Rock Me Amadeus

I had to drag them to a theater showing of Amadeus. They argued with me about the movie, about the trip to Omaha, about classical music, about spending the day with their family, about how they were sure they would be bored.

I didn't even tell them that the movie was 3 hours long.

They weren't bored for a second. They all three loved it. My teen with her shining eyes talking about the costumes and sets, my middle daughter with her scheming look wanting to talk about how Salieri killed Mozart, and my big, strapping son, taller than his older sister, collapsed on a bench in the hall outside the theater crying for Mozart.

"It's ok, Frank," I assured him.

"He gets it from you," Anna and Mary said confidently. They smiled at my own wet cheeks and eyes. "Why did he just get thrown in a hole with other people?" Frank wailed. And I found myself talking with him about poverty and death while we sat on the bench at the theater.

"Mozart just got a few coins for The Magic Flute!" Mary crowed. "If I were him, I would have sold it for a lot more," Mary said confidently. Anna noted, "You know, I don't think the Vaudeville would have had such fancy costumes. I don't think that was realistic." Frank moaned in my arms.

I revisited a familiar theme for me - the curiosity of personality. I study my children and wonder why they react the way they do and wonder about the experience of seeing this movie together and wonder how they will each remember it and how it will affect them. Frank has a deep intuitive approach to the world that I recognize in myself. Does it come from me genetically or just from being around me? The girls have likewise experienced the world with me, but their observations are slightly different than mine.

Next weekend I am attending a writing workshop on Teaching Social Justice Through Writing. I am not a writing teacher, but I am very curious at the idea that we can somehow teach social justice through writing. I would argue that you can't teach the actual sense of social justice. An awareness of social justice, perhaps, but not social justice itself. I am curious to attend the session, though, and I thought about it as I held my son who reacts to humanity in the same way that I do - the heightened sense of justice that my mother saw in me early on. Where did it come from?

"It's ok, Frank," I assured him. "It's just a movie."

"I know. But he really did die poor and get thrown in the ground, didn't he?"

I nodded and began to cry again. I realized that Frank was experiencing a very complex emotional onslaught. He was reacting to a fictional story realizing that it depicted reality, at least to some extent, and realizing the effect of death and poverty. It is overwhelming. I know the feeling. I am the right person and the wrong person to comfort him. We sat in the lobby on a bench and cried as people filed out of the movie talking about music, or like Anna, talking about the costumes and the sets.

Mary slipped her arm around me on the walk to the car. "So do you think that Salieri poisoned him with real poison or just with his mind?" Her twinkly eyes shone as she tried to unravel the conspiracy.

"What do you think?" I asked.

We drove to dinner talking about the movie and continued the conversation through the evening. After Frank and I calmed down, we were able to talk about conspiracy and God and sets and costumes and food.

I am glad I dragged them to the movie in the first place. I knew they would love it. :-)