Greetings Resilient Friends,
Last week I was thinking about my acceptance of life. I realized my biggest roadblocks to acceptance are my expectations. I expect things to be as I think they should, and then those expectations become barriers to my acceptance.
I want life to be a certain way, and when it’s not that way, I don’t accept it. I make the situation, or person wrong. And it’s hard to be grateful when things don’t go the way we think they should ;)
But, it’s my thinking and expectations that are wrong.
Life and people will be as they are… not what or whom I expect them to be.
Even when life doesn’t go as we want… many times it can lead to an even better outcome than we could have imagined. Realizing this, reminded me of a wonder filled story.
I lived in North Hollywood, California during the late 70’s. Yes, that’s right…over 50 years ago ;) One of my neighbors was Bessie. She was in her 70’s at the time and had been in The Ziegfeld Follies back in the 30’s. Oh my, the risqué stories she told us ;)
My other neighbor, Leeann, was a makeup artist at Universal Studios. She worked on the TV series The Incredible Hulk with Bill Bixby as David Banner and Lou Ferrigno as the Hulk. Do you remember?
Leeann was in her late 20’s like me, and her job was to be at Universal Studios every morning at 3am to paint Lou Ferrigno’s body green, which took about 3 hours. And then she would spend all day on the set while they filmed, in case Lou needed a touch up.
Living on the Hollywood fringe, I was star struck. Leeann said, “Hey, you know working in Hollywood is really boring, just hanging out on the set all day, following the script, just in case they need you”.
Yeah right, I thought…how could working at Universal Studios ever be boring? So, Leeann said she would leave me a day pass at the Universal gate, and I could come on the lot. We’d have lunch at the commissary, and then I could hang with her on the set, and maybe get to help her touch up Lou’s green body :)
Wowza…I was so excited. I was sure just being on the lot, I would be discovered, and be the next big Hollywood darling ;)
When I got to the entrance gate, my pass was there from Leeann. The guard handed me the pass, a note from Leeann, and waved me through. No cell phones back then, so I pulled over to read her note. “So sorry, she said, we are filming on location in Malibu today, so I’m not here. Have lunch in the commissary, and look around all you like.”
Oh no…I thought…I’m sooooo disappointed. I wanted to meet the Hulk, and maybe touch up his paint;)… and get discovered! My expectations for the day had be triple shattered :(
Since in my real life I was a traveling sales rep, I had lots of experience wasting time and eating alone. I found the nearest parking lot, and walked into the commissary. It was a huge room of tables, with three cafeteria lines…regular food, kosher food, and vegetarian food….I got in the regular food line…it was the shortest.
At the end of the line, balancing my tray of food, I stood and looked out at the bizarre sight of probably 500 people crowded around tables talking, laughing, and eating. Some were in costumes like aliens, cowboys, glamour girls, policemen, 1950’s looking detectives, cheerleaders, scuba divers, and whatever else you could imagine. All eating together… a scuba diver, with an alien, and a soldier, and a dance hall girl…I think it was Miss Kitty from Gunsmoke.
There were also many executive looking men and their secretaries mixed in that looked more like mob bosses with their molls to me. Probably making big illicit movie deals over lunch, I speculated.
I was gobsmacked by all these characters eating lunch. I held up the cafeteria line standing there in disbelief instead of looking for an empty seat. Finally, off to my left a tall, well dressed older man around 70, stood up, waved to me to come sit with them. I made my way through the tables, almost spilling my soup on a table of aliens. When I finally made it through the maze, the tall lanky man pulled out the remaining chair, and said with a friendly drawl…“Sit on down here with us honey, it’s really crowded today with all these aliens and mobsters”.
I got settled in my seat, and looked at the gentleman to say thank you for your kind invitation.
Omg…It was Jimmy Stewart! And he was sitting with Alfred Hitchcock!
I’m usually not at a loss for words…but…geez…!!
Jimmy and Al were old friends. They were having lunch, reminiscing about their long working friendship. Hitchcock had directed Stewart in four movies….Rope in’48 ( the year I was born), Rear Window in ’54, The man Who New Too Much in ’56, and Vertigo in ’58.
They were such different men. Stewart was smart and funny, self deprecating, and sort of corny. Hitchcock was somber, thoughtful, sarcastic, and a man of few words. Anyway, those were my impressions.
I told them how disappointed I was to miss visiting my friend at Universal, and not getting to meet the Hulk. Jimmy laughed and said even he had not met the Hulk!
Hitch (that’s what he told me to call him) said looking at me curiously, “Hmmm…how old are you?” Twenty seven, I replied. He laughed, but I didn’t know why….because in our twenties we know everything, right?
Then Hitch said, “Do you know that expectations are like body hair? Every body’s got some”. What the heck was he talking about? I thought to myself…I shave my legs ;)
Hitch continued…“Think how boring life would be if you knew every morning exactly what was going to happen that day. Like getting the day’s script each morning. That’s why people like my movies…the suspense…the thrill of not knowing what will happen next. Your friend painting the Hulk green every day, knows the entire script, scene by scene…no surprises.”
“How do you think I got so rich?,” Hitch asked. “By my movies scaring the pants off people with the unexpected. Just like Life scaring the pants off people in the real world.”
And then he continued…“People pay to see my movies to be disillusioned, confused, shocked, and scared. But real life gives it to us for free. It’s a crazy world. Me… I’m so afraid of getting a parking ticket, I’m rich enough now to have a man drive me everywhere in my big green Lincoln. I’m no different, he grinned. I just figured out how to make money from it.”
I said I was thinking about The Birds, and how scared I was in the theater as all those birds started showing up!
Hitch smiled at me as they got up to leave, “Have a good life sweet girl, and remember the day you didn’t get to touch up the paint on the Hulk.
They both kissed my hand and disappeared into the crowd of aliens leaving the commissary.
I sat there alone with my thoughts for awhile, and then…
I felt so grateful. ❤️
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We are all in this together,
Susan and Mike |
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