Reviewing movies is always a funny business to me, because opinions are so very subjective. What I find enjoyable, the next person finds laughable. I’ve found that most “critically acclaimed” films are not all that interesting to me, while the rest of society seems to find them wildly entertaining.
So maybe the problem is me?
I don’t know.
What I do know is that ever since I saw the trailer for the new Cinderella movie I have wanted to see it, and I’ve hoped that it would be as beautiful and magical as it seemed it could be. When I was offered the chance to take Tia to see an advance screening of the film, I jumped at the chance so that I could formulate my own opinion of the film before being told by others what to think and feel.
And I just really wanted to see the movie.
Friends, Cinderella did not disappoint. It is sweet, funny, engaging, sad, beautiful, and it has a happy ending. Directed by Kenneth Branagh (one of my all time favorites), the movie touches on the unbreakable human spirit in the face of cruelty and heartache.
Disney knocked it out of the park with this one. They stayed true to the original story of Cinderella that we all fell in love with as kids, while adding a few new poignant moments to round out the film as a whole. (If you have sensitive little ones, be prepared for tears because the scenes where Ella loses her parents are tough.)
The step sisters offer much needed comic relief to a sad plot, and the animals steal their own scenes, though they’re given a much smaller role in this film than they were in the cartoon.
And the costumes. Oh, my – the costumes. They are characters in and of themselves.
What I loved most, though, was Cinderella’s unbreakable spirit. With her mother’s voice as her constant guide, Cinderella endured her heartache by living out two charges, both given to her by her mom just before she died.
Have Courage.
And Be Kind.
With these as her motivators, Cinderella endures the torment of her stepmother. And when the time comes for her to attend the ball, and her resolve to be courageous wanes, in steps her Fairy Godmother, played deliciously by Helena Bonham Carter. With a flick of the wrist, and a single command of Bippity Boppity Boo, Cinderella is suddenly ready to meet her prince.
And, well, you know how the story ends.
This film is exactly as it should be. It’s sweet and engaging, and sprinkled with just a touch of magic. You will love it, your girls will love it, and I’m betting that your boys will also reluctantly love it. I’m going to take all my children to see it again when it officially releases on March 13.
So next weekend, if you’re looking for a little magic to kick things off, head to the movie theater and get lost, once again, in this magical, beautiful fairy tale.
Because, really. In a time when the world seems to be spiraling out of control, who couldn’t use a little magic and happily ever after, right?
Right.
Disclaimer: I was invited to a special prescreening for media. I was given two free tickets to the event. I was not compensated for this post. All opinions expressed are my own.
I watched her through the glass, her tiny, muscular body swinging and pushing through yet another bar routine. It’s not often that I have the opportunity to sit and just watch these days. Life is busy and the demands are high, so watching is a luxury.
She’s nine now, and for six years Lee and I have been in constant conversation about her participation in this sport. Is this the right thing? Is it too much? Is it too hard on her body?
On more than one occasion, I’ve wondered if we should pull back. Maybe it would be better if she just did it for fun. Then I laugh.
My competitive daughter would not understand the meaning of doing something for fun. If you’re not there to win, what’s the point?
As I watched her yesterday, she made eye contact with me and I knew that something was bothering her. I could tell on her face so I mouthed, “What’s wrong?”
She pointed to her head. “I have a headache,” she said.
We looked at each other for a moment, and I was immediately ready to take her out and bring her home, because I understand headaches, and the thought of her practicing for three more hours with a pounding head made my mom-heart hurt.
As if reading my thoughts, she shook her head slightly. “I’m okay,” she said. Then she wiped her eyes, took a deep breath, and jumped back up on the bars.
I am constantly amazed at my daughter’s tenacity. She’s driven by an inner force that I admire, and as I watch, I’m learning. I’m becoming a student of my child. While I know and recognize her weaknesses, and I’m constantly working to help her overcome them, I also see her strengths.
I see her willingness to push through pain in order to become better. I see her dedication, and the way she works without complaining. I see her set goals, and then not let anything get in her way as she works to accomplish them.
My daughter is a dream chaser.She sees obstacles, and she doesn’t stop to wonder if it’s possible to reach her goal. She simply believes that she can. And if it’s hard, or maybe a little scary? Well, that’s all the more reason to try as far as she’s concerned.
Dream chasing is natural to kids. I don’t know what age the belief that dreams can come true begins to darken into the more realistic approach of adulthood, but I wonder at what my influence could possibly do to my kids’ willingness to chase their dreams. Am I giving them the confidence to keep chasing, or do I hold them back, forcing them to face reality?
Of course, reality must be faced at some point. I do NOT think that point is nine years old. If Tia wants to shoot for the Olympics right now, then she has my full support. If, at 16, she still thinks she can make it and it’s apparent that the Olympics aren’t in her future, I’ll work that out with her then.
I refuse to be a dream crusher, but I also don’t want to be a false encourager.
Because let’s face it – we’ve all seen American Idol, and we’ve wondered why someone didn’t have the guts to tell some of those kids that they couldn’t sing before they went on TV and made fools of themselves.
It’s a tricky business, navigating the waters of dream chasing with our kids. We want their success, and yet we also want to protect them from disappointment. And we must always make sure that we are not projecting our own dreams for our children onto them unfairly.
And so, as my daughter chases her dreams, and her brother’s each chase dreams of their own, I sit back and I watch. I admire their courage, and I applaud their hard work. Then I sit down and look at the goals I have written out for myself. The more realistic, grown up dreams of the present that are entirely possible with a little hard work and dedication.
Dream chasing, you see, isn’t just child’s play.
In light of this topic, I’m excited to announce that I’m joining the writing team over at God-Sized Dreams. It’s time to stop talking about what we want to do with our lives, and start doing something about it. So if you’re a dream chaser, or if you’re looking to rekindle the magic of an old dream you’d long since given up, please join me and the other ladies as we chase the dreams that are placed on our hearts.
Stories and characters always come to me late at night. When my brain is relaxed and the distractions of the day are quieted, voices come alive in my head. This is the product of an overactive imagination and a mind bent toward story.
The last several nights as I’ve stumbled from my bed to feed Annika, I’ve felt the beginnings of a new story begin to rumble beneath the surface. Words and phrases come to mind as she leans close to me, her eyes heavy and breathing even. The warmth of her body next to mine calms me, and the characters are slowly taking shape.
I don’t know who they are yet, or what story they’re trying to tell, but I feel them bubbling and fighting to escape. After I get her back to bed, I scratch out the pictures that are still fresh in my head on a piece of paper, then go back to sleep as the story continues to take shape in my slumbering mind.
This is my creative process. It’s always happening at night, and it’s slow. The stories don’t tumble out, but rather simmer slowly until they’re ready. And then, when the time is right, I’ll sit at the computer and let the characters write their own story. This is what works for me.
The creative process looks different for all of us. Some come alive in the middle of the night, others in the early morning hours of the day. Some of us need peace and quiet, while others work best to the pounding strains of their favorite bands.
However you work out your creativity, know for certain that what you do takes courage. You’re putting yourself out there each time you create something new. For every story you write, blog post you craft, photo you snap, watercolor you paint, room you design, and song you pen, you take a chance.
When you allow yourself to give in to the creative process, and then you are willing to share your work with others, you open yourself up to criticism and rejection. But you also have the power to inspire a weary world with your art.
It’s scary to give yourself into the creative process knowing that your control ends when what you’ve slaved over is handed to the public. When it’s given away, you are left to accept the adulation or rejection. This is terrifying and exhilarating, all at once.
Yes, creativity takes courage. But it’s also what keeps us creative types alive, so don’t be afraid of the process. Let it take you where it needs to take you. Then hand it over, confident that you were obedient to the craft.
Believe it or not, the world needs what only you can create. They need you to be faithful to the stories and the pictures that call you out of bed. Take confidence in that.
When are you most creative? What is your creative process, and how do you find confidence in the face of rejection?
It’s 2:00 am and he’s splayed across the bed, hot breath on my cheek, dirty feet hanging off the edge. Why does he sleep like this? His arm swings up and flops across my cheek and I jerk my head away in response, because it hurts and I’m annoyed, and why does he sleep like this?
I stumble out of bed and move to the couch with a sigh. I didn’t have to let him sleep in my bed tonight. I know that. But dad is out of town, and when there’s a vacancy in my bed, they like to fill it. They think they’re doing me a favor, keeping me company. I tell myself that they’ll only be young once and in ten year’s time no one will want to keep the other half of the bed warm for me when dad’s away.
At least I hope not, because I feel like that would be weird.
In the quiet dark as I huddle under a blanket that’s not quite warm enough, I take stock of the last few days. Four of them and one of me means at any given time I’m letting three people down.
I only saw a few minutes of his game while I saw most of his brother’s.
I couldn’t watch her do gymnastics tonight because the baby needed to sleep.
He needed help with a Power Point presentation, so I couldn’t help the other with his reading.
The baby spent most of her time alone in the exersaucer instead of being engaged and held.
It’s okay. I know it’s okay. No one suffered. Everyone was cared for and fed and clothed. But the pressure of feeling as though I dropped the ball mounts at 2:00 am. Darkness always whispers lies.
I roll to my side and thoughts drift to the upcoming school year. There are decisions to be made – big decisions. The kind of decisions that feel monumental in the middle of the night, but when daylight comes you’re reminded that these decisions won’t make or break the family.
Can you make a wrong decision in the daylight? I guess you can, but if you’re prayerfully seeking wisdom, and all of your options are good ones, I don’t think it’s likely. Lee’s dad taught us that. Perhaps it’s one of the most valuable lessons he ever passed down to us as a married couple.
If you’re seeking the Lord, then whatever decision you make is the one He wanted you to make.
Such freedom. I’m thankful for that lesson he taught us.
Morning will come swiftly and 2:00 am rolls into 3:00 am while I still lay awake. The good news is the baby is still sleeping. It’s ironic, isn’t it? The night she sleeps all the way through, I’m wide-eyed on the couch.
I love my children. Deep down in my very core I feel the love bubble and churn. I love the baby in the crib who grins with her whole face when she’s happy. I love the seven-year-old with the spindly legs and smattering of freckles who’s currently splayed horizontally across my bed.
I love the nine-year-old who works harder than most grown ups I know, and who isn’t afraid of anything. And I love the eleven-year-old who is so much like me in personality that he makes parenting a challenge, because have you ever tried to parent yourself?
It’s 3:30 and I feel my eyelids finally getting heavy. I forget about all the ways I dropped the ball the day before, all the times the kids had to figure something out on their own because there isn’t enough of me to go around – all the times I didn’t respond appropriately because too many people were talking at once. I let those moments roll off my shoulders.
No, they didn’t get showers last night, or a healthy meal. Not everyone got in their full thirty minutes of reading, and I forgot to sign two out of three take home folders yesterday prompting notes from the teachers. I didn’t do things perfectly.
But I gave out sincere hugs and kisses before bed. I laughed heartily with them at dinner as we listened to the comedy station on Pandora. I gave a little to each of them in the areas they needed most.
I decide to accept the fact that despite not doing everything perfectly, I’m still the perfect mother.
His voice reached through the phone pressed to my ear and I took a breath to give the expected response, then stopped. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes, and I felt the wind sort of escape in a small sigh.
“I don’t know,” I said, voice trembling slightly.
A month ago, I signed my first contract with a literary agent. For over a decade, I have been trying, without success, to secure a literary agent. It is a very big step toward my dream of publication – this is what I’ve been waiting for, what I’ve wanted to do since I was a teenager.
I should be excited.
I am excited.
But I’ve lost momentum.
When I began blogging seven years ago, I had no idea where that journey would take me. Very early on I came across one of the Compassion Blogging trips, and as I read through those posts I felt a deep longing for my words to matter. As much as I loved chronicling the humorous moments of mom-life, I knew I wanted my site to become more.
I would walk through a year of grieving and heartache, and I couldn’t find my footing in the blogosphere anymore. I had accomplished my goal, and while writing has always been an outlet, at that point in time I found more solace in working on my novel, because blogging began to feel too painful. I was so very raw in those days, and I felt exposed online.
It’s been such a journey these last two and a half years. And now here I am, on the cusp of seeing another dream realized, and I find myself wildly overwhelmed.
If it weren’t for my husband, I think I would have given up a long time ago, because this process of doing what I love hasn’t been easy. Success, however you may measure it, hasn’t fallen in my lap. I’ve worked for it – I’ve worked really hard, and I have a stack of rejection letters to prove that what I do isn’t for the faint of heart.
Maybe I shouldn’t have kept the rejection letters. Maybe the folder full of “No” is a little bit of a downer, but it does make the “Yes” a little sweeter. And inside that folder full of “No” are little glimmers of hope. Editors who took the time to write me a personal note on their typical form letter response.
“Love the concept, and the writing is beautiful, but it’s not a good fit for us.”
“Keep working on this. You have the beginnings of something really special, but it’s not there yet.”
When I got those notes, I placed them on top of the stack of rejections to remind myself that I really can do this writing thing. Because the truth is, when you fight for something for so long, and you are constantly pushed backward, you start to question whether or not you’re cut out for this gig.
But now, there is someone else out there who believes in me. An agent who believes me capable of telling the stories I long to tell. I have a writing partner who, like my husband, has always been my cheerleader, and she’s right beside me in this new journey. She’s helping shape a message that the Lord placed on both of our hearts so many years ago.
I’m overwhelmed by it all. This is where the real work starts, and there’s a small part of me that is just scared. I’m afraid to get too excited. I’m intimidated by the need to gain blogging momentum again – to rebuild a platform in an already saturated market.
And that ever present nag that tells me I might not be good enough to pull this off likes to prick at my ears in the quiet moments when I’m most vulnerable.
Dream chasing is hard. It will always involve rejection. There are so many “No’s” that make up a “Yes.” And we’re all prone to look to our left and our right, and to see the people who are doing the things we want to do and assume that the success just fell in their laps. But 9 times out of 10, that’s not the case.
They worked hard for it, too.
If you’re chasing a dream right now, and you feel overwhelmed by it all, can I urge you not to give up? Don’t look at the “No’s” as a finality, but as the stacking point for the great big “Yes” waiting in the wings.
Maybe it won’t look like you thought it would, and maybe it will be more work than you assumed, but at the end of the day your dream matters, and the tenacity with which you’re willing to run after it will be the tipping point between excellence and mediocrity.
