Monday, February 25, 2008 at 2:02am
Having a famous 'twin'
Column: Interesting Times
It is not just on international flights that I am told I must be Vanessa Redgrave. "Of course," the air hostess whispered to me on a recent flight back from London to Phoenix, "we know you are traveling under another name, but we recognize you from the flight you took with us last month." Recently Jon, my friend and a movie critic, wrote me an email to say, "I just watched you die for two hours." That was the movie "Evening." And Catherine wrote from Sweden that she had just returned from "Atonement" and that Vanessa was my doppelganger. Even down to the same haircut I had just gotten in Stockholm.
I had to look up the word "doppelganger," and I could accept that there is not a person whom I know and hundreds whom I don't who stop me on the street who say Vanessa Redgrave and I are mirror images, carbon copies, dead ringers. But the first definition of the word, "a ghostly double of a living person, especially one that haunts its fleshly counterpart," does not apply to this situation. She certainly does not haunt me, and I can nearly swear she is not at all haunted by me.
What has "haunted" or followed me for over 40 years is "Has anyone ever told you that you look just like Vanessa Redgrave?" A mutual acquaintance of each of us Marie Cosindas, was photographing the stills for "The Bostonians" some 30 years ago and called me late one night to wonder how photographs of me found their way into her files for the movie. She finally decided that, in fact, the photos were of Ms. Redgrave and not of me — as she had thought. She did think that there was a ghostly apparition of some sort in the negatives — some sort of doppelganger, perhaps?
When my family lived in New York City, we would go to the Plaza each year on Christmas Eve afternoon for the elaborate high tea before going home to open gifts. One year, when Russ and Hannah were about 11 and 9 years old, they were away from the table exploring and finding the rest rooms. On their return to the Plaza courtyard restaurant, we noted that a table not far from ours stopped them. They came dashing to our table saying, "Lynne, those people said you were a famous actress, but we told them, no, you were a famous writer." Oh, how we love children. The people at that other table didn't stop staring at us, at me, until we left.
People may resemble other people. Identical twins may look alike and have similar tastes and aspirations. But each one of us has a unique identity, undisturbed by our physical appearance. Physical resemblance is a concomitant of the belief of life in matter, of genes, of heredity. But identity is not physical; it is spiritual. When we are lost emotionally, physically or even geographically, we are lost in our physical identity. Locating and signing on to our spiritual identity is a way out of chaos, out of ill health, family dramas, our of the forest of conflicting opinions into the light of the day without end where no night is.
It would do me no good to pretend to be Vanessa Redgrave. It would do me no good to have pretensions about my physical appearance, much as I would like to look like Ms. Redgrave (and apparently I did) in "Camelot." With maturity has brought the conviction that finding and living in and with my spiritual identity is the only answer to the eternal question "Who am I?"
— — —
Lynne Bundesen is the author of five books on religion and was adjunct professor at the Boston Theological Institute under a Templeton Science and Religion Grant. She is currently the spiritual expert for the physical and spiritual health website of Dr. Andrew Weil. Her book "The Feminine Spirit: Recapturing the Heart of Scripture" was just published. Her email address is {email lynnebundesen@hotmail.com}lynnebundesen@hotmail.com{/email}. © Copyright 2008 by Lynne Bundesen.
I had to look up the word "doppelganger," and I could accept that there is not a person whom I know and hundreds whom I don't who stop me on the street who say Vanessa Redgrave and I are mirror images, carbon copies, dead ringers. But the first definition of the word, "a ghostly double of a living person, especially one that haunts its fleshly counterpart," does not apply to this situation. She certainly does not haunt me, and I can nearly swear she is not at all haunted by me.
What has "haunted" or followed me for over 40 years is "Has anyone ever told you that you look just like Vanessa Redgrave?" A mutual acquaintance of each of us Marie Cosindas, was photographing the stills for "The Bostonians" some 30 years ago and called me late one night to wonder how photographs of me found their way into her files for the movie. She finally decided that, in fact, the photos were of Ms. Redgrave and not of me — as she had thought. She did think that there was a ghostly apparition of some sort in the negatives — some sort of doppelganger, perhaps?
When my family lived in New York City, we would go to the Plaza each year on Christmas Eve afternoon for the elaborate high tea before going home to open gifts. One year, when Russ and Hannah were about 11 and 9 years old, they were away from the table exploring and finding the rest rooms. On their return to the Plaza courtyard restaurant, we noted that a table not far from ours stopped them. They came dashing to our table saying, "Lynne, those people said you were a famous actress, but we told them, no, you were a famous writer." Oh, how we love children. The people at that other table didn't stop staring at us, at me, until we left.
People may resemble other people. Identical twins may look alike and have similar tastes and aspirations. But each one of us has a unique identity, undisturbed by our physical appearance. Physical resemblance is a concomitant of the belief of life in matter, of genes, of heredity. But identity is not physical; it is spiritual. When we are lost emotionally, physically or even geographically, we are lost in our physical identity. Locating and signing on to our spiritual identity is a way out of chaos, out of ill health, family dramas, our of the forest of conflicting opinions into the light of the day without end where no night is.
It would do me no good to pretend to be Vanessa Redgrave. It would do me no good to have pretensions about my physical appearance, much as I would like to look like Ms. Redgrave (and apparently I did) in "Camelot." With maturity has brought the conviction that finding and living in and with my spiritual identity is the only answer to the eternal question "Who am I?"
— — —
Lynne Bundesen is the author of five books on religion and was adjunct professor at the Boston Theological Institute under a Templeton Science and Religion Grant. She is currently the spiritual expert for the physical and spiritual health website of Dr. Andrew Weil. Her book "The Feminine Spirit: Recapturing the Heart of Scripture" was just published. Her email address is {email lynnebundesen@hotmail.com}lynnebundesen@hotmail.com{/email}. © Copyright 2008 by Lynne Bundesen.