August was a rather heavy month. Slower, tired, distracted, more receptive than productive. I suppose this isn’t a bad thing, as I had written earlier in my log that ‘Less is rather the point for me now. Less, but more fulfilling.’ Slowing down wasn’t entirely deliberate, but necessary all the same, so in opposition to my usual nature, I decided to accept it and ride the wave rather than fight it.
Because this month has been deficient in output, and because we have a child on the way, my spouse and I have been watching more films. Children’s films mostly, many of which I’d never seen out of my perpetual childish avoidance of anything too popular. We almost never watch movies; indeed, we don’t own a television, so we watched on my laptop. Yet this month we binged on quite a few.
One that stood out to me was The Lion King (1994). To me, this movie is close to the pinnacle of craft; an artisanal creation with moral coherence without preaching, a compelling narrative, beautiful hand-drawn animation, perfectly timed events and perfectionistic pacing, wonderfully composed music (I usually dislike musicals), and a lack of the visual and auditory noise that plagues films today. What I especially appreciated was the movie’s willingness to sit with its own emotional scenes without deflating them through crass jokes or sardonic quips.
By contrast, Despicable Me (2010) is a mess. I truly believe the popularity is largely due to the marketability of minions. Those little creatures were merely annoying to me. Pointless. Hollow. Nothing but a sales ploy. But that isn’t what repelled me from the film; it was the incoherent armature, lack of character development or internal workings, and the fact the moral of the story appears to be ‘you can have it all, even if you do the wrong thing’. Almost nothing that happens in the film is earned.
Some other movies we watched followed by brief opinions on them (skip if uninterested):
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001): A charming and cosy movie with a positive message for children about loyalty, friendship, and integrity.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002): Also charming and cosy with a strong moral about how it is not one’s abilities and potential that define them, but their actions.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004): An edgy and angsty movie all about the ‘vibe’, which severely let down the book, let down the characters (who are infernally flanderised), and didn’t make a lot of sense.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005): Better than the previous movie, but was quite overacted, strangely directed, and Voldemort felt like a teenager more than an actual existential threat. I’ll have mercy seeing as it was a too long and complicated a book to appropriately adapt into a 2–3 hour movie.
Megamind (2010): This thoroughly surprised me. I expected it to be on par with Despicable Me, or at least have the typical rebellion of a DreamWorks movie with constant deflation and sarky comments (though I say that as someone who really enjoys Shrek). And while it is quite corny, the characters and lessons deliver with impact and clarity that are often missing from many children’s movies of the era, and instead of emotionally exploiting the audience, the film allowed itself to be emotional and open in places without deflating the tension. The lesson was similar to Chamber of Secrets in that it showed that abilities and power are not what makes a person, but instead the choices they make and actions they take (compare Hal’s use of power to Megamind’s—though I also like that Megamind is not particularly skilled or competent, yet still succeeds through the support of others and choosing good).
WALL-E (2008): I really wanted to dislike this because it was so ridiculously popular at the time it was released that just hearing its name irked me. I guess I’m still growing out of that even after all this time. Yet, it’s such a beautiful film. A good example of Pixar’s old storytelling craft and show-don’t-tell philosophy. Amazing how much expression the animators could convey through the gestures of that little heap of rusted junk that somehow felt so human.
As for reading, I read A Life in Letters, the letters of George Orwell, and now I’m currently reading his diaries. I was surprised at how much my view of him changed through this. While I don’t always agree with him on his worldview (indeed, I stand on the opposite side in some ways), and I feel a disdain for a certain foible of his, I can’t help but admire his work ethic, tenacity, willingness to act on what he believes, and above all, his honesty. One of his superiors at the BBC claimed Orwell was probably incapable of dishonesty. I greatly respect his wit, sharpness of mind, and ability and desire to think deeply about things rather than accept them at face value. It was interesting reading his letters because I could see how he matured and grew through the years.
I lost my grandmother this month, someone who has been another mother to me, a best friend and confidante, and a person I always tried to learn from and emulate. Indeed, the family called me her “sticky plaster” because of how attached to her I was when growing up. She was a tough woman. Direct, honest almost to a fault, firm and authoritarian, yet fair, warm, and loving. She told you the truth not to hurt, but to save you from yourself. And while it was easy for her to be misunderstood in her severe way with words and sometimes controversial sense of humour, nobody was as selfless as my grandmother. I’ve never seen her once put herself before another person; self-sacrificing to the extreme, without being naïve, weak, or gullible. She was someone who knew how to love unconditionally, and stand up to that which dwarfed her (and much dwarfed that tiny lady).
I moved country in December 2024. The hardest part wasn’t the paperwork, the language, the logistics, or even the bureaucracy and politics; it was leaving behind family, particularly my grandmother. But the move was the right call for me, as she said herself. While others were concerned and questioned me incessantly about my apparently sudden decision, she encouraged me and told me ‘it’ll be the making of [me]’. And she was right.
But what this has meant is that I’ve had to learn to be present with family from a distance. That means phone calls every week, posting photos in the chat, and recording what happens to me just so I have something real to discuss with them beyond the weather. It’s also meant learning to be more open, authentic, and to overcome my fear of being seen as emotional or weak. It’s meant becoming honest.
But losing someone from a distance is strange. In some ways, a part of you has learned to cope with the loss because you’d already lost something by simply moving far away, to somewhere from where it’s difficult to easily visit home (I haven’t been back since I moved, for various reasons). It’s painful in a different way: I couldn’t travel for the funeral, so I watched it as an online stream. I couldn’t be with my grieving family. I couldn’t see her repose and say goodbye in person. And because I’m no longer at her house every day, it almost feels as though she hasn’t left and when I call her on Friday as I always did, she’ll pick up with her usual, ‘Hi, pet’.
But she won’t.
I keep finding myself thinking, ‘I must tell Nana this on Friday,’ or ‘Nana will think that’s really funny.’ Sometimes I think, ‘Oh, Nana might find this helps her arthritis,’ or I want to tell her something silly about my son on the way. And then Friday comes, and I realise I won’t be telling her any of this.
Distance almost makes the loss feel like it didn’t really happen. Like there’s a lack of closure. But what closure is there ever really in death? On the one hand, it feels sudden. She sounded perfectly normal on the phone two days before she died. But on the other hand, she wasn’t perfectly well and she was quite old. But she was such a vibrant and unique woman that it feels wrong she isn’t in the world anymore. I don’t really know how to process it.
But something interesting came about from this experience. I realised how utterly fortunate I am to have known someone in life that I loved so much, and who loved us so much, that it’s this painful to lose them. And I can actually feel this pain. Sort of. I always struggled to feel and process emotions in real-time, yet this time it was instant. Sure, after a few days I tried to divert back to my usual tactic of busying myself externally to avoid the internal. But eventually, at the kitchen table, I blurted out my thoughts to my spouse honestly and openly without deflecting or fearing vulnerability or berating myself for being ‘weak’ or ‘soft’. Humans truly do grow through facing pain (though I still have a long way to go, of course).
Though it hurts, I’m grateful for the experience, and most of all for knowing my grandmother. Grateful for the memories, for having listened to all her stories of the past (and wow, did she have some wild stories), and for my last words to her being that I loved her.