7/11/2022 2 Comments Everything Everywhere All at OnceIn early June, the beginning of summer, Catherine and I were talking on the phone to our daughter Liz about movies. It felt like a funny chat because we had not gone to a movie since the start of Covid. Liz strongly suggested we see a movie called Everything Everywhere All At Once. Neither of us knew much about it, but due to Liz’s enthusiasm, we put it on our list. However, it was nowhere to be found in our area. Ah well, maybe someday. Someday came a month later on Friday, July 1, the start of the July 4th weekend. I was reading the local paper and lo and behold, the movie was playing that very night, for one night only at 7pm at the Cabot theater. The Cabot, located in Beverly, has extraordinary significance for Catherine and me. It was there, in 1976, that we and others purchased the Cabot and shortly thereafter created Le Grand David and his own spectacular Magic Company. Catherine and I performed in over 1,100 shows, projected movies and were part of this intentional community from 1976 to 1987, when we “retired”. It is almost impossible to give a true taste for the intense level of commitment for both of us as well as the many other 40-50+ magic company members. The Magic Company sold the theater in 2014 to a group of investors who, over the past eight years, significantly refurbished the theater with new air conditioning, comfortable seats, a modern sound system, and a beautified lobby, just to name some of the most obvious improvements. They also chose to keep a bit of the original hand painted artwork done by the Magic Company as a “nod” to the past. Our Visit We arrived early, found a parking spot a block away and walked up Judson Street which borders one side of the theater. It hit both of us that it was 46 years ago that our involvement with the theater began. It was also the same year we were married. We were in our mid to late 20s. We had walked together on Judson Street and Cabot Street thousands of times. The Movie The movie, which indeed is hard to explain simply, turned out to be a story of love and gratitude, but not in the ordinary way. It was a deep dive, a meditation, including comedy, action, weird high-tech effects and intense music to create a crazy mood that invited the viewer in. It explored how our energy could get stuck in our past choices, whether in this universe or some other one. It also gave some hope that this energy could be liberated and brought into our present life. The method for this transformation was called universe jumping. This “technique” almost always involved a trigger – sometimes as simple as putting your shoes on the wrong foot. Other times, triggers were far more physical, dramatic and sometimes funny. It was then possible to bring the energy of “another universe” to be “more present” in the present moment. Our Universe Jump The movie ended. Catherine and I were both deeply moved by the story. We both went to the respective bathrooms before our ride home. As I entered the men’s room, I noticed the illuminated sign over the door that said “GENTS”. It was made of stained-glass pieces and had been created by one of my good friends at the theater, and still looked very good. The bathroom was a shock, a trigger, because it was almost exactly the way I remembered it. Everything, including the floor and wall tiles, the stall and the urinals were the same. It was just missing the flowers that we always kept there. I then had one of those universe jumping / time travel moments that kept occurring in the movie. I saw the moment when, during one of the magic shows, I had entered the bathroom and saw a man with a gun standing near one of the urinals. I was in full dress and make-up as a clown from the Commedia Del’ Arte including a “foreign” accent. Somehow, I was quite calm and I said to him “Ah, I see you are in distress. Let’s go outside together and get some air. That might help.” He obliged and came with me outside the theater. Before I could ask him anything, he walked off. I called the police and told them of the incident. They picked him up soon after and no evil happened to him or anyone else. Catherine came out of the woman’s room. We walked outside. The night was still and sultry. Very few cars were on Cabot Street and it felt like we were in a movie. Catherine told me of her experience in the woman’s room, which was the same as we had left it, except again no flowers. Catherine was one of the people who took care of the daily bouquet of flowers for both bathrooms. She told me the story how she and another woman, who eventually became our daughter Elizabeth’s godmother, bonded over those flowers. It seemed that we had both flipped to a different universe. As we were walking to our car, we saw a young woman walking a dog on Judson Street. No one else was on the street. The dog was a typical black lab rescue mix with a little white on it. We said hello to her and her dog. The dog barked for a bit but then settled down, sniffing at our clothes, wagging its tail, and no doubt smelling our four dogs. I asked the owner the dog’s name and she told me “Lupe”. Another shock for me as I remembered that this name, or something very similar, was the name of Cesareo’s dog when he was a child in Cuba. Cesareo was the moving force of the theater / magic company and a very significant influence in our lives. It was as if he too had “universe jumped” even though he had died 10 years before. Perhaps a little piece of his spirit was still connected to the theater that he loved and where he had spent his last 36 years before he died in 2012. As we walked to the car, Catherine put her hand in mine. It felt to me that we were both again newly married and just getting to know each other and ourselves. There was such an incredible sweetness to the walk for both of us. In the car on our ride home, we called Liz. We all shared our impressions of the movie which seemed to close the circle that had started a month before. We arrived home, put the horses, dogs, chicken, ducks and finally ourselves to bed.
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David FeldmanDog walker, Dog Mediator, Father, Husband, Categories |