It All Ends Here

I was uncharacteristically patient. I did some deep breathing, checked on my sleeping four-and-a-half-year-old daughter curled up in the seat to my left, flipped thoughtlessly through a magazine, and bided my time until the young male reader to my right closed his book, a copy of the third installment of the Harry Potter series - "Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban."  Then, I pounced! (metaphorically of course.)

This grade school boy paused long enough from reading for me to ask what he thought about the book so far. As our plane pierced the evening skies at 30,000 feet we discussed the turbulent, creepy, mystifying world of the neophyte wizard for two hours.  During that flight home from Florida, we paused only long enough to let the other speak as we swapped opinions, favorite characters, themes, and questions about the future of Harry's world in and out of Hogwarts.  My fellow passenger (we never did exchange names) and I relayed our mutual enthusiasm for J.K. Rowling's works with what has become expected fervor.

This conversation took place twelve years ago and I savor its memory as we enter this Friday's momentous opening of the closing Potter movie, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2." How can it be?  All the books have been read and, in no time at all, the movies will have been viewed.  As the movie poster eerily claims - it all ends here. Sigh.

As my seatmate and I spoke in animated bursts about events in books one through three, I noticed a woman seated in the middle spot across the aisle. She leaned forward and stared, frequently. She stayed in my sight line. I grew concerned that we, ensconced in Potter World, may have been talking too loudly, however, the woman never shushed us.  I learned upon exiting the plane that she was this young man's mother. It turns out she was afraid that he was monopolizing my time.  Ha!

This is Jo Rowling's gift.  She wrote something so timeless, ageless, and universally appealing that a fifth-grade boy and a forty-something mother, muggle strangers on a plane, could maintain an animated, breathless, continuous conversation about three books for 120 minutes.  I mused over the unlikely pair we made.  I mentally thanked the author.

Months later I got to say 'Thanks' in person.  Jo Rowling toured the country visiting small bookstores that supported her first book when it was a fledgling entry into the increasingly competitive publishing world. This was her way of thanking them. Amazingly, one such store was in The Olde Ridge Shopping Village in nearby Chadds Ford, PA.  This was a moment.  While gracious with each one of the devoted fans who passed before her in a breezily paced greeting, the author consistently stopped the line to engage the children who stood before her.  She sincerely connected with her core readers. This is one of her finest skills. I delight in this memory because the author stayed true, even as her celebrity jettisoned.

We all have our Potter memories.  My youngest daughter's ninth birthday fell on the opening day of the "Prisoner of Azkaban" movie.  Aside from her and her friends feeling uber cool by being dismissed from school early to attend an afternoon screening, the picture that is frozen in my memory is seeing these third graders each wearing the young wizard's signature round, black eyeglass frames as they entered the theater. 

Years later, my oldest daughter and her friend straddled their mutual Potter passion with musical mania in one night. They drew lightning bolts on their foreheads and donned the signature black glasses upon leaving a John Mayer concert in Camden NJ.  On that simmering July evening, bookstores stayed open past midnight to release the seventh book "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."  I witnessed these sixteen-year-olds ardently embrace both events with equal fervor.  It was never a question of whether or not there was enough room for a musical heartthrob and a literary hero.  Both held proper sway.

A brief article in the NY Times noting the impact of this final installment of the Potter movies on the craftspeople who worked on the films struck me.  Making these vivid novels come alive in visual truth has been a stunning feat by these "backstage wizards."  Who could have seen this coming in June 1997 when "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" crept into bookstores?  No one.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/magazine/harry-potters-sorcerers-of-stagecraft.html?ref=movies

Last summer my family toured Warner Brothers Studio in Los Angeles.  It included a visit to the studio museum, the second floor of which houses movie props, costumes, and memorabilia used in the Harry Potter films.  We marveled at it all, especially the sorting hat, which unflinchingly announced which Hogwarts house we were assigned.  We giddily let the magical riptide pull us deeper into this enchanted world, the seed of which was painstakingly planted by one woman. 

We muggles are sad but grateful for the wild, wizardly ride.