Somewhere Out There

Somewhere Out There

I’m a little bit sheepish in admitting that my favorite iPhone Playlist has some pretty sappy songs on it. I’m not one of these people who has spent a lot of time developing playlists for every occasion or mood. I have perhaps ten in total and there is an embarrassing amount of overlap among them. The one entitled Upbeat has the sappiest of the sappy songs. In fact it has a song from an animated movie that may be the most successful non-Disney animated movie of its age (it was released in 1986, after The Color Purple but before The Empire of the Sun). It was released by Universal Pictures and the great Steven Spielberg was the Executive Producer. It’s called An American Tale and its the story of a little immigrant mouse family that gets separated from one another on arrival in the United States. Little Fievel is the cartoon star and on one lonely night he looks up into the vast universe and Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram sing the expression of what he is feeling. I find it one of the most touching songs I know. It literally makes my soul shudder if such is possible.

I have often said that in this life we are ultimately all alone. As my favorite painting is titled Solo en la Inmensidad (Alone in the Vastness), I have always taken that as a sign that we must all take care of ourselves and we are all responsible for the others in our lives, but they are not responsible for us. I am not sure where I got that sense and I am far from sure that it is either true or that I truly believe it. It sounds right, but it may not be right. This song makes me feel like I am wrong. There is salvation in the night sky, “beneath the pale moonlight, someone’s thinking of me and loving me tonight.” Is there a warmer and more reassuring thought in life than that? I think not. And “we’ll find one another in that big somewhere out there.” People need one another and they need to feel that others care about them. That cannot be better expressed than when the song reassures us that “it helps to think we’re sleeping underneath the same big sky.” The universe may be a big place, but it is not so big that we are alone and without our humanity. That is one of the most comforting thoughts I can imagine and this little song about a lost little mouse captures it perfectly. And for it to happen it requires love to see us through, and then we can be together where dreams come true.

Tonight I happened upon a great little movie with its own version of Fievel. The movie stars Ben Kingsley and Joe Mantegna and its about a young chess prodigy called Josh Waitzkin. The movie is called Searching for Bobby Fischer and it is less about chess and more about the value of empathy. This year’s hit Netflix series called Queen’s Gambit is another chess prodigy story, except that time about a young woman, not a seven year old boy like Josh. To be honest, I find the movie beats the series hands down. They are both great stories about brilliant young people that have a talent that sets them apart. But what really sets Josh apart is that he feels other people’s pain and would rather help them avoid it than win at all costs. That is a rare and noteworthy attribute. The world needs empathy more than it needs another chess champion. I like the vehicle of chess for that important lesson because it helps create the necessary perspective to keep humanity and grace at the top of the important things. If it were a more mundane balancing act between, say, grace and feeding the family, it would be a harder prioritization to accept without question. But chess, while being a respected pursuit will never be anything more than a symbolic and cerebral game that may take on added importance when the world turns to some world-class duel like Fischer v. Spassky.

When we were in Iceland a few years ago we learned about an interesting story. It was that the elusive Bobby Fischer, who went into hiding after his first match with Spassky (so much so that he avoided his next championship challenge and thereby lost his crown in the process) and then again after his 1992 20th Anniversary unsanctioned rematch (which he also won), lived secretly for years in Iceland. As it turns out, by holding the match in Yugoslavia under the yellow flag of sanctions by the United States Government (wait, was that an unsanctioned breach of sanctions?), he gave the U.S. grounds for revocation of his passport. This all caused him to petition the Icelandic government for dispensation. They awarded him a special and permanent residency permit. Bobby Fischer lived out his days in Iceland and died and was buried there in 2008. I don’t suggest saying anything bad about Fischer while you are in Iceland, as they hold him in very high regard as one of the few celebrities to declare his preference for living in the remote little island country.

The world is made up of all types of people with all types of ambitions. You can be a Boris Spassky and be trained to think only of chess. Or you can be a Bobby Fischer and think about chess in intense and sporadic spurts. But you can also choose to be more like Josh Waitzkin and maintain your perspective by putting people ahead of random and ultimately unimportant goals and standards. The only standard worth upholding in the final analysis is the care you show for your fellow man. Josh shows us the value of taking a draw instead of a win in order to salvage an opponent’s psyche.

Just remember that even though Fievel knows how very far apart they are, it helps to think they might be wishing on the same bright star. Tonight the planets are truly in alignment for us. The Great Conjunction is happening between now and the Winter Solstice of December 21st. For the most meaningful moment in over 400 years, Saturn and Jupiter are in alignment in the Southwestern sky. That is my sky here in Southern California. It is suspected that this is the same phenomenon that created the Christmas Star that guided the Magi to travel from the East to Bethlehem 2020 years ago.

So, this year as we all struggle with our separation from our loved ones during the holiday, let’s follow the advice of Fievel and the Three Kings and remember that somewhere out there, beneath the pale moonlight, someone’s thinking of you and loving you tonight.