It's All In the Playing

by Shirley Maclaine

  “The world is a schoolroom,” Ambres continued. “Life is to learn. It is a teacher. But teaching is important to proceed at a balanced pace.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I understand.”

  “Ah, my child.” He stopped me. “But you have been plagued with sleeping problems, isn’t that true?”

  I was surprised that he knew that.

  “Yes,” I answered, “I have.”

  “Well, my child. You have experienced so much so soon. You see, when you proceed with such haste you alter the energy flow in your system drastically. The energy required for ‘seeing’ the past and the future, unless integrated steadily into the consciousness, can cause disturbance, manifesting in the inability to fall off to sleep.”

  “Really?” I asked. The whole crew was now attempting to understand what was going on.

  “Yes,” he continued. “You see, the mind is never asleep. Only the body requires rest. But the body frequency for learning during nighttime hours is quite different from daytime, because it involves the superconscious psychic powers. If those powers are overstimulated, an even frequency for the sleep state is not possible.”

  “Well,” I asked, “how does this relate to what I did with the needles?”

  “Your desire to feel cosmic union is extremely intense. You proceeded in your intensity at a rapid pace in searching out the past-life relationships with your parents, particularly the mother figure. What you did is not dangerous, but it has been disturbing for you, resulting in an upset of the sleep pattern. Do you understand?”

  The past-life conflicts with my parents flashed in front of my mind just as they had done under the influence of the needles. Yes, I could see what Ambres was talking about. There had been violence involved. Violence that was difficult for me to admit had been perpetrated by my mother, who had not been my mother in that lifetime.

  “You must resolve the reactions to what you saw,” said Ambres, “with your feelings today. In that resolution the even-frequency sleep state will return. Whenever one rushes, one pays a price. Be careful. You have much inner wisdom to develop now in order to balance your knowledge. Wisdom and knowledge are two separate understandings.”

  I could feel the crew behind me prepared to film again.

  “Thank you, Ambres,” I said. “I will think about what you’ve said. It’s good to speak with you again. I’ve missed you. You were my first teacher.”

  Ambres smiled.

  “You were your first teacher,” he reminded me.

  He walked back to his position in front of the roomful of extras. Now everyone knew of my sleep problems and a past-life conflict with my parents. But, as I had learned years ago, in spiritual circles hardly anyone ever abuses the privilege of knowing more about another individual than even they themselves know.

  The room quieted down again. Butler yelled, “Roll ’em,” and Ambres continued his spiritual teaching according to script until the scene ended. Sturé took a seat in his chair and Ambres blessed the group and left the body of Sturé. Sturé’s right arm began vibrating again, signaling Ambres’ exit. Sturé returned to consciousness and walked over to me and said his scripted line.

  “I hope you learned something tonight,” he said. “I must rest now. There is another group coming later.”

  I thanked him, delivered my final line of astonishment, and Butler yelled, “Cut.”

  Everyone began milling about. I went over to David, the soundman.

  “What was going on with your instruments during the session?” I asked.

  David looked shocked.

  “Well, I don’t understand it,” he began. “All my wavelength frequencies fluctuated. And my batteries went dead in half the time. Then I couldn’t believe it, but I picked up Radio Moscow in my earphones! This was weird.”

  I shrugged. I remembered that McPherson had predicted there would be unusual activity when we shot the scene with Ambres.

  “I don’t know, David,” I said. “I’m just learning about the effect on electromagnetic frequencies myself. I never have been very good with technological phenomena.”

  David motioned to me to lean down.

  “You know,” he said, “I know you’re going to pick up your American crew for the rest of the shoot, but I want you to know that more than anything I would like to be going on to Peru with you. I feel there is so much I have to learn from this material, but maybe I should be generous and wish the man who’s taking my place a good learning experience too. There’s room for all of us, isn’t there?”

  “Thanks, David,” I said. “I’ll let you know how it all goes. I think it’s going to be a lesson for each of us according to what we need to learn.”

  The channeling session over, we gathered up our props and belongings. The crew began to break down the set. We were tired and very hungry. I stood for a moment surveying the room for one last time. I heard a banging-clanking noise outside.

  “What’s that?” I asked a crew member.

  “It’s Alex de Grunwald,” he answered. “He’s groveling in the garbage cans for lunch for the crew tomorrow, except that we’re going to be shooting with a skeleton crew.”

  Everybody laughed. Alex appeared smiling and mischievous in the doorway.

  “Thank you, everybody,” he said, and then he announced, “I’m writing a new book called How to Work on No Food, or Sweden on One Cent a Day. I’d be happy to personally autograph it for whoever would like a memento of our time together.”

  The crew threw their hats at him.

  That was the thing about the English. They were able to create humor out of just about anything, particularly after having been visited by an entity from another world.

  Later on that night we were told that at the exact time we were shooting, the regular programming for all the radios in Northern Sweden, in homes and in cars, had been interrupted by the presentation of a strange spiritual sort of teaching session delivered by someone who was referred to as “Ambres.” No one knew who or what it was exactly.

  Chapter 10

  The last night in Sweden I walked in the newly falling snow, thinking about the drama and theatricality of life. I walked in the park where Gerry and I had fed the animals. I stood under the tree where Gerry had cried that he couldn’t reconcile me with the rest of his life—while his wife waited in a hotel room. The snow fell as a silent testament to the timelessness of the human drama. We were playing our roles as though our lives depended on the performance. And indeed it was true.

  I thought of my mother and father. They had had eighty-two years apiece of their drama, fifty-five of them together. On reflection that seemed overdone and outrageous to me. How could any two people stay together, inseparably, for fifty-five years? What kind of promise to oneself did that take? It had been a polarity dance of refined and colorful extremes, the likes of which I could not imagine for myself. They were hopelessly and profoundly committed to the dramatic comedy of playing opposite each other. Everyone else in their lives was simply a character on their stage.

  And now it was nearing Thanksgiving. My mother had called to tell me that Dad was ill and failing fast. She hadn’t wanted to disturb my work, but her voice cracked and she wept as she suggested perhaps I should see him soon. She wanted my daughter Sachi to be there too.

  Of course we would go. We finished shooting in Stockholm just before Thanksgiving. I was free until the Hawaii location the following week. It was as though the timing was guided and the impending “reality” of old age was becoming more and more interlaced in my life. It was a constant now, imposing itself with every late-night phone call.

  I called Sachi. She had her own drama going. She was stunned and heartbroken over the death of her acting teacher. The teacher had apparently fallen asleep at the wheel of her car, veered into oncoming traffic, and had a head-on collision that exploded the car. She was burned beyond recognition. It was so violent an end, so abrupt, and yet, as with all events in life, so self-motivated.

  Sachi and I had a lo
ng talk relating to why anyone would choose a death like that. No one else was killed—only slightly injured. We speculated on what karmic relationship she could have had with the driver of the oncoming car. Both of us believed there was no such thing as “accident,” but a heartbreaking personal loss like this called for serious questioning, in order, perhaps, to help bear the burden. We talked of so many seemingly dramatic deaths occurring during these times. Was it our imagination? No, not really, and we could sense that many people we knew might elect to check out in the next few years. Almost as though, with the onslaught of New Age energy and the enormous pressures the modern world exerted, they would not be able to participate in the acceleration fast enough to be a part of the transition and would use karmic workouts to leave the body.

  “Is the world going insane, Mom?” she asked, as she elaborated on the violence in the news.

  We talked on for what became several hours, agreeing that something big was occurring in the world, something different from before, when international world wars, plagues, famines had hit us. It felt almost as though a giant cleanup, a cleansing, was in process on the planet. As though the energy of old karmic patterns was being cleared. The acceleration was on, and each event had a reason for being. It was all a learning process, too, perhaps to help our limited thinking to expand, our perceptions of ourselves to be more generous, and the conception of our future to become a certainty of peace.

  Those who insisted on remaining stuck in the old ideas of judgment, blame, fear, rancor, rage, and revenge were operating not only with a limited perspective of themselves and others, but with the prospect that they would be caught in an amplification of that destructive energy that would manifest their negative reality to be exactly as they feared it would be.

  So those who cynically assessed spiritual viewpoints as being “wishful thinking” and “desired projecting” were absolutely right. We’d all get what we believed we would. What we expected would come to pass. And with the acceleration of New Age energy, projections of negativity would occur and manifest faster than ever before, just as projection of positivity would.

  I arrived home to see my mom and dad the day before Thanksgiving.

  Dad was drawn and white as he lay fully dressed on top of his bed. I walked into his room and watched him sleep. I bent over and kissed him. He woke up, startled. Then he smiled. He hadn’t known I was coming.

  “Oh, Monkey,” he said, barely able to speak above a whisper. “When they took me to the hospital with the drop in my blood count I shut my eyes for a minute and this tremendous sense of peace came over me like a big umbrella.”

  I couldn’t trust myself to speak.

  “Yep,” he went on slowly. “I knew everything would be all right. I said to myself: There are some of Shirley’s people taking care of me up there so I know I’ll be fine.’ Then I let these damn doctors make all those holes in my arms and take these stupid pictures of my insides.”

  I sat down beside him and lifted his white withered arm. It was hard for him to breathe. He pushed one of his hands into his chest. I looked at the long fingers and remembered how he had delicately fingered his violin strings when he was a younger man, teaching me what made the notes change and the music play.

  “Remember that fluffy strapless dress you bought for the prom or the beauty show or something?” he asked.

  I nodded and quietly sniffed back tears.

  I remembered very well. It was a yellow organza with a white strapless ruffle around the bust.

  “I was so proud of you I was about to bust when I saw you in that dress, and your mother didn’t even think I’d let you have it.”

  As I watched and listened to him I understood that the reversal process was happening. He was becoming my child now, dependent, helpless, and longing for care and love. He had protected and provided for me when I was dependent and helpless and now the roles were reversed.

  Sachi had told me of her last visit with him. He had told her that one day I would be dependent on her. That this was the course and cycle of life. It afforded each member of the family the experience of caring and being cared for.

  “So many parents have children who don’t bother with them anymore,” he said to me. “But I’m the richest father in the world to have children like you who care so much.”

  He drifted back to sleep. I sat there and watched him breathe. How would I know if he decided to leave? Was there a telltale sign? Was there any way to prepare? Would he choose a moment that was right for him, just as he must have chosen his moment of birth for the same reason? And more important than anything, was what I called death actually viewed from the other side as birth? Was the experience of living within the human body considered an entrapment of the soul, whose natural habitat was the spiritual dimension?

  I watched Dad for a long time. Sachi had already seen him and was in the living room with Mother—continuity in motion.

  Then Dad opened his eyes again.

  “I told Sachi,” he said, “not to be a sucker about men, like you were. Not to let men praise her and turn her head. We had a nice talk. Your mother says Sachi only has two things to worry about.”

  “What are they, Daddy?” I asked.

  “Walking like a Japanese and letting her hips get too big.”

  I laughed out loud. Whatever the extremity, my father’s sense of humor would never desert him.

  “But,” he continued, “I say she has to worry about men. They will con her because she’s a cute little thing and she’ll feel sorry for them just like you did. For God’s sake tell her not to run an open charity for people the way you do.”

  I was holding his thin hand between mine. I patted it gently.

  “Yes, Daddy, I’ll tell her that. Why don’t you get some rest now.”

  He took out his hearing aids from his ears.

  “These damn things are one thousand dollars apiece or some damned thing. The price of hearing nonsense is high. But that’s the most terrible part of getting old, you know.”

  “What is, Daddy?” I asked.

  “Being a nuisance to people.”

  He looked at me for a long wistful time.

  “Can I ask you a question?” I said finally.

  “Yes,” he answered.

  “Have you decided to go before Mother?”

  He continued to look at me intently without blinking.

  “No,” he said. “I haven’t made my decision yet. But I can see your mother is getting stronger and I’m getting weaker. She has so much she wants to do.”

  “Is there more you want to do, Daddy?”

  He looked around the room as though searching for an image of something.

  “Well,” he said finally, “I’d like to live to see your book show on the TV and to see Warren’s new picture. So I might stay alive till then.”

  He took a deep breath.

  “I remember,” he continued, “I could never stand to look at the sight of blood, and now with all my transfusions I realize it’s everything. I’m going to try and get stronger. But I saw you and Sachi and I’m sure I’ll see Warren at Christmastime when he’s back from his location.”

  “So,” I said, “we have an agreement that you’ll stick around until next spring at least?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I can promise you that.”

  “I love you, Daddy,” I said.

  “I love you too, darlin’,” he replied. “More than I can ever tell you.”

  He reached up for me. I hugged him without squeezing too hard. Then he leaned back again.

  “Well, I have to close my eyes now,” he said. “Thank you for listening to me talk. Thank you for talking to me. Now go tell the boss I’m on top of the bed still dressed, so she’ll come in and kiss me goodnight.”

  I nodded, kissed his forehead, and left the room.

  Sachi and Mother were in animated conversation when I walked in. They had both been through their own private reflections on his condition, and life was going on.

 
; “Mom?” said Sachi with that question mark in her voice. “Do you know what Granddaddy told me before you came?”

  I sat down to a cup of tea.

  “No, sweetheart. What?”

  “Well, you know that old-maid woman named Helen who was by here last year?”

  “Yes.”

  “Granddaddy says she is suffering from some terrible old-maid’s Hawaiian disease.”

  “Oh, really? What?”

  “Something called lackanookie,” she said perfectly straight and with no recognizable humor.

  “Isn’t your father terrible?” said Mother. “How can I explain that to Sachi?”

  “You don’t,” I said. “You don’t have to.”

  Sachi punched Mother’s knee.

  “I sort of knew what he meant, Grandmother. How can he be so funny when he’s feeling so bad?”

  “He’s never feeling too bad for that kind of ‘bawdry’ humor,” said Mother in mock disgust. Suddenly she got up and went to her old highboy desk.

  “Look, Shirl,” she said in girlish delight. “This might be a good thing—I don’t know.” She handed me a contract coupon from Reader’s Digest. “I’ve been paying into this thing, so much a month for years so I could get the giant payoff—look how much.”

  I looked. It was for $5,100,000.

  “Yeah. Your father thinks I’m crazy, and I haven’t told anyone else, but I could win it, you know.”

  I looked at Sachi. She looked at Mother.

  “Yes, Grandmother,” she said, all full of wonder. “You could win it, especially if you believe you can.”

  “Then,” said Mother, “I’d give half of it to you and Sachi in case you have financial troubles. Then I’d march right down to the girls at the bank, and tell them to save it for me until I got old.”

  I felt my eyes pop. I couldn’t resist saying, “And when do you think that will be?”

  Mother laughed loudly.

  “Me?” she giggled. “I’m going to live to be ninety-two. I’ve already decided. Life is so funny, isn’t it? That I’d win this money after all these years. I’ve enjoyed reading those little Reader’s Digest books because I don’t want to read a whole book. So I’ve gotten a whole lot of enjoyment out of the money I’ve been paying in.”