Once upon a time…before there was streaming video, there were DVDs; before DVDs, there was VHS; and before VHS, you actually had to go to the theater to see a movie that was “out of circulation” — in other words, virtually every movie that had ever been made. As an avid movie buff, I’d scour the LA Times every week, hoping to spot one or more of my all-time favorite classics. I was especially drawn to musicals: The Wizard of Oz, West Side Story, Singing in the Rain, The Music Man. I was also captivated by the animated Disney classics, like Sleeping Beauty, Pinocchio, Fantasia, and even Peter Pan. I loved them all.
So, in my early twenties, when I spotted the rerelease of Cinderella playing in limited engagement at local movie house, I eagerly seized the cinematic opportunity.
There I sat in the cocoon-like refuge of the theater, my buttered popcorn and Diet Coke in hand, swept away and mesmerized from the first notes of the overture. Everything was just as I remembered it as a kid. The beautiful and innocent Cinderella. The cruel and spiteful stepmother, stepsisters, and Lucifer the cat. The ever-loyal and sympathetic mice and Bruno the dog. The promise that she would be allowed to attend the Royal Ball, if only she completed all of her chores.
My heart broke for Cinderella as she wept softly in the garden, having just been tricked, humiliated, and then utterly betrayed by the evil stepmother — robbed of her only hope for happiness. (Hope can be a dangerous thing!) There would be no Ball for her. “There is nothing left to believe in. Nothing,” she sobbed.
But then, in Cinderella’s darkest moment, her Fairy Godmother makes her miraculous appearance. “Nothing, my dear? If you’d lost all your faith, I couldn’t be here. And here I am!” (I yearned, Oh, if only life worked this way!) And, with a few swift strokes of her magic wand, she transforms a pumpkin into a carriage, the mice into horses, her horse into a coachman, her dog into a doorman, and her shredded dress into that magnificent blue gown.
Cinderella, overcome with gratitude, exclaims, “Why, it’s like a dream — a wonderful dream come true!” Her Fairy Godmother’s words are kind, but sobering: “Yes, my child. But like all dreams, well, I’m afraid this can’t last forever. You’ll have only ‘til midnight. On the stroke of twelve, the spell will be broken, and everything will be as it was before.”
And here is where the story unexpectedly took on a whole new meaning to me. As I sat alone and transfixed in the darkness of that theater, I suddenly felt as if I had been struck by one of those spectacular bolts of lightning from a Disney movie. In that instant, I knew that Cinderella now has a choice: She can begrudgingly show up to the Ball and squander the evening by obsessively fretting about its inevitable demise. Or, she can appreciatively attend the ball — knowing full well that it’s not going to last — and try to immerse herself in the splendor of the experience, despite the inescapable ticking clock.
Instead of “dreams,” her Fairy Godmother might as well have been talking about life itself. That it’s not going to last forever. It can’t last forever. And we all have only until “midnight” — no matter what we want, or wish, or desire. But we also face the same choice as did Cinderella. Do we lament and mourn the inevitable conclusion, long before it’s even made its appearance? Or do we embrace being at the ball, for as long as it lasts? For us, the ball is real. And if we can accept that “real” doesn’t mean permanent, we have a chance to live “happily ever after…” (At least, up until midnight.)
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P. S. It wasn’t too long thereafter that Peter Pan made a reappearance at my local theater…and, along with it, a somewhat darker version of a similar life lesson. The fearsome Captain Hook, as you might recall, sported a hook where his hand used to be. As the story goes, Peter Pan had cut off his hand and fed it to a hungry crocodile, who then developed a taste for the Captain’s flesh.
So the only thing in the world that would send Captain Hook into an absolute PTSD panic was the prospect of a future encounter with the ravenous reptile, who pursued him relentlessly. And how did he sense when the dreaded crocodile was approaching? Well, it seems that the croc had previously swallowed an alarm clock…a ticking alarm clock. And Hook knew that when “time” caught up with him, it was going to tear him to shreds. Tick…tick…tick. Living in perpetual fear. Not exactly “happily ever after…”