It's All In the Playing

by Shirley Maclaine

  Long pause.

  “Oh, my God,” she said finally.

  “Well, yes,” I agreed. “We are all part of God. Or, as Lazaris would say, we are all part of God-Goddess All There Is.”

  “Uh huh,” she answered.

  “See?” I went on. “He’s a feminist. He says that the feminine energy is the New Age of leadership.”

  “I like him,” said Bella.

  Another long silence.

  “So?” I asked.

  “So,” she answered. “I’m thinking of running for Congress from Westchester.”

  I thought a moment. “Oh,” I said, “so you want me to ask him if you’ll win?”

  There was a short but pregnant pause. “Yes,” she said. “If you say so.”

  “No,” I said. “You have to say so.”

  “Okay,” she answered, “I say so.”

  “So you want me to ask him if you should run and whether you’ll win?”

  “Right. Okay.”

  “Okay.”

  “Goodbye.”

  “No, wait a minute,” I said. “It’s too bad you didn’t do this a few years ago. It would have made a great scene in the movie.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “You’ll use it someday, in something. You always do.”

  “I do, don’t I?”

  “Yes. But that’s okay.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “You’re a great character.”

  “So are you.”

  “We’ve both chosen great parts to play this time around, don’t you think?”

  She thought a minute. “All I care about is whether my part is a winner or a loser.”

  “That’s not all you care about and you know it.”

  “I know it. But I’m a loser in your movie. I don’t want to be one again.”

  “Okay, Bellitchka, I’ll ask.”

  “But you know?” she said. “I want to help people so much that it doesn’t really matter if I lose again. It’s worth the risk. That’s progress, isn’t it?”

  “You bet,” I said. “With that attitude you might even win.”

  “Okay, ask.”

  “I’ll ask.”

  “Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye.”

  And so the next time I talked with Lazaris, I asked him about Bella’s race. He was very clear and very strong.

  “She shouldn’t do it,” he said. “It would take a tremendous emotional toll and besides, she would lose.”

  I reported the news to Bella.

  “What does he know?” she said. “He’s never had a body.”

  Chapter 18

  The last week before departure for Peru was spent shooting ten hours a day in a mineral bath.

  The scene was my out-of-body experience, and the special-effects camera work was tedious and intricate. The camera began a five-minute scene high above the set and slowly swooped down, swung around, and moved into my face until it was shooting one inch away from my eyeball. I couldn’t move my head or even blink. I didn’t tell anyone that I had once fainted right out of the optometrist’s chair when I was fitted for contact lenses. So this scene was not a piece of cake for me.

  John and I were shriveled prunes at the end of each day in the mineral bath. It happened to be the week that Peter the Great and Sins were on. So I’d go home exhausted at the end of every day, eat cookies, cake, and chocolate, and watch both shows at the same time. In between Joan Collins and Peter the Russian tyrant I burned out watching the news. The Philippine elections were violent, the Haitian revolt was violent, the space shuttle Challenger explosion was violent, and the terrorism in the Middle East was violent. Two more of my friends died of AIDS and there was an earthquake out in the Pacific. I ate more cookies.

  The tides were inordinately high along the California coast, and because I was leaving for Peru, I decided to pack some of my things and move them into town. I wondered if I was projecting disaster by being afraid. The hell with it. There were certain things I absolutely would not want to lose.

  Ah! Now I found myself sifting through what was important to me and what wasn’t.

  I knew that the more I gave away, the more I’d draw in. I thought about divesting myself of all attachments, wondering what it would be like to live that way. Wouldn’t it be easier to have “only” seven outfits to pick from every day? One for each day? Why did I derive such pleasure from possessions anyway? Well, for one thing, they were really great memory trips. Did that make them, as some psychiatrists suggested, just substitutes for love?

  So the night before I left for Peru I sat and meditated. I felt myself get in touch with my higher self. It spoke to me in words, as it always did. Because I was in alignment the voice was clear and articulate. It told me that I was in the process of transmuting my old energy, that I was beginning to see I could take control of my destiny in every way by transmuting from passive to active. My work would not only be person to person now, but person to humanity. It was now important for me to take complete responsibility and to be aware of what was going on around me, but not afraid. It said I was evaluating and sifting through my “pasts,” and that that was what the evacuation of my possessions was all about.

  I recognized and acknowledged that I had prepared for our trip to Peru for a very long time; that the first time I went I had decided to use that trip as a vision quest and knew then that I would write the book that would become a film that would take me back again.

  My higher self told me it was necessary to shoot in Peru because of the energy there, that the crew was going along on my quest, invited and motivated by me, and moreover that they would go through subtle but profound changes; and that the real trip would be between takes, and inside of each person.

  Each of us, it said, would use Peru to grow internally. It would be difficult but awe-inspiring, and we would learn that the process is more important than the goal. I asked H.S. whether we’d see UFOs. It said that was unimportant but would depend on the collective consciousness of the crew, that their individual growth was more significant than seeing UFOs. But I asked again: What would it serve if UFOs were recorded and the crew freaked out? H.S. replied that some were ready to see them, but many were not, and that the collective consciousness could progress only as fast as its slower members.

  It said we would feel strange and yet familiar sensations on some of the locations; that some would have an Atlantean vibration, which carries with it a beautiful, sad longing. Others would have Lemurian vibrations, which were more tranquil and peaceful.

  It confirmed what McPherson and John had said: that we should be careful of humidity in the camera equipment and make certain that security was tight.

  And finally I asked H.S. about what was going on in the world. It said the reason the time seemed so negative was because tragedy had taken on a more personal quality. The crime we were experiencing was more perverted than ever before. It would continue in that vein. Tragedy wasn’t a mass event now. It was a personal event because it was necessary for us to see that each human life has value. It said even the pain I was feeling in my body was a reminder that someone somewhere was suffering all the time, and what good was spiritual knowledge unless it helped to ease the pain of being in the body?

  Finally my higher self reassured me with this statement: “The human beings alive in the world today will learn that they can preserve the beautiful world they have created for themselves—or that they believe ‘God’ has created for them. It makes no difference. There are many paths to completion. And the point of being alive in the body is to emulate ‘God.’ That is achievable. That is the New Age.”

  With that assessment of the future I fell off to sleep, and the next morning we were off to Peru.

  But first, several members of the crew had expressed concern about the martial law declared in Peru. In fact some of the guys didn’t want to go. So Stan called a meeting and announced that he had spoken to the U.S. State Department and to our ambassador. They said that martial law, The Shining Path, and terrorism wer
e all nothing compared to the problem of pickpockets.

  So, as Colin and I sat together on the Aeroperu flight, we chatted about how we had created a dream fiction for ourselves. We dozed, we read, we talked, ate, slept, read some more, ate again. John, sitting behind us, leaned over at 35,000 feet and handed me a note that said: From the desk of God. Happiness is landing.

  We arrived at 3:00 A.M. Peruvian time. Stepping off the plane I remembered my first arrival years before and how alone yet expectant I had felt.

  Now, we were met by representatives of the Alan Garcia government who told us that we had permits to be escorted through the city of martial law without interference.

  The government representatives were zealously attentive to me and to Stan, but they ignored John Heard, who was relegated to waiting for his luggage with the peons. We had been traveling for twelve hours and were going to be in Lima for only four hours until we got on yet another flight for Cuzco, which would serve as our base of operation.

  I realized John was missing. In a South American environment his particular personal power went unnoticed. When I sent people to collect him they thought he was John Hurt and congratulated him on his brilliant performance in Elephant Man. John wished we had left him alone.

  Walking out into the dank and silent night of a city under martial law was chilling. There was no activity in Lima. At this hour it was against the law. The only vehicles visible were armored tanks flanked by soldiers with machine guns at the ready.

  Our company was divided up into cars and vans as we made our silent and nervous trek into the Lima-Sheraton Hotel, where we would hopefully obtain a shower, rest for the few hours we had, and begin again.

  No one knew what to expect. All the way there were tanks and soldiers at every main thoroughfare crossing. The soldiers were young and swaggering, a trait easily amplified by the loaded machine guns swinging from their shoulders.

  Only a stray dog or two reminded us of normal life.

  Otherwise, Lima was as I remembered it, gray and depressing, with a thin veil of pollution hanging in the air even in the deserted night.

  Colin and Simo and I were sitting together in the back of the designated car. Simo had come to Peru to take care of me, although clearly, dealing with macho and possibly trigger-happy soldiers was not part of his job.

  The three of us didn’t say much, being both tired and watchful. Our car was stopped at the first tank checkpoint, and the pass that our driver presented didn’t seem to have much of an effect. I tried to understand the rapid flow of Spanish. The soldiers pointed their guns at us. Simo and Colin flashed looks at me. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was a famous movie star that they thought the soldiers wouldn’t dare to knock off, or whether they knew I had been in several life-threatening circumstances before and survived. Whatever, I patted their hands in nervous reassurance, not really knowing what the hell was going to happen.

  The security pass seemed to make no difference whatever—the soldiers were not about to let us through. I thought of all the banana republic movies I had seen about “the disappeared ones” in South American countries. If they didn’t know who we were, what did they care?

  Then I heard our driver mention my name and Irma la Douce. The soldiers peered into the back seat at me. I tried to smile, but in fact I have difficulty being civil even at the security check in an airport. So I probably just looked blank. They asked our driver more questions and I could make out bits and pieces of the conversation. He was telling them we had come to Peru to make a movie. Much exclamatory light began to dawn.

  I think my role as the Happy Hooker finally did it. They waved us on just as our driver mentioned that the other seventy people were with me too. This they seemed to understand, probably because all South American celebrity dignitaries travel with an entourage. No doubt I was no different. And besides, we were the only vehicles on the road….

  Nevertheless we were stopped at least five more times with somewhat the same charade to play out. I wondered what the checkpoint personnel thought we had said to the previous checkpoints. I was pissed off for sure, but I kept very quiet, finding it easy to allow fear to prowl around in the gut, stabbing every now and then with a real jab.

  But we made it safely to our hotel.

  The authorities wanted our passports for security reasons. I refused, saying my passport was more secure with me. They flashed me a “don’t mess with her” look, and didn’t bother me. I knew that having a passport in a foreign country was as important as having a right hand.

  We dispersed to our rooms and dealt privately with whatever would make us comfortable until 7:00 in the morning. The security forces searched my room, looked under the bed, and left.

  My idea of comfort then was a hot shower, some yoga postures, honey-roasted peanuts, and some fruit. I read a Lima travel magazine until I fell into a strange sleep for about two hours with my passport in my hand.

  The wake-up call came accompanied by a waiter bringing fresh fruit, mud coffee, and a basket of toast and rolls. It was the first day of decisions about what to eat in Peru.

  In the lobby the crew congregated, our gallant band of illusion makers, having the personal courage to be uncivil, mumble-mouthed, sleepy, and somewhat pissed off. John, of course, headed the list of pissed-off ones, but that was only because he was better at experiencing any situation. I reminded him that he was an unknown, thin, New York stage actor who loved struggle. He said, “No, that’s what John Hurt is.” John was the kind of guy who made you want to hug him, pinch his cheeks, and kick him in the rump at the same time.

  We hung around in the lobby until security said we could go. Then we piled into a bus, each of us lugging our own hand luggage and valuables.

  The airport was another world in the bright light of day. Long lines of people waited for news about flight departures. The airline personnel themselves had no idea what was happening.

  I went to the newsstand. I spotted an International Herald Tribune, a lifesaver, the best newspaper in the world in my opinion, and one that has always enabled me to feel that the human race and its events are available for me to know about, wherever I am in the world.

  I can go into a peaceful reverie even when I’m in the middle of chaos if I have a news magazine or paper to enthrall me. That’s what I did with the papers I found. Colin and Simo chatted with people.

  Three hours later the plane for Cuzco decided to take off. It was as though it had a mind of its own, the people being too bureaucratically disorganized to make any lasting and trustworthy decisions.

  And so, looking down at the magnificent terrain of Peru, we were finally on the last leg to our destination: Cuzco. The snowcapped splendor of the Andes below us seemed so gracefully feminine to me. And of course it made sense. The Andes were the gateway of the feminine energy on the planet; the Himalayas, the gateway for the masculine. My old stomping grounds had been the Himalayas in Bhutan, Sikkim, Kalimpong, and Nepal. As I looked back on it now, that was a time when I was more comfortable with activating, manifesting masculine attributes. I challenged authority, went to the barricades with my political beliefs, was angry and outraged at injustice, and aggressively calculated how I could effect change in the society where I lived in a forceful fashion. I was operating with yang energy, emulating the very power structure that I found fault with. I was exemplifying the establishment techniques that I abhorred. But that was the old days.

  The new days would be smarter, more centered, more effective, and frankly, more personally rewarding, because I was beginning to see that I had been responsible for creating all the unrest in my old reality as a mirror through which to see myself. Now I felt ready and willing to see myself as a more peaceful candidate for harmony. Hopefully I would no longer need to feel deep, hidden anger, or flaming outrage, because I would have already lived through that part of my scenario. I would have tried on those feelings, acted them out, and would have resolved most of them. Flash-flame would occur every so often but it would be larg
ely superficial. And eventually I would learn; I would not need even that anymore.

  That was the wisdom I was beginning to feel.

  So the Andes moving slowly below me represented the gateway to the profoundly feminine aspects of myself I hadn’t yet been willing to trust and touch.

  I put my hand around Mary the icon in my purse.

  Just before I left America, my friend had presented me with a small reproduction of the icon, which was closer to the original than her photograph. The monk from Canada had sent it to her to give to me.

  I knew it was, indeed, a talisman of sorts. But talismans work in human understanding because we ascribe magic to them. And magic works wonders. The loss of magic is the denial of unlimited possibility. I had kept it by my bed as a reminder of the feminine vibration I was trying to transmute in myself—I would need reminders.

  As we landed, Cuzco was sunny, crisp, clear, and inviting. It was also 11,380 feet high.

  The company was ensconced in two hotels. The “above the line” talent (actors, writers, producers, etc.) were at the Libertador. The “below the line” talent (camera crew and grips) were at the Savoy. Neither was the Ritz, but both were comfortable.

  My room at the old Libertador adjoined Simo’s, so he could field the calls and whoever might walk in looking for small talk. It was originally a suite with a step up between the rooms. My room had a window onto the cobblestone street below. Simo’s was a closed-in box. But he set up a hot plate and soup kitchen to make it seem like home. There was a small sitting room off my room which, stripped of furniture, I saw immediately would work, for my yoga and a massage therapy table.

  We had brought a massage therapist with us. I figured massage would be beneficial for everyone at the end of the day.

  Since the hotel would be our home for at least a month, people were doubly concerned about their rooms. Mine seemed to be fine. The carpet and bedspread were clean. I was just a little concerned about the picture of Jesus bleeding and in pain hanging from the cross over my bed. The maid removed it and put up two men under a sombrero instead. I went with Colin to look at his room.