Mary Pickford played Pollyanna in the 1920 film

 

THE OPEN ROAD

peace, love, happiness & understanding

 

October 15, 2020

 

I WANT TO BE MORE LIKE POLLYANNA

 

Pollyanna: noun an excessively cheerful or optimistic person.

 

In conversations with people, I often find myself trying to put a positive spin on things. Is there something wrong with me? Could I somehow be (shudder)…unrealistic?! Afraid to face facts?! A Pollyanna?!!!

 

I always got the impression that there was something horribly wrong with being “a Pollyanna.” But I was beginning to suspect that maybe I am one. I decided to investigate. Just who or what is a Pollyanna? I got the book—Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter, first published in 1913. I read it. I realize that I am no Pollyanna. But now I aspire to be more like her every day.

 

As the story opens, Pollyanna is eleven years old. She has lived in poverty with her loving father, a minister. He has just died, and now the orphaned Pollyanna has become the ward of her unhappy Aunt Polly. She is a cheerful little girl. Maybe even excessively cheerful. And for this sin she has become an object of scorn for hipsters, cynics, intellectuals, and people who suffer from depression and self-pity—(who probably have not deigned to actually read the book).

 

Pollyanna likes to play the “glad game,” which her father taught her. Here’s the story of the glad game as she tells it to her aunt’s maid, Nancy:

 

     “But, say, we better hurry. I’ve got ter get them dishes done, ye know.”

     “I’ll help,” promised Pollyanna, promptly.

     “Oh, Miss Pollyanna!” demurred Nancy.

     For a moment there was silence. The sky was darkening fast. Pollyanna took a firmer hold of her friend’s arm.

     “I reckon I’m glad, after all, that you DID get scared—a little, ’cause then you came after me,” she shivered.

     “Poor little lamb! And you must be hungry, too. I—I’m afraid you’ll have ter have bread and milk in the kitchen with me. Yer aunt didn’t like it—because you didn’t come down ter supper, ye know.”

     “But I couldn’t. I was up here.”

     “Yes; but—she didn’t know that, you see!” observed Nancy, dryly, stifling a chuckle. “I’m sorry about the bread and milk; I am, I am.”

     “Oh, I’m not. I’m glad.”

     “Glad! Why?”

     “Why, I like bread and milk, and I’d like to eat with you. I don’t see any trouble about being glad about that.”

     “You don’t seem ter see any trouble bein’ glad about everythin’,” retorted Nancy, choking a little over her remembrance of Pollyanna’s brave attempts to like the bare little attic room.

     Pollyanna laughed softly.

     “Well, that’s the game, you know, anyway.”

     “The—GAME?”

     “Yes; the ‘just being glad’ game.”

     “Whatever in the world are you talkin’ about?”

     “Why, it’s a game. Father told it to me, and it’s lovely,” rejoined Pollyanna. “We’ve played it always, ever since I was a little, little girl. I told the Ladies’ Aid, and they played it—some of them.”

     “What is it? I ain’t much on games, though.”

     Pollyanna laughed again, but she sighed, too; and in the gathering twilight her face looked thin and wistful.

     “Why, we began it on some crutches that came in a missionary barrel.”

     “CRUTCHES!”

     “Yes. You see I’d wanted a doll, and father had written them so; but when the barrel came the lady wrote that there hadn’t any dolls come in, but the little crutches had. So she sent ’em along as they might come in handy for some child, sometime. And that’s when we began it.”

     “Well, I must say I can’t see any game about that,” declared Nancy, almost irritably.

     “Oh, yes; the game was to just find something about everything to be glad about—no matter what ’twas,” rejoined Pollyanna, earnestly. “And we began right then—on the crutches.”

     “Well, goodness me! I can’t see anythin’ ter be glad about—gettin’ a pair of crutches when you wanted a doll!”

     Pollyanna clapped her hands.

     “There is—there is,” she crowed. “But I couldn’t see it, either, Nancy, at first,” she added, with quick honesty. “Father had to tell it to me.”

     “Well, then, suppose YOU tell ME,” almost snapped Nancy.

     “Goosey! Why, just be glad because you don’t—NEED—’EM!” exulted Pollyanna, triumphantly. “You see it’s just as easy—when you know how!”

     “Well, of all the queer doin’s!” breathed Nancy, regarding Pollyanna with almost fearful eyes.

     “Oh, but it isn’t queer—it’s lovely,” maintained Pollyanna enthusiastically. “And we’ve played it ever since. And the harder ’tis, the more fun ’tis to get ’em out; only—only sometimes it’s almost too hard—like when your father goes to Heaven, and there isn’t anybody but a Ladies’ Aid left.”

     “Yes, or when you’re put in a snippy little room ‘way at the top of the house with nothin’ in it,” growled Nancy.

     Pollyanna sighed.

     “That was a hard one, at first,” she admitted, “specially when I was so kind of lonesome. I just didn’t feel like playing the game, anyway, and I HAD been wanting pretty things, so! Then I happened to think how I hated to see my freckles in the looking-glass, and I saw that lovely picture out the window, too; so then I knew I’d found the things to be glad about. You see, when you’re hunting for the glad things, you sort of forget the other kind—like the doll you wanted, you know.”

     “Humph!” choked Nancy, trying to swallow the lump in her throat.

     “Most generally it doesn’t take so long,” sighed Pollyanna; “and lots of times now I just think of them WITHOUT thinking, you know. I’ve got so used to playing it. It’s a lovely game. F-father and I used to like it so much,” she faltered. “I suppose, though, it—it’ll be a little harder now, as long as I haven’t anybody to play it with. Maybe Aunt Polly will play it, though,” she added, as an after-thought.

     “My stars and stockings!—HER!” breathed Nancy, behind her teeth. Then, aloud, she said doggedly: “See here, Miss Pollyanna, I ain’t sayin’ that I’ll play it very well, and I ain’t sayin’ that I know how, anyway; but I’ll play it with ye, after a fashion—I just will, I will!”

     “Oh, Nancy!” exulted Pollyanna, giving her a rapturous hug. “That’ll be splendid! Won’t we have fun?”

     “Er—maybe,” conceded Nancy, in open doubt. “But you mustn’t count too much on me, ye know. I never was no case fur games, but I’m a-goin’ ter make a most awful old try on this one. You’re goin’ ter have some one ter play it with, anyhow,” she finished, as they entered the kitchen together.

     Pollyanna ate her bread and milk with good appetite; then, at Nancy’s suggestion, she went into the sitting room, where her aunt sat reading. Miss Polly looked up coldly.

     “Have you had your supper, Pollyanna?”

     “Yes, Aunt Polly.”

     “I’m very sorry, Pollyanna, to have been obliged so soon to send you into the kitchen to eat bread and milk.”

     “But I was real glad you did it, Aunt Polly. I like bread and milk, and Nancy, too. You mustn’t feel bad about that one bit.”

     Aunt Polly sat suddenly a little more erect in her chair.

     “Pollyanna, it’s quite time you were in bed. You have had a hard day, and to-morrow we must plan your hours and go over your clothing to see what it is necessary to get for you. Nancy will give you a candle. Be careful how you handle it. Breakfast will be at half-past seven. See that you are down to that. Good-night.”

     Quite as a matter of course, Pollyanna came straight to her aunt’s side and gave her an affectionate hug.

     “I’ve had such a beautiful time, so far,” she sighed happily. “I know I’m going to just love living with you but then, I knew I should before I came. Good-night,” she called cheerfully, as she ran from the room.

     “Well, upon my soul!” ejaculated Miss Polly, half aloud. “What a most extraordinary child!” Then she frowned. “She’s ‘glad’ I punished her, and I ‘mustn’t feel bad one bit,’ and she’s going to ‘love to live’ with me! Well, upon my soul!” ejaculated Miss Polly again, as she took up her book.

     Fifteen minutes later, in the attic room, a lonely little girl sobbed into the tightly-clutched sheet:

     “I know, father-among-the-angels, I’m not playing the game one bit now—not one bit; but I don’t believe even you could find anything to be glad about sleeping all alone ‘way off up here in the dark—like this. If only I was near Nancy or Aunt Polly, or even a Ladies’ Aider, it would be easier!”

     Down-stairs in the kitchen, Nancy, hurrying with her belated work, jabbed her dish-mop into the milk pitcher, and muttered jerkily:

     “If playin’ a silly-fool game—about bein’ glad you’ve got crutches when you want dolls—is got ter be—my way—o’ bein’ that rock o’ refuge—why, I’m a-goin’ ter play it—I am, I am!”

 

Mrs. Snow is an “invalid,” confined to her bed. Twice a week, as an act of charity, Aunt Polly has her maid Nancy bring hot food to her. Pollyanna volunteers to do it. She tries to cheer Mrs. Snow up:

 

     “They didn’t tell me you were so pretty!”

     “Me!—pretty!” scoffed the woman, bitterly.

     “Why, yes. Didn’t you know it?” cried Pollyanna.

     “Well, no, I didn’t,” retorted Mrs. Snow, dryly. Mrs. Snow had lived forty years, and for fifteen of those years she had been too busy wishing things were different to find much time to enjoy things as they were….

     “Oh, I love black hair! I should be so glad if I only had it,” sighed Pollyanna.

     Mrs. Snow dropped the mirror and turned irritably.

     “Well, you wouldn’t!—not if you were me. You wouldn’t be glad for black hair nor anything else—if you had to lie here all day as I do!”

     Pollyanna bent her brows in a thoughtful frown.

     “Why, ‘twould be kind of hard—to do it then, wouldn’t it?” she mused aloud.

     “Do what?”

     “Be glad about things.”

     “Be glad about things—when you’re sick in bed all your days? Well, I should say it would,” retorted Mrs. Snow. “If you don’t think so, just tell me something to be glad about; that’s all!”

     To Mrs. Snow’s unbounded amazement, Pollyanna sprang to her feet and clapped her hands.

     “Oh, goody! That’ll be a hard one—won’t it? I’ve got to go, now, but I’ll think and think all the way home; and maybe the next time I come I can tell it to you. Good-by. I’ve had a lovely time! Good-by,” she called again, as she tripped through the doorway.

 

Pollyanna returns a couple days later.

 

     “I’ve thought it up, Mrs. Snow—what you can be glad about.”

     “GLAD about! What do you mean?”

     “Why, I told you I would. Don’t you remember? You asked me to tell you something to be glad about—glad, you know, even though you did have to lie here abed all day.”

     “Oh!” scoffed the woman. “THAT? Yes, I remember that; but I didn’t suppose you were in earnest any more than I was.”

     “Oh, yes, I was,” nodded Pollyanna, triumphantly; “and I found it, too. But ‘TWAS hard. It’s all the more fun, though, always, when ’tis hard. And I will own up, honest to true, that I couldn’t think of anything for a while. Then I got it.”

     “Did you, really? Well, what is it?” Mrs. Snow’s voice was sarcastically polite.  

     Pollyanna drew a long breath.

     “I thought—how glad you could be—that other folks weren’t like you—all sick in bed like this, you know,” she announced impressively.

*

 

Cheerful and optimistic people are often considered to be not very bright. For many years now, depressed chain-smoking intellectuals have been assuring us that existence is absurd, that life is meaningless and we’re all doomed. As Bertolt Brecht said: “He who laughs has not yet heard the bad news.” But if happiness is just for half-wits, why is the Dalai Lama always chuckling?

 

The novel Pollyanna brings me back to a favorite them of mine: Culture That Nurtures. That’s what culture is supposed to do: make us feel good, kind, happy, safe. Our popular entertainment—movies, TV, video games—is a barrage of violence. It marinates us in fear, anger, hatred and gloom. Like Charles Dickens, Eleanor H. Porter wanted to make us kinder. People watch “A Christmas Carol” and “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” every year to be reminded of our essential goodness.

 

Surely there has always been, is now, and will always be terrible violence, tragedy and injustice in our world. It is just for that reason that we need healing stories—stories that remind of our essential goodness, stories that nurture peace, love, happiness and understanding in our hearts and minds.

 

Last Sunday, at our Bibliophiles Unanimous Zoom gathering, we were talking about Positive Futures and Utopian Visions. Ken Margolis was inspired by reading the book The Corner That Held Them by Sylvia Townsend Warner to announce excitedly that This is Utopia! Jeffrey Sher told us that when Stephen J. Gould was asked how he could be optimistic, he replied: “What’s the alternative?” Dave Duncan told us that David Byrne, formerly of Talking Heads, has started a website called Reasons To Be Cheerful. Here’s the link:

 

https://reasonstobecheerful.world

 

I recommended books by David Korten and Charles Eisenstein. There are a lot of their talks on YouTube. Here are a couple links:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRYEHOStmss&t=3211s

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKYqbNzAav4

 

Someone who helps me to be more Pollyanna-like is Thich Nhat Hanh. A lot of his talks are on YouTube. Here’s a link to an interview Oprah Winfrey did with him:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ9UtuWfs3U

 

I was just heading out to print up this newsletter, but I happened to check my Inbox and found this poem from Kim. It’s perfect for our theme. Here it is:

 

Our Next Big Thing 

 

The deal-maker is in denial, Mr. Kentucky

on a tear, the zigzag death toll seeks the sky,

someone gets shot asking for a mask, a naming

party sparks another outbreak, the news is

mega fires and hurricanes, and our fears

come true like wishes turned to curses

that prey upon our foolishness. 

 

So why does the wren still sing? Why

did I see a child skip, a mail clerk grin

in that moment she adjusted her mask?

Why the uptick in random kindnesses?

Dogs don’t stop wagging, or flowers

opening their secrets. We must be

getting ready for the next big thing.

 

—Kim Stafford

*

 

When I told Kim that this week’s issue features Pollyanna, he said: “Oh, the Glad Game!” (I’m afraid Kim might have some Pollyanna-ish tendencies himself.) He recommended the cartoon by Gary Larson where two devils in Hell are watching a guy whistle while he hauls brimstone in a wheelbarrow. One says to the other: “You know, we’re just not getting to that guy.”

 

May all people be happy.

May we live in love.

 

—Johnny