I love movies.
Excited, I get, when I I remember them, finding myself reciting
Iines long since forgotten, by those who have watched them with me, in the past...
I cannot remember the word " screwdriver" or " doorknob " to save my life, but I can describe the tone of voice and gently rising volume of Rex Harrison's monologue to "Lucia" ( Gene Tieney) in " The Ghost and Mrs. Muir".
When I was about ten years old, I'd found myself in the school psychologists office. Lots and lots of questions were asked by him, as he studied my class folders and large, folding, overstuffed organizer. They had every Marvel character possible on them, some were stickers, but the coolest being the organizer...
After about a thousand dog years of teachers complaints over my " disorganization", my mother decided it was time for drastic measures. Her last regaling was in minute detail, of my literally having to pull out a solid block of crunched papers, bent classbooks and assorted semester old snacks, from my desk and then needing to hand split the pile like dried elm, to search for a paper both the teacher and I knew, I never had even started...
Let's be kind, and say it was enough, for her.
Enough impetus to convince my wild eyed mother, who until that moment, would never fathom the possibility of powerlessness, that maybe, just maybe, everything everyone knew and had tried so far, wasn't going to work...
Maybe, just maybe, spending $22.00 on an officially licensed Marvel three way binder, might be enough to spur some extremely latent organizational gene in me to finally sprout, and get those anal-retentive educators off her back...
WW2 erupted at home, when my father saw the price tag. It was a doozy of a battle, but in the end, both my parents went to their respective corners exhausted and angry...
I did get that cool binder, though...
The sad part was that within weeks, my even wilder eyed mother was hearing diatribes from the same teachers, about more, but thinner blocks of compressed and crunched papers, being pulled from between the now triangle shaped covers...
When the psychologist realized how much I knew about the comic book universe, he became concerned. I couldn't recite times tables, but could tell him the secret identity and super powers, origins and associated villains of every superhero created...
Clueless about any actual historic event, I could describe frame by frame, the smallest altercations between any hero and arch nemesis ...
He was genuinely concerned about my grasp of reality. I knew that it was all imaginary, but I also knew that I had a college educated, hundred and forty pound, psychobabble spouting, gender questionable hippie on my line.
And catch and release was not in vogue, then...
Not by me, anyway...
I remember a lot of meetings, a lot of counseling.
I remember being bored and amused at the attention. They really thought I couldn't separate reality from fantasy. They couldn't comprehend that maybe a kid like me, in a house like mine, might want or even need something " out there" to divert his attention and distract his mind...
I came home one day to find all of my comics, all of my action figures, models and magazines incinerated in our wood furnace, in the cellar.
I guess I was a better actor than I thought...
It wasn't long until I found other escapes.
To my Wonderful Wifes chagrin, you will find most days, in either bathroom, comic books filling magazine racks, or piled on the sink...
Not usually left on the sink. I try to remember to bring them out of the downstairs bathroom, mostly because there is no handy magazine rack, in that one, and said Wonderful Wife doesn't appreciate the hero decor as much as the rest of us...
I watch every superhero movie, the first week it comes out. 80% of the time, I go alone...
It took MaryAnne quite a while to "get" how important this was to me.
Probably ( most certainly) because I never took the time to explain it. Truthfully, I don't think I knew, myself how important it really was....
We don't fight often, but a couple fairly loud disagreements have been had over me stopping mid project, at home and heading out to see " Spider-Man" or " The Avengers", with no real explanation.
I didn't know how to explain it...
Most people watch these shows and smile at the affects, enjoying happy remembrances of childhoods memories, long since past..
I watch them and see characters and stories that allowed me to keep some semblance of comfort; some tad bit of sanity, in a world where I was kind of terrified and emotionally fractured.
Maybe it did get me out of reality.
Maybe, just maybe, I needed it to...
I walk into a theatre today and my body, my soul, and what's left of the little McMonkey inside, all sit back and smile.
For 120 minutes or so, I am home. Not the home of my birth or upbringing.
I am home in that place of wonder and miracle; where good guys win and every battle fought was worthwhile.
There was both victory and defeat, but the outcome mattered.
The conflicts solved problems and made the world a better place. People did not destroy each other for no reason....
That is the home I'm talking about.
That house may have been burnt down, inside a wood furnace, in our cellar,long ago...
but the home...
The home is still there...
In a theatre near you...
I can really relate to that. For me it's rock music and movies. I laughed at your description of magazines ..my wife would attest to them all over the house. You hit it on the head ..it's that sense of wonder and possibility. .I chase it and maybe sometimes it becomes an altar at which I worship. I don't mean to..I just find the world an angry mess that makes no sense to me. My friends and family relentlessly pick on my particular passions. My ongoing joke with my wife is whether I lover her as much as Led Zeppelin. Socially, in struggle a lot because people seems obsessed with things I simply don't understand and seem to be a major waste of time. I think the 120 minutes watching Ant Man or the Avengers is time we'll spent.
ReplyDeleteI can really relate to that. For me it's rock music and movies. I laughed at your description of magazines ..my wife would attest to them all over the house. You hit it on the head ..it's that sense of wonder and possibility. .I chase it and maybe sometimes it becomes an altar at which I worship. I don't mean to..I just find the world an angry mess that makes no sense to me. My friends and family relentlessly pick on my particular passions. My ongoing joke with my wife is whether I lover her as much as Led Zeppelin. Socially, in struggle a lot because people seems obsessed with things I simply don't understand and seem to be a major waste of time. I think the 120 minutes watching Ant Man or the Avengers is time we'll spent.
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