Marian Seldes: The Discipline of Happiness

"I work at being happy. Anyone can train a mind to be happier."

Interview with Marian Seldes/Conducted by James Grissom/NYC/2005

“I used to be a dancer, when I was very young. I loved it. I didn’t have the strength or the talent to become a dancer, but I learned so much from it, and my study of dance informs everything I do.

“I like rituals. While I don’t think there is a God, or a heaven, or angels, I love the rituals of churches, which I find to be forms of meditation; study of examples we hope to follow. Tennessee [Williams] was clearly the same way, giving you that rosary and naming the beads for women he loved, and having you take a journey with him and them.

“I would go to my dance classes, and I would work hard, and I would disappear into the movements, the voice of the teacher, the sounds of feet sliding across the wooden floor, the feel of my hand on the barre. I would then go home and write down all of the steps I had learned, and all of the words of my teacher, and then I would wash out my dance things by hand. Ritual. When I was very young, I would go to the top of our house on Henderson Place and dance in my nightgown—a spectral sight. A tall, thin, dark-haired girl in a long, white nightgown, dancing on a roof in the night.

“We eat certain things to feel certain ways and to become certain sizes. I do exercises to remain limber—as limber as I can. My back was destroyed from misuse and time, and so every day I do these exercises to heal myself. And they work. I’m better.

“We read certain things to learn, to be entertained, to be enlightened. It’s all discipline, and we know that what we put into our bodies and our minds has an effect. I feel this way about happiness. People ask if I’m happy, and I truthfully say that I am, but sometimes I’m not fully happy until someone asks me the question, I answer it affirmatively, and then I’m even happier. I have flipped a switch to happiness.

“I think only babies and very young children are naturally happy—when they’re fed or held or entertained. As we grow older and begin to look around and think and wish to get from here to there, we get frustrated or ambitious or angry. I don’t know why, but I decided very early on to not let my mind jump around and be whatever the circumstances or the news or the gossip might want it to be. I trained myself to be sensitive to the world, to be empathetic, but to always be grateful, which led me right into happiness. I work at being happy. Anyone can train a mind to be happier. It’s a ritual, like the dance class, the notes, the cleaning of the leotard. It’s like prayer or a diet or the meditation and yoga that so many do. I think all of us have around and within us things for which she should be grateful. The present is full of riches and hope. I tried to impart to my students that there would be work, but there would also be love and friendship, and so much beauty in the world to study that you can be frustrated that there isn’t time to experience it all. Julie Harris and I were talking once, and we were catching each other up on things we had seen and loved, and she said that it frustrated her that even if she lived to be one hundred years old, healthy and clear of mind, she could never read all the books that needed to be read; see all the art that is out there waiting to inspire us; could never hear the new music that could elate her, much less listen again to music she already loved. There is just not enough time for all the friendships, so I don’t understand the time wasted on grudges or rivalries or negativity. I give to charities and I try to help every friend that I can, but the weight of the world for me is not the tragedies, but the huge weight of beautiful things that are waiting for our witness.

“Try to be happy. Allow into each day those things that remind you how grateful you can be for all that is in the world.”

©2022 James Grissom