The movie: Mona Lisa Smile (2003)Crafted by Hillary Augustine Vandenbos
1953 Commencement Ceremony – Wellesley College
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President (Question): Who knocks at the door of learning?
Student (Answer): I am every women.
President (Question): What do you seek?
Student (Answer): To awaken my spirit through hard work and to dedicate my life to knowledge.
Declaration: Then you are welcome. All women who seek to follow you can enter here. I now declare the academic year begun!
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When I re-read and transcribed the dialogue above, pulled from the beginning of the movie Mona Lisa Smile, I thought of two influential women in my life.
One woman is young in years, wise beyond her age, and ever growing in her knowledge and curiosity. Her name is Kimberly George and she just recently packed up her life in Seattle to venture toward the east coast to be a merit scholar at Yale Divinity School. Her research focuses on integrating Christian theology and women’s gender, and sexuality studies. Check out her blog! You will find many profound wonderings and thought-provoking reading for days to come!
The other woman has years of life experience, lived through the sixties, tells great stories, is a mom of grown children, and a scientist. Dr. J continually welcomes a full life. She has kept history alive by giving me books – like A Century of Women which sits on my coffee table, serving as a daily reminder of the memoirs and accounts of women across time. I am drawn to Dr. J’s honesty. Her retellings of life circumstances are filled with intrigue and passion as she talks about what it has been like for women – especially women in science – to be seen, heard, and respected in their field of study. Dr. J has shown me that whatever stage of life women find themselves in, a common ground exists, which is: the acts of learning, growing, and choosing do not cease until breath stops flowing. Dr. J. is a fighter, an advocate, and a teacher to many. She, like Kimberly, just recently moved to another area of the country. I will miss her, immensely!
Both women “knock at the door of learning.” Both women intrigue me with their guts, their desire to learn, and their passion. They challenge woman like me to continue to learn, to choose, to “awaken [my] spirit through hard work and dedication.”
Do you have women who help you see around the corner, over the horizon, and into different spheres of life?
Kathryn Watson (played by Julia Roberts) in the movie Mona Lisa Smile is an art professor who wants to make a difference. She realizes, early on in the movie, that her students, Wellesley College women, have text-book smarts mixed with an inability to learn outside of a syllabus. Hence, these college women have no inner strength to think beyond roles, societal upper-class standards, and principles set by a governing body. To catalyze thought and to break apart the stringent social norms, Kathryn Watson introduces her students to modern art. One of the off-campus field trips takes place at a Boston warehouse. Kathryn invites the college women to gaze at a new Jackson Pollock canvas. She tells them, “You don’t have to like it, but you must consider it.” Did you hear that echo somewhere in your body…consider it...consider the art before you…it may break open the status quo in your life.
Who draws you to consider life? To consider art?
Kathryn Watson challenges her students to think beyond the cultural norm. Kimberly George’s writings help me think beyond social norms into possibilities and “re-remembered” stories that shift my thinking enough to change an axis somewhere in my body. Dr. J helps me recognize the vibrancy of life in multiple situations. There are “no boxes” with Dr. J, so I feel free to re-imagine and dream about opportunities I might not consider if left to my own devices.
As September rolls on in, consider watching Mona Lisa Smile, a movie superbly crafted for an autumn movie night. Autumn – a season of life when school sessions commence across America. In some subtle way, the seasonal shift, with new school clothes and shoes, untarnished crayons, and the reappearance of many yellow buses causes me to pause and wonder. I breath deeper (when stuck behind a yellow bus in traffic!) and reconsider those who have shifted my thinking along the way, whether friend, teacher, mentor, or parent.
So, when you feel the first chill in the air and notice a big leaf pasted to the wet ground, think about the women who helped you consider art, life outside of boxes, and catalyzed you toward "axis shifting" moments. Gather with some women and watch Mona Lisa Smile!
