I had never heard my father talk like this. Was this the man whom I had mentally dubbed a prejudiced bigot when he, perversely, insisted on calling black people “niggers”? Was this the man I believed had rotted his brains with booze so much that he reduced me to tears?
“Art is the same thing,” said Mother. “Who knows where great art comes from? Who knows what inspiration and talent are?”
“What do you think they are, Mother?” I asked.
“I think,” she answered, “that everything comes from God.”
“And what is God, then?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “But I know it’s there.”
Daddy cleared his throat with a commanding hurrumphhh. He always did that when he was vitally interested in something.
“What are you getting at, Monkey?” he asked with genuine curiosity on his face.
I chose my words carefully. I wanted to convey what I was thinking as succinctly as possible even though I realized there were not many words that could define what I felt.
“Well,” I began, “since so many new ideas are surfacing these days, I’m wondering whether they are, in fact, new, or instead are really rather ancient. I’m wondering if all the old masters weren’t actually more in touch with the ‘real’ spiritualization of mankind, meaning that they understood that the soul energy of man is eternal and infinite. That they knew that the soul goes on and on. That it never dies and in fact cyclically reembodies itself in order to learn and grow while alive in the body on the earth plane.”
“You’re talking about reincarnation, then,” said Dad.
“Yes, and if the soul is the repositor of all its accumulated knowledge and experience, then education is only the process of drawing out what it already knows.”
Dad flicked some lint from his shoulder, a ploy to give himself time to consider a point.
“Well,” he said, “I understand that nothing ever dies. High school chemistry proves that. Matter only changes form. So I could even go along with your belief that the body becomes the eternal soul after death, but I don’t know if I can go along with reincarnation.”
“But Dad,” I said, feeling my voice rise as it had whenever, as a child, I wanted to get a point across to him, “you actually had the experience that your soul was separate from your body. How can you say the body becomes the soul?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if you have already experienced death, then you know that death is only the experience of the soul leaving the body, right?”
“Right.”
“Then if the soul is separate from the body, why not stretch a little bit further and contemplate what the soul does after it’s been out of the body for a while. Or if there’s no old body to go back to.”
“Well, Monkey, the way I felt about that white light that Ï saw, I’m not sure I’d ever want to leave it to come back again.”
“Oh,” I said, understanding that his version of the white light was so glorious, there would be no future necessary after that.
“So, you’d just hang around up there basking in the glow forever?”
“I think so, yes.” He laughed. “I certainly wouldn’t have to worry about the dust in my room, would I?”
“Oh, Ira, be serious now,” Mother chimed in. “Shirl,” she said, “if you believe that we have all lived before, then you and your father and I have lived before too?”
“Yes,” I answered, “that’s what I believe. And I think that our family, and every family for that matter, is a group of souls very closely connected because we have been through many incarnations together. I think we choose to be together, to work out our drama. We choose our parents, and I think the parents choose the children they want to have before they ever come into an incarnation.”
“You do?” said Mother, astonished at the thought and realizing, at the same time, the implications of what I’d said. “You mean you believe you chose to have your father and me as your parents?”
“Yes,” I answered, “and I believe that we all agreed to be a part of this family unit before any of us were born. That’s why I feel your marrying Daddy seemed inevitable to you. Your higher self knew as soon as you met him that you had already agreed to have Warren and me for children with him.”
“Oh, my goodness,” exclaimed Mother. “You believe all of this was preordained?”
“Yes, and not by God, but by each of us.”
“Oh my. I have to fix myself a drink,” said Mother. “Ira, do you want a glass of milk?”
“Look at that,” said Daddy. “The boss won’t even let me share in a drink with her after we planned our lives together from the spiritual plane.”
I laughed and thought of all the incarnations they must have had together. If there were ever two people who were joined at the hip, acting as catalysts for one another’s learning process, it was my mother and father. They had a kind of George and Martha Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf relationship. They couldn’t live happily with each other, and they couldn’t live happily without each other. From my very first memories, I felt there was a profound experiential drama going on between the two of them. They could push each other’s buttons more effectively than anyone I had ever witnessed. But then they were my mother and father. So of course I would be affected as intensely as all children are by their parents. Surely the human drama with our parents (or the reverse, a total lack of it) is the most influential element in our lives? The drama within the family unit had to be the underpinning for the way we regarded life in the world from then on.
Yet, if the purpose of life was to experience, the better to appreciate the growth and understanding of the soul, then everyone we met, to a greater or lesser extent, was a means to that end. To realize oneself fully meant the necessity of experiencing all the possibilities available to the human condition.
The lessons in living which triggered our most profound reactions dealt with our feelings toward authority, helplessness, loss of control, material comfort, survival, manipulation of fear, restriction of freedom, attitudes toward possessions, attraction to the opposite sex, attraction to the same sex, closeness of living, passion, violence, and love.
What better place to learn those lessons than within the family unit? The family constellation was a microcosm of the overall human family. Work out the problems within the family and you might very well have the capability, training, conditioning, and tolerance to work out problems on a global level.
Families are all about karma.
Therefore, one’s karmic requirements began at birth within the association of parents and siblings. Within the family environment was every human conflict that could ultimately lead to a willingness, or a nonwillingness, to wage war. Most attitudes of, and toward, violence and hostility are spawned in the family. Just as attitudes of love and compassion are. No one knows better than parents and children how to set off the trigger points in each other. Feelings of suspicion, fear, and doubt are a direct result of family attitudes. Those who “brought us up” to know ourselves chose to help us with life’s lessons. Nowhere could a teacher be more effective than in the body of a parent. If the parent and the child chose to make it so.
The reverse was true also. Don’t we learn as much from our children as we ask them to learn from us?
Ideally, parents and children could help each other with their self-realization. What we would do then, out in the world, would be an extension of that realization. In actuality, too often the pattern gets skewed or dulled, so that growth and the ability to cope with one’s self and the world don’t develop.
Mother brought two wet martinis and a glass of milk from the kitchen.
“I know he’ll go sneak some Scotch anyway.” She shrugged. “So he can put it in the milk.”
I took a sip of the martini and watched my mom and dad as I would a good situation comedy. More and more I saw them from the karmic perspective, but when I was growing up, the intense emotional environment in the hom
e had had several effects on me.
First, I was the amused, sometimes astonished and confused, child witness to their dramatic and theatrical human interplay. Often I didn’t understand the intricacies of their scenes, or the meaning of the outcome, but I learned on a subtle level to read their emotional tones and their detailed shifts in mood and expression.
Unconsciously, I was receiving an exquisite education in the nuances of manipulation.
Therefore I believe it was inevitable that I would, later on in life, put this understanding and knowledge to work in an art called performing.
Second, the spectrum of expression that I saw exhibited at home, both positive and negative, inspired me to want to express myself. My parents were locked in their own battles of interplay so intensely that Warren and I needed to seek out our own turf for expression. Mine, at a very early age, was dancing class but escalated later into the expression of acting and writing.
So the development of my discipline in early life was in direct ratio to the emotional need I felt to express myself. My “discipline” was not difficult for me. On the contrary, it was my support system for being heard: because my parents were clearly the stars of our household, co-starring with each other, Warren and I were the supporting players constantly working for a chance to star ourselves. Considering the refined, high-level art of manipulation exhibited by my parents with one another, it was inevitable that Warren and I would go into a business where, we could confidently apply what we had learned. Show business was a profession made to order for us. And self-expression became as necessary as air.
It wasn’t that they didn’t allow us to express ourselves in the home. Not at all. It was more that the level of their expression overpowered our capacity as children to express ourselves. They were our teachers by example and inspired us by triggering our sense of survival. We were forced to step into the spotlight just to assure ourselves that we were real. And our desires to be recognized were lovingly acknowledged and supported—that is, whenever Mom and Dad took a little time off from their own starring drama.
As I said before, I believe now that all of it was karmically preordained by the four players involved. And that interested me more than anything I had explored in a long time.
“Well, I really like your book, Monkey,” said Dad. “I don’t think the metaphysical stuff will be any problem. But I do see another problem.”
“Oh?” I asked. “What is it?”
“The love affair with that British politician. He’s still married, isn’t he?”
“Yes, but he’s had several other affairs since me.”
“Well, I think the people are going to want to know about that, because after all, his wife is still around.”
“You really think that will cause an uproar?” I asked.
“Well, it’s something to think about. By the way, who is Gerry?” Daddy asked with a mischievous gleam in his eye.
“Margaret Thatcher.”
Daddy’s stomach undulated as he laughed.
We talked long into the evening about how and why I had written the book. Karmic overload came around midnight. We all went to bed. As I was falling asleep, I heard Mother say to Dad, “Ira, I wish you had heard what Shirley was talking about.” Daddy seemed astonished.
“What are you talking about, Scotch? It’s you I can’t hear because you don’t want me to.”
Leaving them to their own karma, I fell asleep, wondering if Dad had been right about the “Gerry” relationship.
The week the book was published in America, Margaret Thatcher called an election in Britain. An enterprising English journalist based in New York City read it, saw an opportunity to have some fun, and spiced up an otherwise dull election by sending his editors in London the juiciest chapters relating to the love affair I had had with a Socialist M.P. who wore a newsprint-stained trench coat and socks with holes in the heels, and had lost the tip of one finger. The story hit the front pages of every newspaper in London and the campaigning English politicians were called upon to hold up their five fingers and remove their shoes, the implication being that if they did qualify as my British lover, they’d get votes, not lose them.
Gallant M.P.’s claimed sadly they didn’t qualify, but wished they had. One said he’d chop off a finger if it would help. Another said he was happy it was only the finger missing. Another said it must have been a Tory, not a Socialist, and his name was Marble because that was clearly what he was missing.
When members of the London press tracked me down in Dallas, I countered by regretting that Fleet Street cared more about my “in-body” experience than my “out-of-body” experiences, but that they could rest assured the gentleman’s real identity would go with me to the grave—unless I decided to incarnate very soon again to help elevate a future British election.
Dad, in his old-fashioned country-boy wisdom, had hit the nail on the head more accurately than he realized.
Chapter 3
Sachi and Dennis and Sandy were busy dressing for my show when I got back from Bantam. As I walked into the living room. Simo stopped me.
“Your mom called,” he said. “I think there might be a problem. She didn’t want me to say anything to spoil your birthday, but I think you should know.”
“What kind of problem?” I asked with a twinge of fear. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. She just came from the doctor,” he answered haltingly.
I tried to stay calm. It was one of those moments you have thought about, and expect, but are never ready for.
I reached for the phone and dialed. Mother answered. “Mother?” I could hear myself pleading for good news. “What’s going on? How are you?”
“Happy birthday, darling,” she said. “Are you having a nice day? You know I sent your present to Malibu.”
“Yes, Mom. I know,” I said. “Thank you. I loved the lavender color, and the fabric of the sweater is really soft.”
I waited.
“Well, listen, darling,” she began. “I don’t want to upset you with all you have on your mind, but I just got home from the doctor’s office. He did an EKG on me. I thought it would be routine, but in the middle of the EKG my heart started to go. They did an X ray and found a clot on my lung moving toward the heart. So the doctor is putting me into the hospital to try to dissolve the clot. I don’t want to mince my words, but it’s serious.”
Actually she had never made a drama over her health and aches and pains, even while steadily, in old age, pursuing a course of broken bones. I could feel the honest concern in her voice; she wanted to prepare me for the worst.
I didn’t know what to say.
“Well, what does the doctor think?” I asked lamely.
“He just says I have to go to the hospital immediately. So I’m leaving in five minutes. I’m glad you called back before I left, so I could tell you myself what it’s all about.”
“What time did the heart trouble happen?” I asked, not really knowing why. “I mean, when did the machine register the problem?”
“Oh”—she thought a moment—“I remember I looked at my watch. It was a few minutes before four, about one and a half hours ago. Why?”
Then I realized why I had asked.
“Because, Mom, that happened at exactly the moment I was born fifty years ago,” I said.
She thought a moment. “Oh, I’m not surprised,” she said casually. “I’ve always known I’ve lived my life through you. You’ve done what I always wanted to do, so that makes sense to me.”
I felt myself gasp slightly over the implications of what she said. I didn’t want to ask if she was feeling it was, therefore, time to die, but I could sense she was considering it.
“Now listen, darling,” she said rather commandingly, “whatever will be, will be. I’ve led a wonderful life and if it’s time, it’s time. I want you to know how much I love you, and do real well tonight on the stage. You just remember I’ve been working hard on my broken shoulder so that I can come up to New Y
ork and see you before you close. And I mean to do that. So don’t you worry.”
My throat ached so painfully that I couldn’t breathe.
“Oh, my goodness,” I finally said. “Is Daddy taking you to the hospital?”
“Yes. Your daddy is going to take me.”
She gave me the hospital name, telephone number, room number, et cetera. Then she said, “Darling, don’t let this interfere with your work. If I’m supposed to go, that’s just what’ll happen. And that’ll be because it’s supposed to.”
I could apply my karmic understandings with no trouble at all in the abstract, but now I was getting the test of my beliefs personally. The impending death of the mother you love couldn’t be more specific.
Again, I found it hard to reassure her because of my own pain. I couldn’t find any appropriate words. I didn’t want to say, “Oh, it’ll be all right,” because she was beyond that kind of social inanity.
“I love you, darling,” she said, “more than I can say. And I always have. So say a little prayer for me.”
“I love you, Mother. I love you so much,” I said, my voice breaking to a hoarse squeak as I held back the tears and wished I had said I loved her so many more times than I had.
“So do a good show tonight and we’ll talk tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay,” I said.
She gently hung up and I collapsed in the chair with the receiver resting on my lap. I wasn’t even aware I hadn’t hung up.
Dancing In The Light Page 5