A Day of Re-Membering

[This post originally appeared on my personal Facebook page, but as I finished it, realized it was the beginning of a return to my Blog. So it, and the post I wrote earlier today, have been re-posted here.]

I have been given so much to say today. I am trusting that each thing reaches those who need to see/hear/read it.

I just watched the 2018 version of A Wrinkle In Time. I tried to watch it when it first came to Disney+, but for whatever reason I couldn’t. The truth, as I understand it now, is I was not ready. Because I didn’t remember the first few minutes at all. If I had, I surely would not have picked today, of all days, to watch it.

As I texted Phil this morning, remember how Up kicked the shit out of our hearts while we were dealing with infertility? Well, A Wrinkle In Time “upped” its game by 100 and tore my heart out and stomped it on the floor before handing it back to me all band-aided up again.

It was, without question, what I needed to see/hear/know today, of all days. About the power of the frequency of love. About knowing and integrating my faults, my shadows, my “bad” parts. About loving others exactly where they are. Because, to paraphrase the Happy Medium: it’s okay to be afraid of the answers; we just can’t avoid them.

When I first visited Phil in Michigan in 2003, we went to Celebration Cinema and watched Love, Actually. Watching it together is something of a holiday tradition for us now. And one of our favorite lines has always been when Sam says to Daniel, “Let’s go get the sh*t kicked out of us by love.”

Here we are, 20 years later, back in the Midwest, starting over again. And I realized that this quote encompasses our entire journey together.

Learning how to love each other through our faults. Deciding we were ready to start a family. Struggling with infertility. The highs of pregnancy and birth. The lows of miscarriages and medically-fragile children. Holding each other through the storms of hospitalizations. Realizing Mira’s medical struggles were merely preparation for the bigger waves that could capsize us with Patrick. Doing our best, for ourselves and our family, through the roller-coaster of Patrick’s life and death. The 9 years since we have spent figuring out what it means to be broken; how to heal; how to move forward.

Watching as each of us, in our own time, in our own ways, begins to shine our light again. Begins to emerge from the shroud that has engulfed us for what feels like forever. As we find ourselves again. As we find ourselves anew. As we figure out who we are. Who we have become. And love each other because of and in spite of all of it.

That’s what wedding vows are: promises to ride the roller coaster of life together. You can see amazing views from the highest of heights and lose your lunch on some crazy turns and be terrified or even rendered unconscious by some of the lows coming out of those spirals. But being human—living this life to the fullest—is all about experiencing the ups and the downs and everything in between. Your soul’s incarnation was your agreement to get the shit kicked out of you by love. In all of its most beautiful, tragic, amazing, incomprehensible, sorrowful moments.

And, believe it or not, it’s always worth the ride. Why else would we fight so hard to be here; to stay here; to live longer? Because despite the pain and the hurt, the beauty and the love nourish us and keep us going. Love is always there. Even when you can’t feel it. Because—You. Are. Love. And—You. Are. Loved.

I am reminded of Katy Perry’s song “Hot and Cold”. I never realized how right she was, because she recognized the person was not hot OR cold, but hot AND cold:

'Cause you're hot then you're cold

You're yes then you're no

You're in then you're out

You're up then you're down

You're wrong when it's right

It's black and it's white

We fight, we break up

We kiss, we make up

You don't really want to stay, no

But you don't really want to go

You're hot then you're cold

You're yes then you're no

You're in then you're out

You're up then you're down

This weird miss mash of life. It’s not “or.” It’s “and.”

Earlier today, I wrote the following as a comment on a friend’s post. And I realized it’s a variation on this same theme:

We forget that life is a circle.

Difficult time raise Hard People. Hard People work to create Easy Times. Easy Times raise Soft People. Soft People create Difficult Times.

There is no cycle of creation that has no destruction. The question is whether the destruction is thoughtful, necessary, limited. Like in Michigan when they stopped natural forest fires and then began losing special trees because the seeds only broke open in the heat of the fires. The destruction is necessary for new life. But we can be targeted and intentional about it so that the new life comes without unnecessary loss of property and life.

But we forget life is a cycle. We only want the up. And it just doesn’t work that way. So instead of spending time figuring out how to turn the cycle into an upward spiral by harnessing the destructive part of the cycle, we pretend it doesn’t exist and lose all our progress when it shows up.

Image by Nik @helloimnik from UnSplash

We’re human. We forget. It’s our very nature. But when we remember? When we hang on? Those are the brilliant moments we take massive leaps forward. Jumps the size of which we never knew or believed were possible let alone that we were the ones capable of making.

I set aside today as a day of remembering for me. But I got far more than I bargained for. I am re-membering myself. The quick flashes and glimpses I have seen these past few months of me coming back to myself. Skills and talents left dormant. Gardening. Singing. Baking. Dare I say, Writing.

It’s coming back. I’m tuned back in. I found the frequency again. I finally looking forward and excited to discover what’s next. I’ll do my best to post here and at my blog, so that if you want, you can come along, too.

Namaste.

Disney Storytelling Timeline

This is going to be an ongoing and frequently updated post intended as a timeline to document the various changes in Disney storytelling. If you have additions, comments, concerns, or disagreements, please leave them in the comments. Thanks!

Beauty and the Beast - 1991

• Heroine reads, love books, and rescues the prince

Aladdin - 1992

• Heroine fights against arranged marriage; seeks marriage based on love

• Reverses overcoming class obstacles a la Cinderella by making the female royalty and the male underclass

Pocahontas - 1995

• Non-white heroine

Mulan - 1998

• Non-white, non-US-centric heroine

• Dip of the toe into gender issues re dress & military abilities & expectations

Lilo & Stitch - 2002

• Feature Pacific Islanders

• Siblings parenting siblings/absent parents

• Features songs in native non-English language written/performed by a member of the represented group

The Princess and the Frog - 2009

• Black heroine

• Black love interest

• Tiny recognition of whites intentionally trying to prevent blacks from moving up through the bankers’ actions

Brave - 2012

• Heroine has no interest in romantic love

Frozen - 2013

• Challenges the idea of marrying someone you just met

• Villain isn’t obvious at the beginning

Big Hero 6 - 2014

• First to deal with the various expressions and responses to grief/death/loss

• Sibling loss

Inside Out - 2015

• Trauma of moving

• Utility of emotions—they are neutral; neither bad nor good

• No villain

Zootopia - 2016

• Directly addresses racism & bigotry, through allegory

Moana - 2016

• No love interest/plotline for the heroine

Frozen 2 - 2019

• Acknowledgment of family’s past bigoted/hurtful actions and being proactive to fix the harm, with knowledge and acceptance of personal sacrifice that will occur

Raya and the Last Dragon - 2021

• Heroine and antagonist are both female, smart, and capable

• Examines the competitiveness, fakeness, and backstabbing sometimes inherent in female friendships

• Voice-casting was more representative (East Asian—but see concerns that not Southeast Asian)

Encanto - 2021

• Set in Columbia

• Female leader without royalty/governance lineage

Encanto

This is the first post in my discussion of important changes, additions, or inclusions in Disney storytelling. I am starting here because it is the most recent and also because it is my discussions with others about this film that was the impetus for starting this series.

Earlier today, my husband reposted a discussion post from Facebook where user Aimee Ford wrote and supported her observation that “Mariano is the most important character in Encanto. Not for the story, but for *Disney.” The post has since been removed or hidden, so I cannot link to it, but here are my screenshots of it:

I think Encanto is important because many of the characters break a mold. Here are just a few of my thoughts:

Augustin and Felix are very strong men to love and marry women who are objectively stronger and more powerful in their community and are recognized for their gifts. In “our” world, they would be seen as weak for not dominating their wives.

Augustin is in a particularly interesting position. He married into the family without powers and no expectations of getting them. Mirabel was expected to have them, but didn’t get them. He tries to empathize with her because he knows how it feels to be powerless among the gifted, but he never experienced the rejection and disappointment Mirabel did because he was never expected to be more. He has to watch his family crap all over his youngest daughter.

The head of the family is a woman. Not a king. Not a king and a queen. Not even a queen. Not anyone from whom leadership was expected. Not someone who had been groomed for power or raised learning how to bear such a huge responsibility. Just a “regular” woman. And she is in charge. Although the story involves the recognition that she made mistakes, Mirabel’s speech emphasizes that it was Abuela’s strength and sacrifice that allowed her to receive the miracle in the first place and save the family, but now the burden is no longer solely on her shoulders and she can let go and enjoy life without all of the responsibility.

I love the tensions being caused by Louisa. She is strong physically and is drawn consistent with that strength. They did not make her petite and magically strong. She looks like a physically strong person. But she in unapologetically feminine in dress and mannerisms, particularly when dancing. People are fighting about whether she is trans, but I think the beauty is that we don’t and won’t ever know. It isn’t relevant to the story and it isn’t any of our business. We have to accept her and her pronouns as is. We can’t test her DNA or look up her skirt. We have to live without knowing. And I think that is exactly the right answer.

I love that even though Dolores is interested in Mariano, she has no objections to Isabella marrying him without getting to know him because of family expectations. Indeed, arguably, Dolores knows Mariano even better than Isabella because she has heard him—as she tells him. But once Mariano is available and it is her relationship, she is not about to rush it. “Slow Down!” is her response to his proposal. Following in Frozen’s footsteps, instant marriage is off the table. I LOVE that about her!

Disney Series

Those who have known me for any length of time know that I am a lover of (almost) all things Disney. Now that they own Marvel and Star Wars, it would be nigh on impossible for me to separate myself from them forever. We watch and rewatch Disney movies in this house as background noise. We are saturated in the music and the stories, playing make-believe in the worlds that have been created. As such, these stories play an outsized role in shaping who my daughter is becoming.

As you may be aware, Encanto came out late last year and finally appeared on Disney+ on Christmas Eve. The first watching left my daughter and me both in tears, and we have watched it individually or as a family probably more than once a day since then. We have had numerous discussions about what we love in the music and story, pointing out details of visual foreshadowing and little funny Easter Egg type things we find anew with each watching, and having deep discussions about how rich and powerful the character and storytelling changes is Disney are. Today, my hubby reposted someone’s Facebook post that took the position that Mariano was the most important character in Encanto, not for Encanto’s story, but for “Disney.” I thought there was a lot of wisdom there, but I thought that there were many other pieces of Encanto that needed recognition for much the same reason. After quickly dropping a few in the comments, I went on to breakfast and started to think of some major changes that had shown up in Raya and the Last Dragon. And thus, this new idea was born. This is my discussion of many of the positive changes in Disney storytelling that have come “in my time.” The dividing line for these changes could be any number of places and there is arguable support for any of them. For my purposes, I have decided to make the division pre- and post-The Little Mermaid for three reasons:

1) Disney had very much fallen out of the blockbuster animation business until The Little Mermaid resurrected it from the dead.

2) Beauty and the Beast was the first Disney animated movie I saw in the theater, and since The Little Mermaid is the movie right before it, this is the Disney “I grew up with.”

3) Disney films were only available on VHS “back in my day” and “came out of the vault” once every ten years, so I was an adult before I had seen most of Disney’s early animation films, but I had been exposed to their art and story in book form for as long as I can remember. Thus, those stories still had a significant impact on my childhood in terms of princess worship and dreams, but not in the same way that the animated movies did.

Chances are that I will not manage to say everything about a particular movie in one post, and I am not planning on doing these in any particular order. I will try to tag them for search purposes, however. So, if you’re interested, I would love to have you come along on my journey through changes in Disney storytelling.