My Erik Erikson-fest continues over here. I spent most of my Sunday working on a short research paper on Erikson’s Eight Stages of Development theory for my Life Span Development class.
While researching online (since the library is closed on summer Sundays and I needed three sources besides my textbook) I ran across a reference to an animated film, Everybody Rides the Carousel, made in 1976 by John Hubley and Faith Hubley. I then found a YouTube video snippet of Stage 6. The woman’s voice in the animation is Meryl Streep! You have got to watch this. It is a little less than eight minutes long and believe me, it will be eight minutes well spent. It presents a fascinating visual and textual metaphor for what happens to (some) (all?) people in relationships: the hiding, the game playing, the regressing, the pursuit, the surrender, and hopefully, eventually some truth. The warbly, wiggly music is absolutely to die for!
At this moment, I am sitting quite squarely in Stage 7, the middle adult stage, where generativity clashes with stagnation. (Actually, I am sitting at my dining room table, where I can no longer glimpse even slight slivers of Lake Michigan now that it is summer and all the trees have completely filled in with greenery.) But, anyway, back to my stage theory….
At age 50, I am on a quest to re-invent myself. This explains why I have recently enrolled in the Masters of Counseling program at Lakeland College, where I am currently the director of alumni relations. I have poetry to blame for this, but I’ll save that story for a later in the week if I can figure out what to say about how “poetry changed my life” in an enlightening and cogent manner.
I am also using this post to practice various kinds of media embedding: video, links, and photos. So, please excuse me if I went a little overboard on the linking. Tomorrow, we may explore the summer solstice. Or, something else, depending on my mood. Please come by and visit again.