'Tis the Season: Reflection

My birthday is this time of year (December 30th for the calendar-slaves among you) and for the last several years, in addition to celebrating by going out dancing, drinking and / or eating with friends, I've also taken time to wind down at the end of a busy year, look back on what I've done and haven't done, and reflect. Being a Capricorn, this time of reflection is important for me, because we are so goal- and achievement-oriented that we can sometimes lose sight of the big picture. Going inwards, ironically, helps me get more clarity on what my external work in the world should be. As this beautiful poem, by Rafael Jesus Gonzalez, accomplished poet and my first creative writing teacher, describes, we Caps are always searching for the inner core, the 'cardinal point' of the earth. We're always searching for deeper meaning and purpose.

I will be winding down this blog soon--this may be my last or very close to last post. I've talked about it before but am definitely doing it this time. After five-plus years of writing this blog, it's time to move on. I will be starting a new blog about the sometimes painful, often confusing, and at times joyful process of be(com)ing a writer, so stay tuned for more details.

Movie Review: Beyond a Shadow of a 'Doubt'

Couldn't help myself with the pun, there. I just saw the film 'Doubt', written and directed by the playwright, John Patrick Shanley (a good Irish-Catholic boy, no doubt), who won a Pulitzer Prize for his original play of the same name, and starring one of the tightest, most brilliant casts I think I've ever seen on screen: notably, the ever-formidable and ridiculously talented Meryl Streep, and the equally virtuosic chameleon Philip Seymour Hoffman. However, Viola Davis in particular deserves major acknowledgment, as her one speaking scene in the film, opposite Streep, showed how powerful an actor can be even with less than ten minutes on screen. Amy Adams was also terrific as a naive young nun who becomes sort of a human moral scale, weighing the accusations flying between Streep's Sister Aloysius and Hoffman's Father Flynn with a bewilderment that mirrors that of the audience as we grapple with the grave issues presented in the film.

The film can be summarized, or written off, depending on how you see it--the way that another amazing film, 'Brokeback Mountain', could be written off as the 'gay cowboy movie' when it's so much more than that--as the 'Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal movie'. And despite the injustice of that description to the film, I think if that kind of controversial summary makes people come to the theater to watch it, then great. I think every Catholic or recovering Catholic, at minimum, should see this film. I don't want to say too much more because this is the type of film that's best enjoyed through conversation with other viewers, because the director/writer leaves so much up to subjective interpretation. And I like that. He and the actors have set up a world that is totally believable (although H. could barely believe that even during my Catholic school experience in the 1980s I knew nuns like Sister Aloysius and was as terrified of them as the school kids in the film are of Streep's character), and with it, they pull you in irresistibly with universal and immortal themes of faith, redemption, the complexity of human nature, and, yes, doubt.

As a survivor of sexual abuse myself, I appreciated the nuances of morality and the lack of judgment of the characters that permeated the film. It offers a very humanizing portrait of what can be a very polarizing and dehumanizing (for all people involved, from perpetrator to victim) experience.

I will say that the film is far from perfect, with some heavy-handed symbolism getting in the way of even this ultra-ritualistic Catholic School-girl's enjoyment. But all in all, it's a tightly-crafted, important film and seeing it is well worth the price of admission.

If you need more encouraging, a couple reviews that I liked can be found on the Independent Critic web site (this one is written by a sexual abuse survivor, at Pajiba (which wins the award for best self-description of its site: Scathing Reviews for Bitchy People), and the New York Times.

Suffice it to say that beyond a shadow of a doubt (there I go again with the puns!), this is probably the best film I've seen this year. I hope Oscar will too.

List: 2008 Retrospective, Part I (?)

I've written enough 'part I' blog posts with no subsequent 'part II's or 'III's that I'll leave the question mark in the headline above. it's that time of year, though, to reflect on the past twelve months, to sift through all the accomplishments, unmet goals, surprises, disappointments, joys, sorrows and stories of my 2008 experience. All I can say is, 'What a year!' On so many levels, this year surpassed all of my wildest imaginings, and challenged me in ways that I wasn't expecting (and I like to think I anticipate any possible curve ball life can throw at me--I'm a Capricorn and an uber-planner, after all). A few things to start my review list, in no particular chronology or order of importance:

Getting married to my partner of six-plus years, Henry. This was one of the three most defining acts of my year. I mean, I started a whole 'nother blog about it, which actually got more hits at times than this one, thanks to selective linking to sites like Indie Bride and other alt.bride sites.

That guy who's President-Elect, and the movement that put him in power. Sometimes I still can't believe we have a Black President (or that we'll have one come 1/20/09. Never in a million years could I imagine a national (nay, international) grassroots movement electing a former community organizer as President of the United States. Un-frickin-believable, and so beautiful at the same time.

Deciding to leave my job, which I had been planning on and contemplating for a few months already, after my ex-boss left the organization to work for the new Speaker of the California Assembly, the Honorable Karen Bass. The first African-American woman (and really, the first woman) in this high-powered post, Speaker Bass is a political star on the rise, and although it was challenging to take over the helm of my organization after our ED left to work for her, it was definitely an important move and in the end I think worked out well for everyone. I am transitioning out of my interim co-director job at CFJ in March to work part-time, do fundraising consulting and spend more time on my writing and (hopefully) having a baby!

That's the Big Three events of 2008 for me. More to come, I promise. (?) ((;)