Essex Green.
The first time I saw Return of the Jedi it was at a movie theater called Essex Green. I remember standing on the lawn of our modest house in suburban Maplewood, New Jersey when my father announced we were all going to the movies. I remember sitting close to the screen, looking up at giants, taking in the vivid greenery of Endor. I remember the moment Luke Skywalker declared himself a Jedi, which sparked a life-long love of Star Wars.
I would love to paint you a picture of the rest of the day, how I talked about the movie afterwards, who else was there (my whole family, probably, but is that right?), if we went out to eat afterwards or before, but it’s simply not available to me. I was seven years old. I’m writing this over forty years later. There are things I’ve forgotten. I have a history, because here I am, where would I be without it, but it’s fractured, not whole.
I’ve been thinking a lot about memory lately. I don’t know if it’s aging, or the way time was distorted during the pandemic, but I find myself forgetting things, needing to be reminded of them, more than I have in the past. It’s made me feel especially mortal, and especially aware of what remains and what doesn’t, noticing what my mind chooses to keep, and what it lets go.
Return of the Jedi existed before most of my memories were made. I saw Return of the Jedi before my parents split up, my father moved out, and then moved further and further away. I saw it before my mother moved us from suburban New Jersey to rural Pennsylvania so she could teach high school English, before she got remarried, before I had step-siblings, half-brothers, before my brother Michael died. I saw it before I knew about theater, before I’d seen a play, before I’d been kissed (except for Katie Gamble, in kindergarten, while we were playing checkers). It was there before I’d fallen in love, and then fallen in love again, and then again, and then again. Before I got lost. Before I got married.
I saw it before I had ever played Nintendo. It was before I’d learned to like coffee, to drink beer, before I’d been outside the United States, before I’d lost a grandparent, before my uncle died, before I’d met one of my grandfathers, who I didn’t meet until I was twenty-one.
Return of the Jedi was a part of my life before I could legally work. It was there before I sold Uncle Alligator Meals at Rax Roast Beef, or got fired from One-Hour Motophoto for being late, or was seasonally employed at a Barnes & Noble in Boston. I saw it before I worked that one summer at a landfill (I was fired there too), or as an assistant for a life settlement company, or was a part-time HR Assistant at Getty Images (also fired) where I met Pam, or was hired by the ACLU, where I’ve worked for more than a decade.
In 1983, when I first met Ewoks and Jabba the Hutt, I had never written a play (the first one, technically, I wrote in the 5th grade as an ‘opera’ for our teacher, Mr. Shitelman), had never been to college, never auditioned, never had my work rejected, never had that one phone call where you aren’t rejected and it feels like the world is saying keep going, never had that rejection where it feels like the world is saying stop.
Between Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace, I grew up. When I saw Return of the Jedi I was barely in grade school, attending Marshall School (where Lauryn Hill went at the same time, I know, I know, I’m cool), and it wouldn’t be until I was 23 that I saw a fourth Star Wars movie. From grade school to just out of college, that’s how much life came between them.
As I look back on that day, I remember what Luke said, I remember my Dad, I remember the feeling, the fear of the Emperor, the delight at the battle in space. But that’s all I remember. I don’t remember, really, living my seventh year. I couldn’t tell you what I did on January 3rd of 1983, or March 10th, or April 7th. Those days are a part of me, they were lived, but also, they aren’t, they’re gone.
Maybe that’s why we love art, why we love movies, books, and paintings. They last. They’re cave paintings. As we change, they remain the same, just as they were when we first encountered them. Return of the Jedi is still the movie I watched when I was seven (mostly). Even if I can’t remember the day itself anymore, even if I can’t remember most of my days, I’ll remember the first time I heard, “I am a Jedi, like my father before me.” I have it memorized. Unlike most of the pieces of my life, I know Episode VI by heart. (What a phrase, by heart.)
Seeing Return of the Jedi for the first time was a moment that stayed, that I got to keep. I appreciate that more than ever, as so many moments, through no fault of their own, have moved to a locked compartment somewhere in the train of mind. As so many days I’ve lived were a long time ago, and far, far away.
I’m grateful for those keepsakes, those stories, that were a part of me before I lived my life, which I hope so far as been well-lived. And I’m grateful now, as so much eludes me, for those proper nouns that serve as markers and maps of my memories, those places that give shape to my real story, even in memorializing a fictional one.
Like Essex Green.
That is beautifully put.
(Also, I can't believe that sorting expired prescription meds in a warehouse with the lady who always talked about her Civil War ghost didn't make the cut in the list of bad jobs. But, there have been so many.)
I tell people that my favorite movie is the Star Wars saga, but my personal favorite is Return of the Jedi. It is the movie of my life. I have watched it more than anything else. I was born in 1984, after the film was in theaters (of course, I saw the special edition in 1997). I don't remember the first time I saw it. It was probably on the video cassette that my parents had taped it from HBO. I watched that tape every weekday when I was four until I started school. II consider Luke's line that you quote to be the most triumphant line of cinema history. Thank you for writing this article.