“Grandmother Rapunzel Knows What to Do With A Tower,” by Jerome Stueart (11 x 15) watercolor, mixed media on paper.
I wondered what an older Rapunzel might teach us about how we live with the past, how we get over our towers, and how we might transform them.
Rapunzel had a lot of “Tower” moments.” She lived inside a tower moment created by great upheaval and change when she was traded to a witch as a baby and raised in the tower, isolated, trapped. The Witch, as mother figure, wanted to control what she saw, what she did, who she knew, what she thought. In Sondheim’s “Into the Woods,” the witch is just an over-protective mother; in Disney’s version, she is Dame Gothel and uses the girl’s hair for immortality. In the Disney version (Tangled, 2010) Rapunzel transforms her tower inside to something beautiful–always “repainting” her childhood, the isolation, as a place of joy. I liked that — but I also thought an older Rapunzel, someone we never ever see, might be able to give us some pointers.
Fairy tales could have lessons for Elders too if we heard how the story continued.
In my reimagined Rapunzel here, she tries to thrive inside the tower, even making a swing out of her hair. If there are suitors, they are scared off by the witch. Rapunzel eventually outlives the witch, but she is left with the tower.
What do you do with the Tower you are left with?
- Examine the Tower from the Inside
As a writer, I have been circling around tower moments in my own life, trying to see them honestly, not relive them, and write about them, so that maybe I can put the tower behind me. But it is hard to look closely at your tower without feeling trapped, or feeling the pain of what it was like inside that tower. People who hurt me are long gone; circumstances have changed. But I am still in the tower because I don’t know how to climb down.
Rapunzel had her hair, but she’d have to remove it to leave. There’s no door at the bottom. In some versions of the fairy tale, she makes a ladder of straw and climbs down — so maybe there doesn’t have to be a sacrifice, but getting out of your tower is not always easy. They tend to travel with you.
Before I can leave though, I need to understand what my tower is, and how it shaped me going forward. It’s hard to look closely at your tower but I don’t think we can escape them without understanding them first — and understanding how we ourselves are NOT our towers.
Continue reading
Bear Witness 