rare to see them getting along quite well. While sisters, they did tussle, but it was never malicious, extreme, or unresolvable. With women creating the series and women writing for the series, they were able to present women in a different light – capable, intelligent, formidable – often attributes more frequently given and praised when portrayed by men. And all set during a time to juxtapose the absurdity of the laws that prevented them from handling their own finances and choosing the lives they wished to live. The practice of ‘looking behind the curtain’ comes into play regarding The House of Eliott and who created the series, and discovering that actual women, quite successful in their own professional lives, wrote the series about women running a business, making their own livelihood, knowing a fair amount of the true capabilities of women and female relationships.

The 1990s were a progressive time for sure compared to the pre-vote era for British women (in the UK, the right to vote for women became law partially in 1918 and then for all women aged 21 and above in 1928), but the reach of television in the 1990s stretched far and wide. For young girls and all women to watch shows such as The House of Eliott, Hetty Weinthrope Investigates (1996-98), even The Manageress (1989-90), and the long running The Upper Hand (1990-96, the UK adapation of Who’s the Boss?), these images were powerful in expanding the possibility of life’s options beyond hand-me-down limited, prescriptive ways of living for women.

It’s not that any one of these ways of living life is perfect or better than another or that there aren’t others of which there are many. But what it does is expand our perspective, reminding us all of the choice, the choice that is ours to live our one and only life in such a way that brings us to life. And it is hard to know what the choices are if the blinds (or shutters) are closed, or someone refuses to open them, whether that is us or someone else.

Choose to open the shutters.

One of the most important choices I made in my life took place at a very young age, and that was simply to leave my childhood hometown immediately after high school (yep, just about day one or two after graduation). My childhood was one I am very grateful for, one person I spoke with recently at a café in Bend commenting after I shared with them where I grew up, that I had the childhood they wished they had experienced – outdoors, mountainous, four seasons, small town. And, as I shared with my mother recently, I loved my childhood and wouldn’t change it for the world. BUT, that didn’t mean I had to stay there beyond my childhood. And oh my goodness, did I ever want to get out of my small, isolated town. Thankfully, through my gained confidence in school as well as extracurricular pursuits, and a stable home and family, I was more than ready, and supported in doing so by my parents. For the next few years in college, while still in-state here in Oregon, it was a good eight hours of driving away, so I only came home at the end of quarters.

I observed so many more ways people lived (both chosen and not chosen, due to life circumstances beyond their control or to limiting views of how life had to be lived based on their upbringing). Those few years weren’t easy, I will admit because I missed being able to walk about in Mother Nature, have my dog living with me and many other ways of life that made feel right at home – you are probably noting that Bend, Oregon, was destined to be my eventual hometown with these two details being at the core of my joy), but they were integral in helping me to see that there were so many ways to live one’s life and that was just my experience in the state of Oregon. Once I traveled to France during my junior year of college, wowza! Everything changed as to what was possible for living well, and while many discoveries were unconsciously learned at the time and only later more deeply appreciated, others quickly erased truths I had seen modeled as ‘the best’ or preferred.

The success for living well that I had observed as a child, while it may have made some people living it happy, wasn’t the path for me. Unconsciously, I felt it, which is part of my leaving home so quickly when I had the chance. I didn’t know what I would discover because I didn’t know what was possible, but I knew what I didn’t want. There was no internet back in 1997 (okay, emails on black screens with green blinking text – yep, we’ve come a long way! :)). There wasn’t any Google Maps to help us navigate our way around Paris or the country of France itself (that was a huge learning curve that we now take for granted we can find on our phone at a moment’s notice). We were all just figuring it out as we went, and yes, we still are today, even with all of the technological advancements to show us the oodles of possibilities. However, we still have to take action. We still have to choose to hold our mind open, explore without promise or guarantee. That is our responsibility, and it cannot be anyone else’s. Only then will we be able to come across how to bloom into the exotic flower that we each are.

The assignment we must accept is to be a student of life, which means to hold our minds open and go out and see the world. We won’t like everything we see, and we will be unsettled at times, but we will also see what fascinates us, thrills us, and helps us discover more than we ever imagined could be possible. All of the information we gather on our excursions along our journey is valuable. The people that surround us have their own comforts and biases based on their lived experience, and it’s not our job to change them – AND! It actually isn’t helpful to put anyone on a pedestal either – be inspired – yes, follow their life exactly – nope, as that limits all that our one and only life can be.

It is our job to be brave and accept the responsibility of figuring out what brings us to life, an organic aliveness that occurs within us when we engage with whatever it is we will eventually discover. Along the way, we build our confidence, we discover strengths we didn’t know we had, and strengthen skills we didn’t know would enhance the life we love living even more. All is to our benefit. Success realized by our own definitions of the term itself: To reach the goal of living a life that brings us to life, that grounds us in contentment and reveals to us the gifts that we then can share with the world.

Have a wonderful start to the week, and thank you for stopping by.

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