another ice day

 So Friday, in class, I told my students: "if campus is open Monday but it's icy out, I will be teaching over Zoom from home because I don't want to brave icy sidewalks with crutches" I also told them if campus was open and it was not icy here, but was icy from where they commuted from, to e-mail me and I'd set up the camera and microphone for zoom from the classroom

As it turned out, we didn't have to do either - they closed campus. And it was kind of icy this morning, and I would not have wanted to go out. My neighbor rolled my trash cart down and back (though I told him not to if it was slick; I only had two small bags of kitchen garbage in there and as cold as it's been, it would keep another week).

It's melted off now and fairly soon I should go to bed (because I have to get up early, because everything takes more time right now). I will say that my knee feels *mostly* better and I hope my doctor clears me to either use a cane or lose the immobilizer for now. I think I actually had a pulled muscle rather than a true sprain; I don't think a sprain would get better this fast. 

Fortunately, though, I found out about the closure last night so I didn't have to set an alarm; I did wind up sleeping past 7 because when I have to get up to use the restroom I have to fully wake up in order to manage the crutches, and then it takes time to go back to sleep. Also I am kind of uncomfortable sleeping (and have the most pain first thing in the morning, probably from having been still all night long and also trying to elevate my leg. I may not do that tonight; there's no swelling I can see so elevating it may be less vital)

Last night I got to watch "Encanto" all the way through - I saw perhaps the second half of it over Christmas break.

I like it. I like it a lot. I like how Disney has moved from the simple basic "princess or princess-in-disguise-or-reduced-circumstances-waiting-for-her-prince" story (for one thing: the princes in those are almost never very interesting. Well, Eugene in "Tangled" was, but I don't think he was actually a prince?)

This story though revolves around an extended family - Abeula Alma (the matriarch, who was widowed long ago*) and her triplet children (Two girls, both of whom marry and have three kids each, and one boy, who is "odd" and winds up as the black sheep of the family and apparently never marries or has a relationship. A lot of electrons were spilled about Bruno's possible neurodivergence/mental illness but also, as someone who is perhaps a bit older than the main target of the movie.....well, there was another reason in past years (and even still now, in some families) why one family member and their lifestyle might not be talked about. Then again: I suppose if you accept the "can see the future" thing at face value, yeah, that would make a person anxious - his trope of "knock, knock, knock on wood" as a self-comforting measure)

It's a diverse family: Pepa's husband Felix is Afro-Caribbean; Julieta's more likely has some European (Spanish or Portuguese?) heritage. (Also both these men take the Madrigal family name; though combining the man and woman's name after marriage is far more common in Mexico and Central America than it was in the US)

It's a big, boisterous family. The two oldest cousins are the same age; the central character (Mirabel) is the same age as a male cousin (the shape-shifter Camilo) on the other side. And there is some conflict - Isabella, Mirabel's oldest sister, is "perfect" and that leads to conflict between her and Mirabel.

Oh, and the issue of "gifts" - Isabella can make flowers appear from thin air; Luisa (the middle sister on that side) is incredibly strong. Dolores has super hearing, Camilo can shapeshift, and Antonio - who receives his gift at the beginning of the movie - can speak to animals. (That's the gift I would chose of all the cousin's gifts).

Of the older generation, Bruno can see the future (though perhaps imperfectly), Pepa has her own personal weather related to her mood, and Julieta can cook healing food (another appealing gift - and in this case a good one as her husband seems to be accident-prone).

Ah, but Mirabel. Mirabel apparently has NO gift. She was not granted one; the ceremony apparently did not work for her, so instead of getting her own room in the magical Casita reflecting her gift, she remains in the nursery - with Antonio, until that very day.

I admit, Mirabel hits hard as a character. I suspect a lot of women might look at her and feel that - that everyone around me is talented in some obvious way and I am not*. And how nice, and how easy life would be, if you knew the ONE SPECIFIC THING you were good at and meant to do, and never had to second guess yourself.

(*a colleague/friend once commented, when I was frustrated trying to do some thing that wasn't going well, that I was probably the sort of person that too many things came easily for, and he was probably right. But also: I don't have one thing I feel so outstandingly good at that I could happily focus on that to the exclusion of everything else. I remember as a teen looking at the people roughly my age who were training for the Olympics in figure skating or somesuch and at times feeling sad for them that they had to devote SO much of their lives to what was basically a one-shot thing, but at other times really WISHING I had that, a clear single purpose)

But you know? also Luisa - who feels the pressure to be strong, and in her song notes that she feels like her only worth is in what she can do for others, oh, I feel that too (a friend noted to me "oldest daughters will 'get' Luisa [even if she is actually the middle daughter]). And yet, Isabella, too, even though I know all to well I am far from "perfect" - there's that pressure to do everything well and not to be seen "failing" at things, to the point where I will inwardly rage at myself if the technology in a classroom fails me. 

Anyway - I suspect grown women may see something different in the movie than younger girls might.

And the idea that there are secret cracks and fissures in the house (probably symbolic of the tensions that exist in even harmonious families) that, because someone keeps trying to paper them over (Bruno, in his alternate personalities), never really get addressed until they are a BIG problem. 

And really, the central conflict is that: the unaddressed conflicts - between Mirabel and Isabella, between Isabella and Dolores (over a boy, of course), between Alma and most of the rest of the family - are what ultimately breaks the magic of the house (which, it is sort of implies, also feeds and protects the town that everyone - not just the Madrigals - fled to after the unrest and resettled).

And then what? 

Mirabel winds up weeping in the wreckage of the house. Because she tried. She tried to tell people about the cracks and was not believed. She tried to patch things up with Isabella when Bruno's second vision suggested that was the issue. She tried her best and it didn't work. (Worrying your best won't be good enough, and what that would mean, am I the only one who does that? I don't think so). 

And then she runs- runs to the river where her grandfather sacrificed himself so his wife and children (and the other townspeople) could live, the river that was apparently the boundary of the world. And Alma comes and finds her, and they reconcile.....and in the end, the house is rebuilt, with the help of everyone in town (a reminder you can't do it all by yourself) and there's a reconciliation.

Though Mirabel never seems to explicitly get a gift. But maybe her forgiveness of her family is her gift? Or her serving a bit as the mortar that holds them all together? Or maybe the idea is after all you don't NEED a special gift to be worthy of love and respect and existence as a person? 

At any rate, I liked the movie; I found it more thoughtprovoking than I expected.

(*this site - I think it's written from a Hispanic perspective? - suggests that the reference here is the Thousand Days' War, which took place in Colombia in 1899 - which would mean the story at hand took place some time in the 1950s. At any rate: people having to flee civil unrest is certainly not heard of in Central America)