It’s hard to remember specifics as you grow older. The broad strokes are still easily recalled, but the fine details get lost somewhere in time.
I would guess it was the fall of 1981 or 1982 when I first watched it. A local television station would show “The Saturday Matinee” and although my mind recalls it as a lovely summer day, I know that I would’ve been outside on such a day at that age.
So, it must’ve been fall and it was likely storming. All of my favorite cartoons; Looney Tunes, The Smurfs, M.A.S.K., and The Transformers, would’ve finished their morning runs and I was left at the mercy of that Saturday matinee.
The movie probably wouldn’t have held my attention for it was slow, and romantic, and more or less a period piece, but Superman had the leading role and he was everything to me at the time.
So, I sat glued to the television that Saturday afternoon and watched Christopher Reeve travel back in time, using only the power of his mind, to meet a woman he had only seen in a photograph (but not really though) and fall so deeply and completely in love with her that he defied the rules of space and time to be with her.
The movie didn’t draw much attention when it premiered and it certainly didn’t develop the following it has now until many years later, but on that day when I was maybe 8 years old, it hit me hard.
I suppose all of my ideals about falling in love and romantic relationships were developed while I watched it. Truthfully, it’s probably the real reason I have so much trouble falling in love now. Being the perfect person for someone you don’t know is a concept I still try to achieve every time I fall for a face.
Superman (Richard) sees a photograph of a woman on a wall and is so utterly captivated by her that he wills himself to travel through time to meet her. The photograph of the woman, taken near the turn of the century, is beautiful, but when he sees her in person she is so much more.
Elise, played by Jane Seymour (previously a Bond Girl and later Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman) was not only the most stunning person Richard had ever seen, but also the classiest, most elegant, poised, and gorgeous woman my young eyes had seen.
At that time it was difficult to access movies whenever you wanted to watch them, so I would only see it now and again when it was played on television. But, a few years later I was working at a video store and had it there whenever I wanted to watch it.
At 17 or 18 years old, when my friends weren’t around, I had a Gold Master CD of the soundtrack (I still have it, but I don’t have a CD player) and I’d listen to it over and over again.
The movie became a refuge for my saddened heart. When I was infatuated with someone and it wasn’t reciprocated, I’d watch the movie. When I was feeling lonely and hopeless, I’d watch the movie. As of now, it would be safe to say that I’ve watched it around 100 times. It’s a safe place for me when I need to escape. So much so that I have a tattoo representing it on my leg.
I remember taking a family vacation, perhaps (when my grandmother passed away while I was in High School) to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and one of the many stops my Step-dad insisted upon was Mackinac Island. His family was from the UP and that area was like home to him.
It was there that I learned the movie I admired so much had been filmed on the island. A gorgeous place filled with brightly colored Victorian houses on bluffs, the smell of fudge, horse drawn carriages, and SO many bicycles.
The magic of the island was more magical than the movie itself. The island would also become a center point of my life. I was married there once (in the gardens of the Grand Hotel), I’ve taken every woman I’ve ever truly loved there (and a few friends), and helped my Step-dad make one of the best memories of his life at sunset on a sail boat.
And then, one evening a couple of years ago, I was sitting on a beach…at sunset…on the Colorado River deep within the Grand Canyon, when I over heard a 91 year old man state that he had one thing left on his bucket list. One more thing he wished he could do before it was too late. And that thing was to travel to Mackinac Island.
We immediately bonded over the island and our love of the movie, Somewhere In Time.
He wanted to visit Mackinac because of the movie a lover had introduced him to and like me (although at a much later age) he became inthralled with it.
We became buddies on the remaining days drifting down that river…well, there were moments we weren’t drifting but more like plunging toward oblivion, and decided we would meet at Mackinac Island to fulfill his dream.
Unfortunately, shortly after the rafting trip he got sick and has been unable to travel at all, so the Mackinac trip we wanted to take never happened.
I think about my life sometimes and the way in which things transpire. Before the rafting trip that movie and the island interconnected so many events for me.
Had a hiking trip in Peru not been cancelled I would’ve missed the opportunity to meet that 91 year old man, Bill. And I would’ve missed yet another connection to that place and that movie.
And then recently another trip was cancelled (a rafting trip as it turns out) and I was able to see Bill again.
I knew upon planning the trip to see him I wanted to do something special for him regarding Mackinac or Somewhere In Time.
Buying fudge from the island, or a painting of one of the houses, or a Grand Hotel Music box (which plays the theme from the movie) just wouldn’t be enough.
So, like Richard (Christopher Reeve…a.k.a., Superman) I reached out into the universe and asked Jane Seymour to join me in visiting Bill at his home.
It seemed as unlikely as Richard traveling back in time to meet a woman from a photograph, but…it happened!!!
Jane Seymour personally called me and we later met Bill at his home. We chatted for hours, sometimes intimately, about her life, her loves, her hopes, and her dreams…not for her, but for humanity.
She was more beautiful, more elegant, and more classy, than my 8 year old self believed her to be, and by far one of the kindest, most thoughtful, and engaging people I’ve ever met. An experience that 8 year old boy sitting in front of a television never would have believed was possible.
As I sit here on my porch, sipping a Chardonnay at sunset, recalling my life and it’s connection to a movie, a place, and the many people they have brought to me and I to them, I can’t help but think how strangely beautiful our connections really are.
I dedicate this memory to my friend William (Bill) Mooz and the undeniably incredible Jane Seymour. Thank you both for enriching my life ❤️
