By Mary MacVean
Mariel Hemingway, makeup-free and in sweats, is gorgeous. That bone structure, her cheetah-like build and flowing hair have been familiar for decades. What’s disarming is her forthright approach to a rough family history and her determination to live the happy and healthy life that eluded so many of her relatives.
She knows a lot, she says, about what it takes to live a happy life — no matter your cheekbones or pedigree. Perhaps it’s because she’s seen enough unhappiness to last many lifetimes: for starters, the suicides of her supermodel sister and her legendary grandfather, as well as five other relatives. And there’s the depression she endured for many years.
With a new documentary film, Running From Crazy, and a book, The WillingWay, written with her business and romantic partner, Bobby Williams, she hopes to inspire other people to find their best lives. “We invite you to look at how you are living your life,” she says, and from there, make changes — be it a different breakfast or a different spouse.
Williams and Hemingway, perhaps best known for her Oscar-nominated performance in Manhattan, try to practice what they preach at WillingWay Ranch, not far from Pepperdine University in Malibu. It’s their home and their laboratory.
There are animals: 11 Rhode Island red chickens (the couple trades the eggs at the farmers market); two dogs, the obvious masters of their universe; and several dozen hummingbirds that flit among three porch feeders and a chubby bush below.
The stone-fronted house is modest, just 1,100 sq ft, and full of books, Buddha statues, iron teapots and a big white L-shaped couch. Outside, a luxuriously big wraparound porch has two sitting areas, a barbecue and a fireplace.
There are rock-climbing holds on the ceiling, so Williams can Spider-Man his way around. Those are just the tip of the athletic iceberg at the WillingWay Ranch, a veritable playground of pingpong, footballs, bikes, kettle bells, a rope ladder, climbing wall, weights, a basketball hoop, two slack lines, swimming pool, trampoline and a Wiffle ball diamond where former owners kept horses.
Then there’s the two-storey red-and-white tepee that was Hemingway’s 51st birthday gift last autumn. Inside, rugs and pillows ring a rock fire pit — one of life’s simple but powerful pleasures, Hemingway says.
When the fire is strong, “guys get their egos on, one-upping each other in their stories,” Williams says. “As the fire dies down, everyone gets quiet. Heads are going on laps. No one is making fun of each other.”
On a walk around the yard, the partners are chatty and warm. Williams starts climbing the rope ladder, his strength from years as a stuntman obvious. Hemingway follows, her big, strong hands and muscled arms enabling a nimble climb.
Everything at the ranch supports their view that simple things make them healthier and happier, that happiness is basic, even though “everything in our world says it has to be complicated,” Hemingway says.
Anyone might conclude, “Of course they’re happy. They’re beautiful, affluent, smart.” They readily acknowledge their blessings, especially the chance to turn what they love into their work promoting physical and mental health.
That wasn’t always the case.
Hemingway, the youngest of three girls born to Jack Hemingway, the son of writer Ernest Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley Richardson, turned to nature to escape a family where alcohol, fights and mental illness all played outsized roles, she says.
“Nature was the only solace I had,” says Hemingway, who has become an advocate of suicide prevention and an honest appraiser of the turbulence around her.
Running From Crazy, made by Oscar winner Barbara Kopple, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Using more archival family footage, it’s a haunting look at suicide and mental illness and the power of bringing them into the open.
Hemingway spent a lifetime looking “shiny and happy for everyone,” she says. And that wasn’t easy: Her parents’ nightly “wine time” often devolved into fights and left her cleaning up broken glass, she says. One older sister lives with schizophrenia, and sister Margaux died of an overdose.
Hemingway also stayed for 24 years in a marriage that she now says should have dissolved sooner: “It was so much better than the marriage I grew up with. I thought, ‘How can I leave? No one was beating me up. There was no blood on the wall.’”
She looked everywhere for a solution to her depression — gurus in India, therapy, diets, “until the ripe old age of 47, when I realised the answer is in me.”
Her evolution has been a gift to her 20-something daughters, one a model, one an artist. “It gives them permission to share what they’re going through,” she says.
Williams, on the other hand, says he always questioned everything, living a life his father calls “alternative.”
But to Williams, it’s everyone else who’s alternative, eating “synthetic, processed and irradiated food” and scrimping through decades of 80-hour workweeks in order to fund medical interventions in later years. At 50, Williams says, he can run a mile in under five minutes and loves risky adventures, such as rock climbing sans ropes.
Together, they are grounded seekers, interested in athletic exploits, herbal tinctures and other healthcare ideas outside the mainstream. If other people see their choices as a little odd, that’s OK, Hemingway says. “We want to inspire people to find the adventure that works for them.” — Los Angeles Times/MCT
The range of ‘Willingway’ advice
Why, you might ask, take advice from Mariel Hemingway and her partner Bobby Williams about how to live?
It’s true that they’ve lived a lot — singly or as a couple facing mental health problems and suicides of loved ones, exploring all sorts of physical adventures, marriage and divorce, parenthood, Hollywood celebrity, the run of diet and wellness pursuits. And now they have The WillingWay, a book out with a title that plays on their names and their philosophy: Where there’s a will, there’s a way. (www.thewillingway.com)
It’s also true that half a century into their lives, they look great, feel strong and laugh often.
The book is organised with a system of points users can amass for behaviours based on a good deal of common sense: Eat well, sleep enough, exercise. Have fun. Be mindful of the time you have.
“How are you starting your day? What thoughts are you having? Are you watching a sunrise or a sunset? What can you do to slow down and connect yourself? The more you connect, the more joy you find,” Hemingway said in an interview.
The book ranges from the standard advice of mainstream medicine to more unusual ideas. Here are a few of the authors’ ideas:
“Walking barefoot is natural. It is something that has been done for thousands of years. We believe it’s become a lost art and is something we should all do more of.”
“Tend your yard or garden. Deadheading roses (removing their spent blossoms), raising vegetables, and planting or tending to anything in the Earth brings us directly into contact with nature’s transformative power.”
“Before we go to sleep, we like to think about how we intend to wake up and what thoughts will be guiding our new day. This interlude is a powerful time for us to express our gratitude.”
“Consider planting your own herb garden or raising a few of your favourite herbs in pots on the patio or windowsill.”
“Take a look through your fridge and cabinets, and toss at least two non-nutritious items.”
Dealing with hair-loss
By Dr Charuhas V Mujumdar
Hair-loss is a very common problem that haunts almost all of us. When one sees few hair coming out on the comb or brush every time it goes through the hair, a knot of apprehension forms in the tummy, “Am I losing too many hair? Am I going bald?” At this point some of the apprehension can be relieved by knowing that losing about 50 to 100 hair per day is a normal phenomenon. But then, one cannot really count the hair that are lost every day, can one?
What are the types of hair-loss?
The commonly seen types of hair-loss are:
Male-pattern baldness (Androgenic Alopecia), where the receding of the frontal hairline along with the loss of hair from the top of the head is seen.
Diffuse baldness (Diffuse Alopecia), where the hair is lost uniformly all over the head thus producing sparseness of hair.
Patchy baldness (Alopecia Areata), where the hair is lost in patches on the head and/or on the face (beard). Rarely this progresses to the total hair-loss from the whole body (Alopecia Totalis).
What are the causes of hair-loss?
Few common causes of hair-loss are: Hormonal imbalance like excessive secretion of male hormones can cause male-pattern baldness. Unhealthy infected scalp can cause patchy hair-loss. Some of the skin diseases like scleroderma can cause patchy hair-loss.
Tight braiding (traction) can cause hair-loss. Physical stress like a bout of high fever can cause hair-loss. Pregnancy and child birth are known to cause hair-loss.
Mental conditions like Trichotillomania (compulsive plucking of scalp hair) can cause patchy loss of hair. Mental stress can cause diffuse hair-loss. Vigorous combing with brush or fine comb can also cause hair-loss. Thousands of hair coming to the end phase and falling at the same time can cause periodic hair-loss (This is normal and is known as Telogen Effluvium).
What is the treatment of hair-loss?
Male pattern baldness can be corrected by using medicines under expert care. Use of wide toothed comb with gentle combing prevents unnecessary hair-loss. Treating the infections with proper use of antibiotics will restore the healthy scalp and bring the hair back.
Mental stress and illnesses can be corrected by proper counseling and treatments. Fever induced and pregnancy induced hair-loss will correct with time and a little care. Alopecia Areata should be treated by expert doctors.
The baldness which does not respond to any medicines can be corrected by hair transplants. A word of caution: Get it done by a proven expert.
Is the use of hair oil of any help?
The oil is not the food for the hair as water is for the plants. The nourishment to the hair reaches through the blood supply to the hair root. The use of oil facilitates the massage of the scalp which increases the blood supply to the hair roots thus nourishing the hair. Thus daily intake of a multivitamin tablet with light oil massage of the scalp before the bath helps hair growth.
** Dr Charuhas V Mujumdar is a
dermatologist at Apollo Clinic, Qatar.
