Acclaimed author Joan Anderson at Partners!
By
Jon Alden
EverythingWestport.com
Sunday,
May 4, 2008
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Partners Village Store was pleased to welcome renowned author, Joan
Anderson, for a book signing and talk at 3:00 p.m. She signed her just
published book, A
Second Journey: The Road Back to Yourself, the fifth in her series of self discovery. The
best selling author of A Year by the Sea,
An Unfinished Marriage, A Walk on the Beach, and A Weekend to Change Your Life, Ms.
Anderson has written an ongoing story that has given thousands of women the
opportunity to see who they are beyond the roles that they play within their
families, at work and with their friends.
A guest on
Oprah twice, as well as the Today Show & Good Morning America, with
countless book tours, invitations as a motivational speaker, and a facilitator
of weekend retreats, Joan says of herself, “I am truly as unfinished as the
shoreline along the beach, meant to transcend myself again and again."
Meeting
Joan Anderson was a trip! As unfinished as she says she may be, she is
confident, well directed, and moves through her busy life with poise and
dignity, yet has enough compassion to share with all the women she meets. Sometimes raucous, sometimes comforting, but always understanding
and constantly focused. Look at her pictures in the photo album;
outstretched hands and arms, reaching out, dispensing advice based on her journeys
of self-discovery. Unfinished Woman – so says her bumper stickers. But you
realize you have an issue, you’re already more than halfway there to solving
it. Joan Anderson has taken that journey back home.
“Let go of
what is outlived in life to have room for what is unlived,” said Ms. Anderson.
“I came to realize my turn was coming up. An unexamined life is a wasted life.”
The women
in the audience were hanging on her every word, nodding their heads in the
self-realization that Joan Anderson could be talking about them; no, talking to
them. Ms. Anderson really connected with these women.
Second photo from right: Cathy Durand (right) of Tiverton
having her book autographed by Joan Anderson. Rightmost photo: Joan’s roadie, mom Joyce Anderson.
Joan
Anderson spent a little over an hour illuminating on events that took her a
year to understand and even longer on how to write them down in a manuscript. “Retreat,
repair, regroup, regenerate, and return,” she said. Sounds like the five “R’s”
of self-discovery to me. Apparently, meeting Joan Erikson
on a stormy Cape Code beach was most fortuitous, if not down right providential
for Ms. Anderson.
“I’ve been headlined
as the ‘woman who got away,’ ‘the runaway wife,’ or ‘the woman who took a
sabbatical,’” said Ms. Anderson.” Actually, I’m not any one of these
descriptions. I am simply a person who wanted to become a scholar of self and
soul.”
Joan
Anderson’s hour-long presentation was not a self-help session, but an
examination process. “We (women) are invisible sustainers, like the dune grass
that holds the beach together,” Joan said. “Nobody sees it. Compassion is a
curse,” she added. “It is often better to be selfish than to be selfless.”
“A Walk on the Beach is the story of my
chance encounter with a wise, playful and astonishing woman who helped usher me
toward change and self discovery,” said Ms. Anderson. “First glimpsed as a
slender figure on a foggy jetty, Joan Erikson was no
ordinary woman. The wife and collaborative of Erik Erikson
who designed the Eight Stages of Life, Joan Erikson
was always eager to pass on her zest for living,” Joan Anderson said. “For me,
the eight stages of life are lived every day.”
“My
second journey revolves around letting go of entanglements,” Ms. Anderson said
(you have to read the book!).
Joan’s
maxims were profound: “Love yourself on Mother’s Day; let go of what is
outlived in your life; and the habit of deference can grow like a cancer on the
soul of a woman until it is out of her hands.”
Joan was
kept busy for one half hour signing copies of her five books! The line was
endless. At each signing, small talk was foreplay to shared feelings and
dispensed wisdom. It reminded me of indubitable Lucy in the Charlie Brown comic
strip - the doctor is in.
“We are all
born alone,” Ms. Anderson said, “and we all die alone. Somewhere in between
each decade represents a new life. So, stay in the ‘I am” and avoid the ‘I
want.’”
Joan has
made several appearances here on the South Coast; The Marion Institute,
University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, as well as two previous book signings
at Partners Village Store. Visit Joan’s web site at: www.joanandersononline.com. Joan welcomes emails at: capewoman@msn.com
Want more
information about this event or others at Partners? Call them at: (508)
636-2572, or visit their web site at: www.partnersvillagestore.com.
Want to
know more about Joan Anderson’s self-discovery? Buy her books at Partner,s but be sure to read them
in the proper order if you wish to recreate her journeys.
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