Queen of Dreams Radio
When I was little, my mom would pack my brother and me up and head to the movies. It wasn’t every week for this single mom, but it was at least a couple of times per month.
My mom says raising me was like trying to parent a little old lady. I totally can relate as parenting Chance – even from the time he was so little – was like being in the room with a little old man. That said, one day my mom took us to see A Star is Born, and right in the middle of some love scene, I leaned over and said, “Mom, this isn’t an appropriate movie for kids to see.” I was just eight at the time.
Now, looking back, I can see how she could be torn between reaching out for a taste of magic and being hit right in the face of being the 28-year old single mother of two children. I could sense the difference in my mother after the movie, though. She seemed lighter, happier, reset in some sort of very good way.
It would be many years later that I would begin to know what my mother found in the movies. I can remember vividly going to the movies to find that ‘feeling’ of ‘total possibility.’ I would pay my $3.25 and practically run into the movie to drink in all the feelings of ‘yes, this too is possible for you.’ I even wrote reviews for my school newspaper in 8th grade. Describing the fine points of each movie in almost excruciating detail, loving the movies so very much.
In my mid 20s, I went to see a movie…some chick flick I can’t even recall. I remember feeling so depressed. Where was my magical feeling of ‘anything is possible?’ Where did it go? At the time, I was married to my first husband and we would pick apart the story lines. This didn’t make sense, and who could even BELIEVE that plot? I would talk to my mother about movies and she would say, “Geez, Tina, can’t you just go to a movie and WATCH it? Does a movie have to be so complicated?” I didn’t tie two and two together (my feeling of depression to being overly analytical) until many, many years later.
Her simple nature was bumping up against my big brain – the intellectual side of me that is quick, keen on seeing patterns, strategic for sure, and hungry for a challenge. The truth was, my life had lost its magic and its challenge. I was bored on many levels, and everything reflected it – including the movies.
Jet forward nearly 15 years (don’t you love hindsight?) and about eight months ago, as I laid in bed half meditating and half wondering about things. I wondered…where is the magic of the movies I had when I was a kid? I so want to feel that feeling again. I began to notice how I felt when I would watch a movie. The anticipation of the delicious nature of it, the enthusiasm for the feelings I would get from it, and ultimately whether or not these matched up with what actually happened. Little by little, I could feel the magic coming back. For one, I reached more and more for movies that make me laugh. For silly, ‘not thinking’ kind of movies, and those about romance. I’ll share more about what guidance I also received about capturing the magic in another post.
The result is that I’ve been in my spirit a majority of the time, and I am happy to say that I just got back from seeing Monsters VS. Aliens and that feeling is BACK! I laughed so easily at the jokes – even the jokes in the previews for upcoming movies – and that delicious feeling of magic enveloped me. At various moments I had thoughts of the people who created this movies and how much work they must have done, but how proud they must be. And another of how grateful I am for this amazing feeling of being uplifted!
As we got up to leave, I realized that it is like the book Polar Express … the magic doesn’t leave us, we leave the magic. The magic is always there – the connection to that feeling is always calling to us, always asking us to come home – because that magic is who we really are. When we are apart from that magic, we are disconnected from that love, that magical sense of possibility. And, that is why movies are a great reminder of what is possible…even outside the movies.
Oh, and mom…I’m not over-thinking the simplistic plot, the formulaic monsters (taken from old favorites from the fifties), the reference points to other alien-type movies put out by Spielberg (Close Encounters of the Third Kind), and the improbability of monsters captured by the U.S. Government being set free. Nope…I’m just staying with the magic. And it feels GREAT!
Monsters VS. Aliens, DreamWorks Pictures