The Trinity Complex

We have three children, a boy who is ten, and two older boys: 15 and 17 years old. This past weekend, after the boys worked as hard as my husband with the mulch and the wheelbarrow and the spades and the rock moving outside, I knew it was time.

After a dinner of three hamburgers each, a gallon of lemonade, and two packages of Ore-Ida curly fries, I made up my mind. They were man enough. Definitely man enough. I turn to them at the table and ask in a low voice along with a direct unwavering gaze,

You guys ever hear of a movie, Matrix?

Yeah, they say, I think so.

Know anything about it?

It's in the future or the past, or the future that looks like the past. Like Steam Punk. Robots take over and it's all grey and dirty like industrial London.

Well, it's my favorite movie of all time, and tonight, my children, we are going to see it.

I walk to the living room, I silently kneel in front of the shelf where we keep John Gray's Children Are From Heaven and William Bennett's The Book of Virtues. I reach behind and pull out the DVD of the greatest kick ass movie of all time.

I can barely talk when I think of that movie.

When I saw it for the first time, I dreamed, for days, that I was Trinity. I have made it through the toughest situations in my life by being Trinity. The leather bracelet around my wrist is stamped WWTD.

When Matrix hit the theaters in 1999, my poor husband had to endure my round house kicks to his butt and karate chops to his throat as I roamed around our house, hiding behind corners, in black wrap-around Neo sunglasses and a duster coat. If I could have squeezed my pregnant body into liquid latex back then, I would have.

If you have no idea who Trinity is, or who I'm talking about, well, I don't want to stop being your friend over it or anything, but still ... Just. Watch. Her:



The only thing wrong with that clip is that it needs to be about eight times longer.

With the DVD in my hand, I take a deep breath. There is no tip-toeing to the edge of the cliff with this movie. Seeing Matrix is a full blast all engines wide open leap and no going back.

Get ready, boys.

Yeah, whatever mom.

Silence. For the entire length of the movie. (yup) Afterward, fully satisfied, I turn to my offspring, hopeful -- looking at those faces that are so much like mine it makes me ache to share everything with them. Every time.

Well? I ask. Best damn movie or what?

And as if out of some picture perfect world where all dreams come true, my boys jump up, grab black sunglasses and my husband's rain coat and start beautifully spin kicking the air and trying for somersaults.

If there was ever any doubt before, there no longer is now: I lead a charmed life.

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