Love and Debate (2006)

When choosing this movie, starring Sean Astin, Gina Phillips, and Adam Rodriguez, I was expecting a little lighthearted romance.  Little did I know that writer/director Jessica Kavana would be working some hard hitting issues into the mix.  Jordan (Gina Phillips) is a Latin American Jew who dreams of bigger things than settling down with "one of her kind."  She joins the Debate team as a senior and finds a gift that takes her all the way to Harvard.  Along the way, she is raped by a fellow debater and chooses to throw herself into life without saying a word out of shame and embarrassment (not to mention shock and denial).

I had no idea that I would be facing some startling parallels of my own with this character.  Although the film passed gently over Jordan's healing process (including throwing her dreams away in a bad sexual relationship, drug and alcohol use, and losing her scholarship).  It did attempt to address the issue (even including a glimpse at body memories), which is more than most modern media does.  It was intriguing to watch a character work her own way through the "victim" mentality and come out strong in the end - strong enough to face her rapist eye to eye.

What I liked most about this movie was its positive energy and strength.  Jordan, determined not to have everything stolen from her, pushed herself instead of hiding in the fear.  In the end, she learned how to trust her own instincts again and even free her heart.  As a survivor of abuse and rape, I know that trusting yourself - your own judgement - is one of the most difficult things to relearn.  It is possible and I am glad to see an important story like this portrayed on film.

Failure

Life is full of stuff that doesn't work out as planned or in direct proportion to our best efforts.  Not too long ago, I had a little disagreement with some friends on facebook over whether or not failure is a valid part of life.  My friends argued that as long as you keep trying, you haven't failed.  I disagreed.  I believe that "keep trying" part is because you HAVE failed and have decided to continue to make an effort.

Tonight I learned that sometimes the failure can be in the continuing to try.  Not recognizing one's own limitations to a degree that costs time, energy, and money can be a costly mistake.  How often do we choke when we "bite off more than we can chew"?  Every time.  And the water isn't always waiting to help us wash down the tasteless, awkward portions we've chosen to gulp into our throats.  Not saying "when" or "NO" for that matter when we really need to say it is a fail. 

Persistence is one thing.  Stubborn stupidity is another.

On the other hand, if we said no to every scary, character building, talent stretching opportunity that came our way, we'd rarely learn and maybe never know success.  I don't like to say no for this reason, but am becoming increasingly more careful about what I say "yes" to due to family obligations and health issues. 

Tonight, I failed.  In fact, the entire week previous to this post has been one failure after another.  I'm out of time.  I'm out of resources.  There is nothing left in me to make another attempt, and it wouldn't matter if there were.  The deadline is in front of me and I must walk away.  My head isn't high even though I gave it my all.  My best wasn't nearly good enough and, today, that leaves me ashamed of myself.  Ashamed for my self-assurance.  Ashamed for the resources that were wasted.  Ashamed that I didn't recognize my own limits and save others from the shared disappointment. 

All I can do after I sleep is to pick myself up, forgive myself, and move on with the morning.  It won't change that I have failed in this thing.  But, hopefully, it will mean that I learned something from it so I won't feel the need to repeat the epic fail.

Boundaries

Generally speaking, humanity likes its boundaries.  We want to know where the line is and though we may play at the edges for the adrenaline rush -- daring life to bring on the consequences, we like the safety net that our imaginary lines give to our psyches.  Boundaries allow us to play at Cock and Crow - boisterous in our opinions, decided in our positions - we throw words and feelings attached to the "us" and "them" of our vocabulary as if our relative lines of demarcation will keep us safe because they cannot be crossed.

But, what happens when they are?  When countries or people of different lattitudes suddenly see what they have in common and become "we."...  It's happened a time a two in my own life.  I always invite the experience.  It can really only happen when the gates are unlocked or left slightly adjar or swung wide open with a neon sign attached screaming "Friendship Wanted."  Trouble is, I'm an all or nothing kind of person.  I talk over the back gate with the laundry swinging in the sunshine to the neighbor who is working through a similar task while we fill the air of our existence with so many sweet words.  Though sincere, the gate isn't really open.  No boundaries have been breeched there.  Once someone is inside my little world, it can be an all consuming experience.  My heart and mind are full of them.  (And my life is currently abounding with people to love.)  I see this as nothing but a blessing.  Even in the moments when I need to pull away.

You see, I don't breath well, all crowded in that way.  But, I haven't figured out the way to let someone in and politely ask them to leave for a few moments so I can gather myself.  It always comes out in choking, sobbing, suffocated frustration.  I hurt people.  People that I love the very most...  I know why Switzerland keeps her stalwart borders - happy in all that she is on her own. 

Top Gun

Goodness, gracious, great balls of FIRE!!  Why didn't anyone tell me Goose was dead?!

Dancing Music and Madonna

Long before I knew what lyrics like, "get into the groove, boy you've got to prove you're love to me", I could feel the "fire" of the music pulsing through my body. Decades later of listening to Madonna and her contemporaries and living life well beyond the "end of the innocence", I know that some of the power of the music is the sensuality in it. Let's face it - I like sex in my music. I just don't like it Lady Ga Ga style. I want the metaphor and the mystery. Watch a belly dancer and you will know there is power in the veil.

My musical tastes range from Mozart to Madonna, from Dvorak to Def Lepard, from Sinatra to Shakira, but I find myself a little picky about my individual song preference. Just as I may not appreciate every word that falls from my favorite poet's pen, a song must get into my veins before it will become a favorite. That said, I haven't loved every song on a Madonna album since the Immaculate Collection. (And I was teenaged enough to love everything on it then.) Lately, I prefer the tribal, the rustic, or the refined - the drum and the violin - and that may be because all of the instant gratification behind the techno beat technology has lead modern musicians to believe baring it all is sexy.

It's not.

The Turning Point (1977)

It's been a while since I've dived longingly into a ballet heart first. Taking a ballet class has been on my bucket list for a long time. For Shirley McClain's character, Dee Dee Rodgers, the regrets of choosing family over a life on the stage has lingered. Her long-time friend and ballerina, Emma Jacklin (played by Ann Bancroft) has lived her dream, but is facing retirement with the realization that her life will soon fall into meaninglessness. Sandwiched between them both, is Dee Dee's daughter, an up-and-coming ballerina who wants to make the decision she will regret the least. Adelaide's budding career brings the past to the forefront and both women must clear the air before moving on.

This movie is just the right balance between stunning ballet performances by dancers the likes of Mikhail Baryshnikov, body-beating practises, and heart wrenching acting. The unexpected moment is when the women finally speak the truths they've kept from each other for twenty years. Of course, those kinds of secrets have the tendency to come out stinging. But, I never would have dreamed there would be a fight scene!

Life is full of choices. Hopefully, twenty years from now, there will be a friend who knows me as well and loves me still.

Bleak House by Charles Dickens (Pt. 1)

Dickens' works are always meatier than most and, as I was reading yesterday, I thought I should break Bleak House up ten chapters at a time to do some of his messages justice. There have been a slew of authors willing to write for a crowd - sticking to the sellable plot, the carefully trimmed story that is sure to bring in cash. But, there are others, who write what needs to be written so that it can finally be seen, acknowledged, and reformed. Dickens was one of the latter.

Dickens' very decided opinion about the most beneficial position for women at a time when women were maneuvering their way into the business of philanthropy and charity work is plainly presented between the tangled mess of the Chancery court. In this first 100 pages, he has chosen three female characters to make his point. Two are mothers. One is not. Esther Summerson (our narrator) is a single woman who has, in these chapters, been sandwiched between two mothers ...Mrs. Pardiggle - a mother of five miserable sons, and Mrs. Jellyby - who, much like the woman in the shoe, has so many children she doesn't know what to do!
Both women are busy making a "good" impression in the professional world that they cannot see what it is doing to their homes. The first keeps her children too closely in check - so closely that they are suffocating for it and are ready to rebel. The second doesn't keep her children at all. They are dirty, hungry, neglected and have no hopes of becoming educated or refined enough to carry on her chosen work or any work of their own.

As a woman and mother in modern times, it was strange to me to read of a man, Mr. Jarndyce, who genuinely honored and appreciated the role of a woman in the home. He dubs Esther the "Little Woman" and entrusts her with the keys and keeping of Bleak House telling her that she will be of such influence in her "sweep[ing of cobwebs] so neatly out of [their] sky... that one of these days, [he] should abandon the Growlery, and nail up the door." The Growlery was Mr. Jarndyce's place of worry, fretting, anger, and frustration. It is a rare person to keep all of these emotions tethered to one room, true. But, for me, the thing that stood out was having that role of housekeeper and caretaker so cherished. There are many things about our culture that insist that a wife and mother is neither important to the ones being served or fulfilling to the one giving the service.

While I am so thankful that my daughters are no longer required to fall into an adulthood of being "barefoot and in the kitchen" without an educated opinion or aspirations of their own. I also want them to know that, should motherhood be their choice, it is a valid and valuable one to make and to do with your whole heart. We live in a time when we are told that we can "have it all." But, I must interject that, while you can have it all - you can not have it all well and at the same time. What a difference it would make to the children of the world if the mothers and fathers were patient enough to live in the season at hand, cherishing their little ones while they were yet young.