recently, in the Ride with me thread
http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=71350 i posted a funny comment about horse back riding.. it was what i have learned to call a reframe.. i took the same set of fact that every else had access to, and came up with a different conclusion.
an example.. many years ago, an aunt of my husbands was cleaning out a closet.. and offering me and the others there some of the treasures.. out came a beautiful lace mantilla. she had gotten in spain. several of us tried it on, and being me, i turned it backwards (it was a large triangle,and every one else had put it on with the point to the back the straight edge near the face.
i put the point on the top of my head, and had the straight edge grace my shoulders, and come forward like a collar.. (not really a big leap, in style) everyone ooh'd and aah'd, the aunt said. "
Oh it looks lovely on you, you can wear it when you really get married, you know, in the church." (we were married in a church, just not the catholic church!) i took the mantilla off, and soon afterwards found a reason to leave the room. I was very hurt by what she said.
a few days later, when i was telling a friend about it, and how horrid the aunt was, the friend came back and said
"you know, helen, she is really cool about your life. to her, you and jimmy are not married, but living in sin. and she almost never mentions it. can't you try to be as cool about her comment as she is about your life?" and bingo a reframe!
we have had a number of occastions for "reframes" here..
Fanny packs!
keep your pecker up!
more recently pumps (and
thongs/flip flop/zori's..
and a gazzilion others i can't think of, but some of you will remember..
Mondogreens, too, that once we realized what the real words actually were, the song really
changed for us.
word (like nice) have changed meaning.. and sometimes, things have changed meaning because of our perceptions..
(War of the Worlds was taken serious on radio, some took Swift's essay "a modest proposal" seriously.. and look what happened..)
i don't care if they are called re-frames or something else.. but i think our experiences and thoughts about them are.. (early early on, a thread on peas porridge,
are these eaten still? (peas porrige) Ans.
yes, they generally lie in the bowl quiet still or something to that effect! how droll, how literal, how funny!)
OP
