Over the Rainbow

Like so many others, I keep a mental list of my favorite movies. "Hoosiers" is on that list. So is "Singing in the Rain" and "The King's Speech." "Field of Dreams" is on that list too, as is "What Dreams May Come." But my all time, absolutely favorite movie - the one that I will watch at any opportunity - is "The Wizard of Oz."

Yep, 1939, Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Margaret Hamilton, the Munchkins, Oz, the flying monkeys, the whole nine yards. "The Wizard of Oz" is always number one on any list of mine. I probably have seen it at least once for every year of my life (55) and probably another dozen to two dozen times beyond that, so maybe I've seen it 75-80 times.

Friday night Warren and I went down to the Ohio Theatre for the start of the summer movie series and watched "The Wizard of Oz" on the big screen. (Be still my heart. While the movie suits me in any format, it really pops when seen on a big screen.)

We were running a bit late getting out of town. As we debated grabbing supper on the fly, I announced, as calmly as I could in light of the ticking clock, that I didn't want to be late for the movie as I had to (had to) see Dorothy sing "Over the Rainbow." If I missed that scene, which occurs very early in the movie, then we might as well bag the whole evening.

A short silence ensued while Warren pondered the enormity (or insanity) of what I had just said. After determining I was probably competent, he said "we'll make it work." And we did, ending up in our seats with ten or fifteen minutes to spare.

I wasn't disappointed. The movie is still magical. For the next two hours (with intermission), I was caught up in the story, enjoying the oh-so-familiar lines and scenes. I bounced in my seat when Glinda (My favorite! My favorite!) made her first appearance; I swallowed hard when Dorothy hugged the scarecrow and whispered "I think I'll miss you most of all." When the house thumped back down at the end of the movie and we were all back in Kansas, I sighed a little.

Emerging into the warm night in downtown Columbus, I felt a little disoriented. "I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore." No, nor in Oz either.

If you asked me why I love "The Wizard of Oz" so much, I could probably spin off several reasons. I love the books, and while the movie is not faithful to the text (what do you mean, Louis Mayer, that Dorothy was just dreaming?), it's close enough that I am satisfied. Yip Harburg and Harold Arlen, the lyricist and composer of the songs? Love them. I love watching Judy Garland sing their signature work, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" (although it is heartbreaking watching it from the vantage point of now knowing how Garland's life would turn out). I love seeing Frank Morgan (the wizard) pop up in various roles, five in all. I even love the flying monkeys and the Wicked Witch of the West, the two components of the film that frighten most children. (I was fine with them when I was little, but that tornado haunted my dreams well into my thirties. Watching the twister scene the other night on the big screen, I found myself still tensing up as it came closer and closer to the farmhouse.)

I love the actors, I love the costumes, I love the sets. I'd love to be Glinda, no matter which character the Facebook quiz said I was most like.

Let's face it: I love the film.

When I outfitted myself for my new job, I found a skirt at Goodwill that I call my Frida Kahlo/Wizard of Oz skirt. (Katrina, if you are reading this, you are probably rolling your eyes and wondering what on earth I look like.) The Oz reference came about because the skirt is so color splashed that it looks like what Dorothy must have seen when she first opened the door after the farmhouse landed in the Munchkin city.

And maybe that is what I love best about "The Wizard of Oz" - the wonder of Dorothy opening the door into Oz. There is something in that simple scene that has always resonated with me, no matter what my age. Friday night I could barely sit still, knowing that Dorothy was about to open the farmhouse door and step out into enchantment.

In the book, The Wizard Of Oz, Dorothy "gave a cry of amazement and looked about her, her eyes growing bigger and bigger at the wonderful sights she saw." In my very first blog post, I wrote about the magic of opening doors. This movie is where I first learned that to open the door is to set off on an adventure.

Big doors, little doors, real doors, dream doors: no matter what kind of door you may have, there is always that moment when your hand is on the knob and you are about to open it. May you always give cries of amazement at what is on the other side.

Road Trip Lag

I know. I still haven't written about the wedding or our trip out there and back. I really will.

Soon.

I'm just not there yet.

As of today, we have been home for one week. One week. After 13 days on the road, we rolled back into our very own driveway last Friday at about 6:00 p.m. Home.

It has been unsettling. Neither Warren nor I were ready to be back here. We were numb. I still am. I feel as if I have been sleepwalking through the week.

I don't like feeling this way.

A few weeks before we left, in the hectic rush we called "July," I had accompanied Warren to the Cincinnati area for an evening rehearsal. He was playing percussion in a small orchestra down there (two hours away) that our conductor Jaime also conducts. I arrived hot (no AC in the car) and out of sorts. Sitting in air conditioned rehearsal area, I penned a blog post that never saw the light of day.

That post ran as follows:

My bags are too heavy. I am sitting in a rehearsal hall in Batavia, Ohio. I am blessedly cool after a warm, sticky day and a two plus hour drive down in the sun.

I am sitting here writing (longhand) on the notebook I brought along. It was hard getting the notebook and pen out of the small canvas bag into which I had packed them. It was a struggle because the bag was too heavy. Even though it is small and I was only lifting it from the seat next to me into my lap, it was a struggle all the same.

My bag is too heavy.

I have packed it too full. Rehearsals are almost three hours. So I'd put a water bottle in to get through the evening. And the notebook and pen. Well, four pens in case I had some huge pen crisis.

My keys, of course, my wallet (which is a little credit card holder and is only 3x4), and my phone. Also some acetaminophen and some antacids.

And three books - two hardcover (small) and one paperback (trade size). The hardcover books are short and I didn't want to finish reading one and be without something else to read.

Oh, and my appointment calendar (yes, I still keep a paper one) in case I needed to make an appointment sitting here 140 miles from home, from my computer, and with my phone turned off.

My bag is too heavy.

Small wonder. I packed it too full of "what if" items instead of those things I really need tonight.

I am also thinking about the bag in the car, the one in which I packed a brownbag supper for us to eat. As we approached Cincinnati, I planned to start handing out sandwiches. But first I had to move the bag from the back seat where it was wedged in on top of percussion equipment, to the front. To accomplish this maneuver, I had to take off my seatbelt, turn around on the seat on my knees, and s-t-r-a-i-n to lift the bag. Not because of where and how it was packed in the car, but because it - yep - too heavy.

The bag itself is very lightweight. It is large, a little bigger than the reusable shopping bags that everyone is carrying these days. I am always lulled into packing it fuller (and heavier) because of the extra space.

So in addition to the sandwiches, it held two bottles of water (mine), two cans of soda (Warren's), a bag of chips, and some snacks for the drive because Warren is always famished after a full rehearsal. Only because the bag "has room," I put in the whole sack of animal crackers (14 oz) and the whole box of Nutty Bars. I don't mean I opened the box, removed the contents, and placed them in the bag. I mean I put the whole cardboard box in. After all, there was room.

And let's not forget the ice packs in the bottom of the bag to keep things cool (the bag has a thermal lining). I could have gone with two small blocks, but the larger block fits nicely. Never mind the weight, there's room.

Needless to say, the bag was heavy. Very, very heavy.

I could have packed a smaller bag - or taken smaller portions - but there was room, so it all came along.

Warren worries about me helping carry his equipment because much of it is bulky and heavy. His stuff is nothing compared to my bags tonight. If the Donner party had set out with our supper bag, they never would have resorted to cannibalism.

As I sit here penning these words, my mind keeps returning to my carrying so much when, clearly, less would have done amply. I weighted myself down unnecessarily with extra books, extra ice packs, extra everything, as if we would be driving to a remote plateau tonight.

My bags are too heavy.

Lately, I have been feeling burdened and stressed. Too many days where our schedules don't meet, let alone blend. Too many loose ends that keep unraveling. All this tugs at my peace of mind. There are bills which need to be paid, some tricky scheduling to pull off before we hit the road, and more than my usual anxieties about, well, just about everything.

My bags are too heavy.

Like the lesson with tonight's bags - tangible, physical bags - where I am struggling to lift even the smallest one into my lap, I need to unpack my mental bags as well.

This is where my writing started to unravel. I never got back to the writing and it never got posted. But as I struggle to regain my equilibrium after our trip, I find the words haunting and relevant.

Warren and I email every day - just a short note to start the day - and my continuing mood post-trip has dominated my comments to him. I wrote:

I think the trip shook me up the most in showing me how much I have let slip (in terms of reflection, energy, forward movement, small moments) in the jumble and push of this year. We have both been moving at the speed of light all year long - especially with some of the Symphony issues - and the trip was (even though fast paced) a shock to the system. It was like a mirror - and I am not sure I liked everything I saw about myself and our life (the pace, the hectic qualities) in it. I feel as if I am sleepwalking right now. I want to be alive all the time, every moment, especially with you.

I think that says a lot of what I am feeling. Packed and hectic as it was, the trip nonetheless allowed both of us the chance to get outside of our routines and everyday persona. For me, that was a huge (and shocking) revelation of just how far I have crawled into a daily routine of just going through the motions. Yes, I am working, yes, I am keeping house, yes, I am tending to my marriage and my friends and my family, but am I really paying attention to what I am doing?

Am I really living?

As I finish this post, it is late Friday morning. The first jars of tomato sauce are in the canner (the gardens were a wreck by the time we returned, but there are always tomatoes). I'm finally getting some photos of the wedding up on Facebook. We have had yet another busy week: every night this week, one or both of us has had a meeting or other commitment. Liz is with us for the next two weeks, and she has her own appointments: band camp, scouts. Tonight the three of us are volunteering at a fundraiser because the sponsor is so understaffed that we felt bad and said we'd help out. Tomorrow morning starts the moving of the Symphony office.

In short, this week has been packed and booked to the gills. No wonder I am still feeling disoriented and jarred.

Somewhere there is a solution, and as is always the case, I strongly suspect it is within my grasp. I am not unlike Dorothy in the 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz. When Dorothy begs Glinda to help send her home, Glinda replies, "you've always had the power to go back to Kansas." The Scarecrow demands to know why Glinda had kept this knowledge from Dorothy and she says, simply, "she wouldn't have believed me. She had to learn it for herself."

I don't have Glinda to point out the obvious: my time and schedule are out of control. I don't have ruby slippers to click together and fix the problem.

I don't even have a humbug of a wizard to root around for a solution in his bag of tricks.

I just have myself. And Warren. And time.

Time to make the most of it.

Don't Touch That Bucket of Water!

One aspect of Facebook is the proliferation of quizzes that you can take. What novelist are you? What philosopher are you? Find Your Perfect Job in the Empire! (Which prompted my friend Dave, targeted as the Grand Moff, to write: "I'll be happy to be Tarkin so long as I'm smart enough to get the heck off the Death Star before Luke comes hurtling at it in that damn X-Wing. You won't catch me saying, "What, evacuate in our hour of triumph?" My line would be, "Why, yes, I think I should get out of here since I can hear John Williams music that sounds sort of rebel-victory-ish.") (Hint: Don't ever read Dave's Facebook page while sipping any beverage as the result is likely to be you spewing the drink all over your monitor while you laugh.)

On the novelist quiz, I was tagged for Virginia Woolf, as was my almost daughter-in-law, Alise. That was a neat piece of symmetry, given that before I met Alise, my younger son Sam said "you'll really like Alise, mom. She's a lot like you!"

This morning I took the "What Wizard of Oz character are you?" quiz. The ten multiple choice questions ranged from favorite color (blue) to favorite movie from a list of several (I chose "What Dreams May Come," although I wavered between that, "Hoosiers," and "Catch Me If You Can," an eclectic viewing choice if ever there was one). I then clicked for results and waited breathlessly, only to find out that the character I am most like is…

…the Wicked Witch.

The quiz summarized my character as follows: You are very misunderstood. You have been different all your life. You have made a few bad choices, but deep down, you just want what everyone else has.

Hmmn. Am I being typecast (which, if I remember, was the fate of Margaret Hamilton after playing that role)?

"The Wizard of Oz," the 1939 Judy Garland version, is my very favorite movie of all time. I grew up watching it on the television, I saw it on the big screen for the first time when I was in college and loved it even more. In law school I owned a pair of pearly pink, Glinda-pink shoes (a little known fact that stumps people every time there is one of those "guess who in the room…?" icebreakers). I know the ending verse (deleted from the movie) to "If I only had a brain." I own most of the Oz books that L. Frank Baum wrote, as well as novels built on Oz themes, from Was to Wicked. I have a copy of the hilarious Bobby McFerrin version of "The Wizard of Oz," as well as the beautiful rendition of "Over the Rainbow" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. I have visited the grave of L. Frank Baum (Forest Lawn, Glendale) and among my failed writing attempts is an Oz novel where Dorothy returns to Kansas in modern times as a young adult.

But the Wicked Witch?

In my heart of hearts, I always wanted to be Glinda. Loved the crown, loved the dress, really loved the bubble. I owned a pink wand for a number of years and even took it to one zoning hearing. My second choice would have been Dorothy, but only for those way cool ruby slippers.

But the Wicked Witch?

Okay, she does have some great lines in the movie, including the one about Dorothy's "mangy little dog." The flying monkeys are really nifty. And in recent years, many of us have reevaluated her true character in light of Gregory Maguire, the brilliant author of Wicked, who did a bang-up job in portraying the witch not as a source of evil but as a bright and famously misunderstood activist.

But the Wicked Witch?

I need to think about this. After all, these things must be done delicately...