Okay, so. I watched it.

And, oh my God, it was everything everyone had said it would be, and more. From the opening slanting words of the back story through to the Jawas and the lightsaber (grateful thanks, Rob, for alerting me to the correct spelling of this seminal term) battle between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi, I sat, entranced, glued to the screen. As my synapses adjusted and my entire psyche realigned to make room for this new sacred text, I thought I might explode from happiness and wonder. Truly, I felt part of the Force.

Okay, so, not so much.

It was fine. It was fun. It was somewhat gratifying to finally sit down and watch the whole thing from start to finish and make sense of the finer points of the plot (aided by the closed captioning — my solution to the mumbling actors — and Rowan, who said helpful things throughout, like, “And now Obi-Wan Kenobi is going to die” — oh, sorry, spoiler alert). That Luke is pretty cute, in a mullety sort of way.

I’m wondering if I would’ve felt more uplifted had the DVD player not decided to stop playing during the final few minutes of the film, as Luke is stripping off his mask and trusting his instincts and the Force in order to make the precise hit he needs to destroy the Death Star. I’m guessing nothing too important happened right then, though, so I’m probably okay.

But all this talk about Star Wars and such has got me wondering just what I was doing in 1978 rather than twisting my hair into Princess Leia buns. What movie was I obsessing about? This one:

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my sacred text of 1978: the Walt Disney production of Child of Glass. Wherein 13-year-old Alexander Armsworth and his family move to a spooky old grand antebellum Southern mansion and he and his nerdy friend Blossom encounter the ghost of the beautiful little girl Inez Dumaine (jealous much, Blossom?), who initially appears to him as a throbbing blue light (not unlike a lightsaber, I suppose, but not really). Inez, who has been murdered by her riverboat pirate uncle, cannot rest in peace until Alexander and Blossom solve the riddle of her death and find and reunite her with the “child of glass.” Being a ghost and therefore somewhat cryptic, Inez gives Alexander only the following poetic clue to help him out:

Sleeping lies the murdered lass

Vainly cries the child of glass

When the two shall be as one

The Spirit’s journey will be done.

Oh my God people this movie freaked me out. FREAKED ME OUT. Every Sunday evening, my cousins Michael and Nancy (Nancy, who taught me how to knit and to crochet, and who worked at the Children’s Bookstore in Toronto and brought us wonderful books, and whose weekly visits are the reason I am so devoted to our weekly brunches with Rowan and Isaac’s godmothers, Judy and Jill) came over for deli and we all watched the Disney Sunday Movie together. Because rituals are good. I remember watching Child of Glass with them, remember how utterly entranced I was by Inez, and how terrified. The best part is when Inez comes alive — every ghost, apparently, has a once-in-a-deathtime chance to turn human again — in order to dance with Alexander during the cotillion his parents throw at the Southern mansion. The scariest is when she changes into a menacing spirit in order to scare off the drunken handyman who tries to murder Alexander by setting the Armsworth barn on fire. Because I was seven years old, much of the plot sailed right over my head, but I remember deciding that the only way that I would get through the rest of my life was to cultivate an imaginary friendship with the ghost of Inez Dumaine, to get her on my side so that she would protect me as opposed to, say, stalking me in her scary spirit form and tormenting me for the rest of my days. I imagined myself as a ghost and how and when I might choose to come back as human: with whom would I dance? For years, I used to lie awake at night, just knowing that the ghost of Inez was floating through my house and coming to rest under my bed. We would chat, and I would quell my nerves by telling myself that I was friends with this ghost, that she had my back. It almost worked.

Several years ago, I spent a small fortune on eBay to acquire a VHS copy of Child of Glass, and I watched the whole thing, shaking. Sure, the plot was hokey as the special effects, the dialogue was stilted and the characters two-dimensional (in addition to the drunken handyman, there is Blossom’s grandmother, the “mystical old hag” — according to the copy on the video case — who gazes into her crystal ball and tells Alexander “Strange forces are at work here… Listen to the call of the spirits… they’ll come to you soon”), but watching that movie was like watching a home video of long-lost relatives I’d met once and loved and wondered about and never seen again. Watching it was like coming home.

So, people, I get why those of you who are obsessed with Star Wars are obsessed with it. I can’t argue that my late-70s flick of choice is better or worse. Just mine.

What was yours?

You know what I have a problem with? Cool people who insist that they are — or that they once were — nerds. Because, you know? Even though it’s cool to call yourself a nerd these days, nerds, by definition, aren’t actually cool. And the people who willingly admit to being nerds actually wouldn’t admit it if they really were nerds, because then, well … there is a difference. If you are actually a nerd, you don’t tend to want to announce it publicly. You tend to quietly go about your nerdy little life, playing along like you’re mostly cool and hoping people won’t notice that you really like trilobites or enjoy reading the Chicago Manual of Style.

All of which is by explaining why, until now, I have not mentioned on this website that I have never seen Star Wars.

Because, I’m sorry, but every North American child of my generation has seen Star Wars. And The Empire Strikes Back. And that other one, the return of the whatevers. And then those other three with that guy Jar-Jar and the princess played by that badass Natalie Portman.

Except me. And it’s not like I was locked inside an iron lung or something between 1979 and 1984 or so. I chose not to see them. Because they did not interest me. I vividly remember my brother and my two male cousins running hyperactively through a movie theatre parking lot as though their lives depended on seeing that movie and thinking, “Why would I bother to see that movie? I don’t care about stars and wars and spaceships.” Because I didn’t. Which put me, apparently, into a tiny minority of my friends, into a class of true nerddom. At the time, I thought it was a gender thing: it was a boy movie and I was decidedly not a boy. Except that all the girls I know saw the movie too, and loved it.

I probably still wouldn’t care, except for the fact that now Rowan, and by extension, Isaac, all of a sudden care. Passionately. Rob, who is a walking Star Wars codex (and not, however, despite his protestations otherwise, a nerd) put it on for them one day, and now, it’s all about the light sabres. Rowan skulks into rooms, wielding the sabre he has managed to procure, breathing heavily. “Hi, Darth,” I say, and he points that thing at me and says, “Guards,” or “Mom! I’m not Darth Vader, I’m Luke!” And I say, “Oh, sorry. Luke.” A few nights ago, he wrapped a towel around his shoulders and said, “I look a bit like Darth Vader in this, don’t I?” This morning, I walked in on him and Isaac on the sun porch, Rowan with the sabre, Isaac making do with a broom. “Come with me to the dark side, and together we will rule the planet,” Rowan was saying. To which Isaac replied, “Okay.”

At the risk of making a massive understatement, there’s obviously something compelling about these movies, something that captivates children and grown-ups alike, over the span of generations. Rachel, getting all lit-critty on me, calls them “sacred texts.” She may be right.

So what is so strange about me that I don’t get them? Over the years, I’ve caught glimpses of each movie, and they don’t draw me in. Other people see magic, and I see rinky-dink special effects and jerky monsters and slightly forced dialogue. The actors mumble and I can’t follow the plot. So I don’t.

On the other hand, it’s not like I’ve ever given the George Lucas oeuvre an enthusiastic chance.

Until now, that is.

People, I’m going to watch Star Wars. With my sons. I am going to watch the first three movies in their entirety, although I make no promises, yet, about the prequels. I’m going to try to watch them through the eyes of my children, to set aside my own biases (and, Rob, sarcastic comments), and see if it’s possible, at this late stage, for a lifelong holdout to convert to the church of Jedi. I’ll keep you posted on this experiment.

May the force be with— oh, fuck off.

Here is Rowan’s artistic interpretation of his recent camping trip:

In the middle, you will observe a tent with three smiling stick figures inside: the two little ones are Rowan and Isaac, and the bigger one, natch, is Rachel. Off to the right, in his own little tent, is Rob-the-donor. If you look closely, you can just make out what he’s thinking:

At the top is the requisite kindergarten-grade sun. To the right is Lake Superior, clear and warm, shallow for miles in under the August sky.

But, you’re thinking to yourself, someone is missing. Susan, where are you?

Guess.

Maybe you have been eaten by a bear? Perhaps you are visiting the Portapotty? Trying to patch the slow leak in the air mattress?

No, no, and no.

Oh.

Maybe, then, you are soaking commando in a hot tub underneath the stars before taking yourself off for ice cream and to see a late showing of The Kids Are All Right — which did, after all, come to Thunder Bay! Later, maybe you slept in, and then woke up to do yoga before settling in for a morning of quietly reading the manuscript of your novel-in-progress. After which, maybe you went for a long walk, picked some raspberries, returned home to finish your readthrough, and then went out for a long-overdue dinner with a friend. Maybe you ate slow-cooked ribs and gumbo and jambalaya. Maybe you read your girl friend’s copy of the third Stieg Larsson novel in bed and then slept, uninterrupted by partiers in the next campground over or a shrieking baby in the next tent or your own three-year-old son, who never quite settled and hopped from Thermarest to Thermarest every two hours through the night. Maybe you woke up to do more yoga and plot out the events of your novel on a spreadsheet before making gazpacho and pasta with tomatoes, cucumbers, chard, and parsley from your very own garden, ready for your sunsoaked family when they returned after their 48 hours away from you. Maybe you all watched The Empire Strikes Back together when they got home.

Bingo.

Maybe you missed them.

Maybe.

Rachel and I watched a movie, Children of Men, a couple of nights ago. It’s a post-apocalyptic, dystopian (is that redundant?) flick set about 20 years into the future. In that world, for reasons no one can fathom, no child has been born for the past 18 years. Until, that is, we happen across Ki, a young woman who is miraculously pregnant. Clive Owen’s character, Theo, is charged with her safety — and, eventually, that of her newborn daughter (whom, of course, he delivers) — against the hordes of evil plotters out to claim Mary and Jesus Ki and baby for their nefarious purposes.

So, the baby is born. The baby is sheltered from gunfire and car crashes and collapsing buildings and the entire British army. Mom and baby finally escape to the forces of good when Theo secures a dinky lifeboat and rows them out to sea to meet some mythical organization called The Human Project. This all takes up about the last 30 minutes of the movie.

During pretty much that entire 30 minutes, the newborn baby cries. Cries in that mewly, urgent, newborn way that newborns do when they are, oh, hungry. She cries and cries and cries, and Ki, the mom, never, ever feeds her. When they’re in the rowboat, finally safe, when I’m thinking I can finally relax, Theo suggests to Ki that she might want to pat the baby’s back.

I don’t know about the experience of non-breastfeeding folks watching the movie, but for me this was torture. There’s no way to put this delicately: my nipples were going crazy. “Feed her,” I hissed at the screen several times: “Feed her.” Finally I told Rachel, “I can’t stand it any more. If she doesn’t feed that baby soon, I’m going to rip it out of the screen and do it for her.”

Were there no mothers on the film crew that day? Did it occur to anybody in the continuity department that the entire human race depended on this baby’s survival? Have I inadvertently stumbled across a new school of film criticism?