I've been in love with Miranda July and her work since I first read her book "No one belongs here more than you". Her words spoke to me and I have been an avid fan ever since. However, it's been at least a year since I have seen, heard, or read anything of hers so I did some google searching and found some gems.
This quote by her is exactly how I feel when I am exposed to her work: "I guess my favorite thing in the world is when I look at a piece of art, or read a story, or watch a movie where I walk away feeling like “Oh my god — I have to do something, I have to make something or talk to someone — things are not the same anymore” — and so I try to make work where you come away with that feeling. It’s like, yeah, you’re thinking about what you just saw, but even more than that — you feel able, you feel like, kind of propelled. "
It also reminded me of a movie I saw at BYU's international cinema called "Women Without Men" that I had such a strong emotional reaction to that I spent hours after crying and praying and yelling in my car in the BYU parking lot. I'm still not entirely sure what about this film created such an emotional upheaval in me, but I greatly admire this film for being able to do so.
What books, films, art, etc have made you feel strongly? I'd love some new material to consider.
It brought back so many dreams from my youth, longing for paths not chosen because they were hard, and hope for a future in which I can revive my dreams and overcome my fears. It was magical and intimate to read the words of two of my own personal heroines and imagine their conversation in my head. It fueled my dreams of making art and creating. It made me tremble with excitement and fear. It pulled out some thoughts and feelings I've been playing around with in my head/body for some time:
Since I was very young, I felt I was destined for greatness; that I would create or contribute to something really great. I had dreams of being a writer, an actress or a queen of some small country, but at some point my fears overtook my dreams. My fears of failure, awkwardness and general hard things became so huge that I waved my dreams away as childish fantasies and chose what I thought to be an easier path. I tried to convince myself that the greatness I would accomplish would be raising a lovely family and being a great mom. I tried to convince myself that this would fulfill me and that this was the path God intended for me. I felt this was so much less terrifying than being/doing something great with my talents and abilities. There were less risks involved and I was pretty confident that I could easily do the mom thing (and by "easily" I mean the kind of easy that working a 80 hour a week job you love is).
I thought that getting married would help me feel resigned to the role of motherhood, but something unexpected happened: my husband saw potential and greatness in me that I couldn't/wouldn't see. I tried to convince him that what I really wanted was to be a stay at home mom, but even as I was trying to convince him, I was trying to convince myself. Only after a few months without a job, staying at home, attempting to assume housework as my role and responsibility did I start to understand what my husband already understood: there is much more to me than maternity.
I want to make it clear that I don't look down upon motherhood, and that I do look forward to one day being a mother and cherishing that role. What I mean, rather, is that there is more to me than that; that I have so much more to give and to share and to create and to be that resigning myself to the role of stay-at-home-mom, would stifle and depress me. I have always admired stay-at-home mom's and in my psychology research, as well as my LDS upbringing, I garnered an understanding for the importance of mothers staying in the home. However, I am finding myself in the incredibly lucky/blessed/fateful postion in which both my husband and I have chosen incredibly flexible career paths. We have abilities, experiences and interests that are broad and allow us ridiculous amounts of freedoms in terms of schedules and potential family care and nurturing. It is a life and love and freedom that feels very much to me like this opening scene of one of my favorite Miranda July films. I used to have Miranda's opening monologue written on a paper that I placed on my mirror to remind myself every day how I wanted to live my life and how I want to feel about life. Watching this scene now, I feel only more excited (and of course terribly anxious) to see what will unfold in our future.
