‘Allo.
Between this post and all the Instagram shares celebrating the 40th anniversary of Labyrinth’s release date-June 27, 1986- you might think I’m now running a Labyrinth fan account.

And maybe I am.

But maybe… that’s because that’s what this has always been.

I was 12 when Labyrinth came out. I remember the commercials - Jennifer Connelly’s long dark hair (goals!), Davie Bowie running along a ledge and defying gravity. Muppets.

But I didn’t see it in theaters. I was well into my John Hughes phase at this point, and probably thought myself well beyond Jim Henson’s reach. I remember my friend Lisa telling me that she liked the movie, but she had a little sister. It clearly wasn’t a movie for me.

Oh, and of course I knew who David Bowie was. I recognized him from when MTV would play the long version of “Blue Jean” (to make up time before playing “Thriller,” which, of course, was the real video I was waiting for.)

It wasn’t until months (possibly a year?) later when my parents rented Labyrinth from the video store that it came onto my radar. I came home from wherever I’d been (the 80s) and they were watching the movie. They told me I’d like it, but that it was almost over, so that if I didn’t want the movie spoiled, I shouldn’t watch it. I remember getting a snack and hearing from the family room shouts of “Toby? Toby!” and a brooding synthesizer foretelling (bababaBAH) certain death. (ooooh).

I was intrigued.

I woke early the next morning and watched it before my parents had to return the movie to the video rental store.

Well.

Despite knowing who David Bowie was, that was the day I met David Bowie (and no, not because of the leggings and codpiece). At some point I will unearth and post the piece I wrote in 2016 after his passing (Suffice it to say, David Bowie and Cyndi Lauper are the patron saints of Joanna’s weird girl upbringing). Labyrinth was my gateway to David Bowie, and I have never once looked back.

I also recognized something of myself in Sarah - a girl too old to believe in fairytales, yet clinging to them anyway. Fearful, awed, slightly out of sync because the world didn’t behave how she imagined it should. Who sought solace in plays and imagination. Who wanted to go to magical masquerades and take journeys fraught with peril.

I grew up on Oz, Narnia, Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quintet. Disney. Hitchhiker’s Guide. The Secret World of Og. Sheila Moon’s Knee Deep in Thunder. I reread Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland each Christmas Eve.
Labyrinth was a story, a heroine, and a villain that spoke to me.

**As I write, I realize there is much of Sarah in Corinne from my first novel, SOMETHING BETTER. Corinne is a middle-age woman who still believes in fairy tales, who looks to her past and the boy who once left to return and take her away… right now. Who can only break the spell her grief holds on her as she eventually learns to say: “You have no power over me.”

Much like my Ringlet-era, I went all in on Labyrinth. I wore out the soundtrack (and my first Walkman). I learned the piano music. I wore white shirts and vests (luckily Sarah and Molly Ringwald had similar fashion sense). I spent weeks drawing a replica of the movie poster. I borrowed the movie novelization from the library. I rented and rented and rented the video until the glorious day that it came on a movie channel and I could tape it.

I remain a Labyrinth adult. I introduced my kids to it probably way too early (I recall my niece, after a sleepover, telling my sister-in-law “We watched a weird movie.”) One of my proudest achievements was whenever David Bowie would come on the radio my children would announce: “It’s the Goblin King!”

All of this is to take the long way (never go that way) to say:

It is comforting and nourishing and hopeful to love something for 40 years and to find that others have loved it for 40 years too.
It is comforting and nourishing and hopeful to love something for 40 years and watch others discover it now.
Sometimes it is only after 40 years of fandom that you can see how a piece of art, music, a character, a villain or a quest has impacted your life. How that experience inspired you to seek out art, music, characters, villains and quests of your own.

Because sometimes, 40 years later, you’re still looking for things that remind you of the babe.