Dancing In The Light

by Shirley Maclaine

The breakup left me with a deep well of loneliness. It was clear to me that the love affair had had no promise of permanence. I had somehow always known that. Maybe he had too. Perhaps he had been more aware and courageous than I by acknowledging it first. Perhaps the loneliness came from the abruptness even in the face of inevitability.

  For months afterward his “recklessness” and the loneliness it caused him also moved me to tears. I still felt almost tied to him and responsible for his pain. And what haunted me more than anything was the feeling that I hadn’t really understood what I was supposed to have learned from it all. Yes, I had finally known a Russian individual intimately with all that that implied. But personally I felt unresolved as to why we had come together in the first place.

  I understood that any love relationship between a man and a woman was a learning experience for self, but my feelings when we partea spoke to something deeper … something I couldn’t put my finger on. I knew I should let my feelings of loneliness go, but I had never been able to walk away from feelings until I understood what caused them.

  So, with these questions still in my mind, I began to realize that it didn’t really matter whether I understood Vassy. I realized that I should just accept him for the truth that was his. He needed to lead his own life, at his own pace, in his own way. Perhaps I was not respecting him. Perhaps I was proof that love and respect were not coexistent. When realized the impact of that thought, I moved out of my own confusion. I finally realized that I had only paid lip service to believing that love and respect were possible. It was now time for me to mean it. As a result, Vassy and I remained good friends and understood each other a great deal better after we parted than we did when we were together. We had more distance and the emotional involvement didn’t blind us anymore. We both recognized the love which was still intact and we both continued to realize how many lifetimes had bound us together.

  Though my relationship with Vassy ended nearly four years ago, his Bible still remains on my table in Malibu where he left it. He continues to insist that my house is its real home. He has realized his dream to make American films, and I know we will work together. McPherson was right. We both feel the need to spiritualize art, and when the time comes, it will happen.

  He is respected in Hollywood because he is a fine artist. No one cares about his politics. They respect him. Love him? Many do. For him, he still maintains that love and respect are not co-existent human emotions. Most of his scripts reflect that feeling. He still insists that real creativity is not possible without suffering; in fact, he still believes that conflict is inherent in man and is, in his truth, necessary to life. He still believes that without struggle one cannot recognize God. He still believes in his concept of evil, that it exists as a force outside of man. He also believes that God is outside of man.

  Thus, more to the point, he believes that the destiny of man is to suffer. So much does he believe it that I think he feels compelled to create it.

  But then, don’t we all seem addicted to suffering in varying degrees? From guilt, because we feel we don’t deserve to be happy, from resentment of childhood wrongs or deprivations (how long it takes to grow up), or from failures in adult life—whatever—we all feel the pull and tug of negativity and insist it comes from sources outside of ourselves.

  Yet in fact, both negativity and positivity reside within each of us. No one of us is completely in light, or completely in the dark. And most of us create our own problems. For me, since understanding myself leads to a greater expression of my positive aspects, then the journey within is the only journey worth taking. If that journey within leads to the recognition and awareness of my higher, more positive self, then I will have no more soul-searing conflict. Recognizing the God within myself, I will recognize the larger God-source, the magnificent energy which unites us all. I believe that was our lesson for one another. Neither of us perceived ourselves as the other saw us. But we did see ourselves in the other.

  Now when I reflect on the violence Vassy provoked in me, I bless him for it. He put me in touch with it so I could begin to resolve it. He provided me with the gift of understanding myself better. I hadn’t needed to talk to him, I had needed to talk to myself. His problems and conflicts were his, mine were mine. In that brief, tempestuous period of time we spent together, I saw more clearly than I ever had now much more I needed to grow. Because it was difficult, I learned. Because he confused me, I reached more clarity. And because we both realized our relationship was predestined by our own free will, we tried. We were preordained to make our music together in order to hear the discord as well as the harmony.

  Vassy remains just as “Russian.” I remain just as “American.” We know we can co-exist now, but we each have separate paths of experience to pursue. Perhaps he is right when he says that love and respect are incompatible—in his experience. However, I don’t believe he is referring to people. I believe he is referring to the conflict with the God within himself.

  I finished the account of my love affair with Vassy as Mom and Dad sat transfixed.

  “So you see?” I said, “I guess all relationships happen so we can learn more about ourselves.”

  Daddy’s pipe had gone out. And Mother’s tea was cold.

  “Well, Monkey,” said Daddy, “you do get around, don’t you?”

  “Yep, I guess so.”

  “He certainly knew how to get your goat, didn’t he?” said Mother as she shot a subtle glance at Dad.

  “Yep, he certainly did,” I agreed. “But now I’ve learned I was the problem. Not him. Whatever he did was just him—that’s all. I was the only one I could improve, and he just afforded me the opportunity.”

  “And you really both felt you had known each other before?” she asked, searching my face.

  “Yes, we really did and I’m sure one day I’ll learn more about that too. But for now, this life is the only important one.”

  Mother looked over at Daddy as though expecting a remark to do with the two of them.

  He complied with a smile. “Well,” he said, “I reckon your mother and I have probably been around the track with each other a few times too.”

  “I would say so,” I said. “Do you want to hear about one I already know about?”

  Mother straightened up in her chair as though not certain she wanted to hear what I had to offer. Then she shrugged. Daddy nodded.

  “Well,” I began, “it was McPherson who told me. He doesn’t usually reveal such information about other people, but he said it would be a good idea if I told you about this.”

  The two of them leaned toward me.

  “You had a lifetime together in Greece. It might have been the same time period as Vassy and me. You were both very respected barristers. Each of you was male in that incarnation.”

  “Oh, Shirl,” said Mother, “really?”

  “Really.”

  “Well, go on anyway,” she said.

  “Well, Mother, you were a liberal barrister and, Daddy, you were a conservative barrister.”

  “So far so good,” said Dad.

  “There was a controversy about the building of a temple of Eros. Mother was for it and you were opposed.”

  “I expect so,” said Dad.

  “You two spent a great deal of time arguing over the temple. You were so disruptive and unyielding with one another that the townspeople became upset with both of you. You were the issue to them—not the building of the temple!”

  Mother laughed. “I can believe that,” she said. “It’s impossible for your father to see my point of view.”

  “Anyway,” I continued, “on one particularly argumentative day, the two of you, each believing you represented your respective constituencies, had been shrieking at each other for hours. The townspeople near the court of law became exasperated and proceeded to hoist you both onto their shoulders. You interpreted that to mean agreement. In reality, they were yelling for you both to shut up. The more the townspeople shouted, the more each of you thought they agre
ed with your opposing points of view. Whereupon they carried you both on the shoulders of the throng to the outskirts of town, where the temple in question was to be erected. The two of you believed the decision would be made there, but instead the upset crowd threw you both over the side of the cliff.”

  I waited for a reaction. They were too stunned to talk. Mother broke the moment.

  “Sounds familiar to me,” she said finally, throwing up her hands in agreement. “I have no problem with that.”

  “So McPherson said to tell you that you’re still doing the same thing. And that this time around you’re not going to finish with each other till you stop arguing.”

  Daddy saw his opening. “You mean that we have to stop arguing before we die?”

  “Yes,” I confirmed, “that’s rieht.”

  “Well,” he concluded, having found his response, “that seems like a good enough reason to keep arguing!”

  I leaned over and pummeled him on the shoulder. “Daddy,” I said, “be serious. You’ll just have to come back and do it again if you don’t get it right this time.”

  “It’s sort of like show business, isn’t it?” he joked. “You just keep doing it till you get it right.”

  “Okay,” I said, “but where the two of you are concerned, you know there must be a lot of karmic debris for you to clean up with one another.”

  “Not as much debris as there is in my filthy room where the keys are,” Daddy said, chuckling to himself.

  “Oh, Ira,” said Mother, “maybe she has a point.”

  “Hell, Scotch,” he chided, “I’m no damn fool. I know damn good and well she has a point. I’ve always known that. The question is, what do we do about it—die to find out? I like to argue. It keeps me alive.”

  “Maybe you’ve got some Russian blood in you then,” said Mother, triumphant at her stab at humor. “Maybe I shouldn’t associate with you because you like to suffer.” Her eyes sparkled at her rejoinder.

  Daddy let her have that round.

  I got up and walked about. “You know what really interests me?” I asked them.

  “What?” asked Mother.

  “I’m interested in where I fit into the karma of the two of you. I mean, you’ve given me everything. What am I supposed to give you two now?”

  Both of them became genuinely serious.

  “You mean,” said Mother, “that you believe you chose us as parents for some reason?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that we chose you for a daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmmm,” she mused, “that would be interesting, wouldn’t it?”

  “I think it would,” I said, feeling an idea form in my mind.

  “How do you go about finding out something like that, Monkey?” asked Daddy.

  I hesitated and teased him. “Oh,” I said, my voice sounding superciliously soprano, “I have ways.”

  “I guess that will make another book, eh?” He laughed, and crossed one leg over the other, delicately removing a piece of lint from his trousers.

  “Do you guys like being in my books?” I asked.

  “Hell,” said Daddy, “how can you ignore us? If we weren’t around you’d have to invent us.”

  “Well,” I said, “I think you’ve invented yourselves.”

  “Yep,” he continued, “I guess all the world’s a stage and we’re just players on it. But your mother here should play something besides Lady Macbeth.”

  Mother glared at him. I saw them both going over that cliff. “Ira,” she said, “I’m not going to let you get my goat anymore. You go be as Russian as you want. You’re not going to intimidate me anymore.”

  He laughed and coughed to himself. Nothing fazed him.

  “Mother,” I said, “you feel kind of powerless and helpless a lot of the time, don’t you?”

  “I certainly do. But I’m not going to let him make me feel that way anymore.”

  “Okay,” I continued, “but maybe there’s a reason for that.”

  “What do you mean?” she said with a twinge of demand in her voice.

  “I mean, maybe you’re feeling powerless this time around because you abused power in some other lifetime.”

  “Oh, Shirl,” she said, “I wouldn’t know what feeling power was like.”

  “What do you mean?” Dad chimed in. “You have the power in our house. You always have. You know that. You’re the boss and you know it.”

  “Well, I should hope so,” she immediately responded, happily contradicting herself. “Otherwise you’d make a darn fool out of yourself.”

  “Okay, you two,” I said in an attempt to divert another skirmish, “you just keep on. I suppose it does give you energy. But if I happen to stumble across more about what all of us were doing together in past lifetimes, that should keep you arguing for another ten years.”

  “Well, Monkey,” said Daddy finally, “the nice thing about all or this is there’s a shit pot full of stuff none of us knows anything about for certain. All we really know is we don’t know. But you go ahead.” He hesitated a moment. Then he said, “Maybe you’ll find out what you were doing with that ex-husband of yours too.”

  It was like a dull thud on the floor. I adjusted my back into place as I did whenever I felt challenged.

  “Okay, Daddy. Maybe I will.” I didn’t feel he had gone too far. On the contrary. I was getting as deeply personal with them as a person could get. Why shouldn’t he do the same with me?

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” I said, “I’ll bet you and Steve had some relationship together too. You disliked him the moment you met him and he felt the same way about you, and it never changed. I think you were just a father in search of an excuse to dislike the man your daughter was marrying. And anyway,” I said sadly, “we had some good years between us. He’s been a big support with this spiritual search of mine. He agrees with me on a lot of it. He has his problems, Daddy, but don’t we all?”

  “Okay,” said Daddy, “we won’t talk anymore about that sonofabitch. You have a beautiful daughter, so it was worth it.”

  “That’s right, Ira,” said Mother. “Let’s drop it. Shirley has her own way of doing things. And Steve was one of them. It was something she had to do.”

  “That’s right,” I said flatly, not wanting to continue. I didn’t want to discuss it anymore. The breakup of my marriage to Steve was something I didn’t want to discuss with anyone. And hadn’t. He had been an integral and important long-lasting part of my life. I needed to sort it out and it was taking some time. It was too complicated to make sense to anyone else, even my mom and dad.

  “Well,” said Mother diplomatically, “it certainly has been wonderful seeing you. I hope Sachi had a good trip back to California. You tell her to let us now when she gets a good part.”

  Mother had a sensitive way of smoothing over other people’s difficult moments. She was remarkable at easing tensions other than her own. She also had an impeccable sense of timing. Dominick was downstairs waiting to take them to the airport.

  “Will you call Bird Brain and tell her we’re on our way?” asked Daddy.

  “Okay,” I said, “but what should I call her?”

  “Mrs. Randolf,” said Daddy. “‘Bird Brain’ is a ‘term of endearment,’ don’tcha know.”

  “We really love her,” said Mother. “I don’t know what we’d do without her.”

  “We’d get the eggs and the forks at the same time,” said Daddy.

  We adjourned from the living room and I helped them pack up their odds and ends.

  I drove with them to the airport. As I watched them walk onto the plane with their canes and proud strides, I noticed that their very presence had drawn a crowd. It wasn’t me the people were looking at. It was definitely them. They had that aura of silent command. It was clear. They were the stars of their own production.

  As I walked back to the car, I was determined to investigate what we had all been to each other before we were born.

  Wit
h my show now closed, I knew just where I could go to find out.

  Chapter 14

  New Mexico is called the land of enchantment. It’s on all the license plates.

  As I drove from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, I saw once again it wasn’t a false claim. It was sundown when I arrived. The splendor of the chiseled mountains glimmered violet-orange in the last rays of the setting sun, their jagged teeth outlining the horizon, while shadowed foothills hugged the dry desert floor. Tufts of crackling sagebrush rolled over the highway. Windblown clouds splashed the evening sky like a multiprinted backdrop from Metro Goldwyn Mayer. I loved driving alone on the highways of the Southwest. The grandeur of open space made me feel anything was possible. And it was the only terrain I had ever seen where snow blanketed the scrub brush and trees grew out of stark dry desert. It had a purifying effect on me. It was triumphant in its statement, seeming to symbolize the harmony of survival.

  I had been coming to Santa Fe for several years now. There was a very evolved spiritual community in residence here, drawn because of what the Indians termed “the high vibrational energy” of the place. Santa Fe means “holy faith.” The Indians claimed the land was enchanted. They said the Great-Spirit blessed it and whoever lived there would be blessed too.

  I drove through Santa Fe, where tourists had gathered for the annual arts festival. Chic, cozy restaurants were crammed with vacationers wearing turquoise and coral necklaces and soft Indian serapes and shawls. As I drove, the desert stars blanketed the night sky like tiny dots of crystal.

  The house I had rented was on the outskirts of the north side of town. The manager of a hotel nearby had set it up for me—milk, bread, fruit, and coffee in the refrigerator. I was going to stay for ten days and what I intended to do would require all the peace and quiet I could find.

  The Indians of New Mexico lived in harmony with the laws of nature. Therefore the Great Spirit was a part of their lives. The unseen, invisible God-truth was the basis of their reality. They weren’t threatened by its power. They were in harmony with it.

  The mountain peoples I had lived among in the Andes and the Himalayas were advanced and attuned to that same unseen reality because nothing interfered with their recognition of it. Their perceptions were keener. They seemed to be able to “see” with their hearts with more clarity. I felt that they sensed a higher dimension because they were unfettered by technology and twentieth-century pressures.