What We Leave Behind

Most of you should probably have heard this. If not, you may need to sit down.

My family is--FINALLY--moving to Taylor, Arizona.

So, for anyone in my family or who’s a friend/associate of ours from the Grand Canyon state, yay, it’s good news. If you live in Utah you’ll probably be seeing more of us (I know I’ll enjoy having them close enough to take an occasional weekend trip). And I’m relieved that Dad decided to do this before the Second Coming.

But for our friends back in Texas, it’s kind of a bittersweet moment. Dad moved out to a little town east of San Antonio called Seguin (SEH-geen) to work at the Motorola plant not quite thirty years ago. Motorola has come and gone, but Dad brought Mom to live there and they raised five of us down in a little house right off of 1-10. We went to church in Seguin and school in Marion and although we didn’t have all the cool toys or watch all the popular TV shows we had books and friends and cats and that was enough. I don’t think the people we’ve known and loved in the area can imagine what the world is going to be like without us. I know I can’t.

View out my dad's office window. Notice the goats--
this was obviously a very long time ago

I don’t miss Texas a lot. I had bad experiences at school--some of them, yes, featured me getting bullied. Right up through Senior year. I don’t miss having to drive everywhere to get to a store or to church or to town, half the reason I never moved back. I don’t miss the humidity. Or the bugs--especially the spiders. I won’t miss the floods, and chances are where we’re going we won’t see so many of them. I won’t miss the rattlesnakes we’d occasionally get in our barn, but where we’re going there might still, sadly, be rattlesnakes, probably a different subspecies but still.

I’ll tell you what I DO miss--what I AM going to miss now that my family isn’t there anymore.

I’m going to miss our little house in the country that had grass just soft enough to walk on in the yard. We have like five pecan trees that give us nuts in the fall and in winter we crack them and give them away by the pound to friends and neighbors and ship them to far-off relatives. We have a field that we just let hay grow in and when I was younger dad would build us forts in the barn. Dad has tried getting into raising different kinds of animals--sheep, goats, rabbits pigeons, we were somewhat successful with chickens and ducks. The only critters that really flourished were the cats. We had a garden in the backyard and a little playground that got turned into a treehouse and then a fort that pretty much only the cats used. Part of the reason I turned out an introvert was because I lived too far away from friends to really hang out with them a lot. So that meant I could spend hours walking around in circles around the house and the field and daydream or just go back inside to draw or to read or to watch movies.

Guadalupe River crossing at US 90.

I'm going to miss the hills. Out where I lived there were just low rolling ones everywhere. If you're from Utah, it can seem kind of flat, but compared to, say, Lubbock, it's actually interesting terrain. I thought it was beautiful--it was the most beauty I got to see from day-to-day. And then every so often, my family would drive out into the Hill Country just a little to the west. Big, steep hills covered with brambly forests, a lot less civilized. Definitely a wild place.

I’m going to miss the rolling fields of wheat and corn that line the roads, the pastures full of horses and cattle, the ruined barns and houses that dot the landscape, the thickets of live oak and mesquite that grow here and there. We are out in the boonies enough to still have that small-town/country feel with the authentic drawls and cowboy boots and hats, but close enough to civilization that we feel, well, civilized. Mom and Dad were never really part of that culture anyway--Mom’s from (urban) Utah and my dad’s from Arizona. I built up a tolerance for country music. Enough to say that I like Rascal Flatts and Carrie Underwood and to relate to the lyrics of a few popular singles that I can’t name the artists or titles to.

I might miss Marion, a little, actually. Runs to Dollar General, driving in early on 78 from early morning seminary in Seguin. A small school that doesn’t have a lot of electives but a staff of teachers that was so supportive and wonderful to me and my four siblings. And there was nothing quite like homecoming day when all the girls who were passionate about it wore those frilly, tinkling mums of green and white ribbons.

Pape's Pecan House, Seguin, TX

I’m going to miss Seguin. Driving over the Guadalupe River every time we’d go to town and savoring the view. The Victorian houses. Just driving down College street. The old-town feeling of Court Street, the square behind the courthouse with the fountain and the statue of Juan Seguin that I regret not visiting nearly enough. Don’t get me wrong, the little Mormon meetinghouse on King and College streets is pretty. But the other religious organizations in Seguin have some fine churches too. Driving into town from you can see all the steeples as you come down the hill, and you glimpse them close-up when you drive through town. And then there’s the stores where we’d do our grocery shopping and the old library and just the landmarks you’d learn from driving back and forth a million times. Lazy afternoons at Starke Park. A lot of it has changed, over the years--the old HEB is gone and they built a bigger one. Blockbuster is gone, of course--it got divided into a liquor store and a dental office. And there’s a big, brand new city library downtown.

I’m going to miss the nearby town of New Braunfels. Landa Park. Playing church basketball with the girls over there. Hobby Lobby and Target and all of the best shopping! The hotbed of local German culture and the Edelweiss Inn that was oddly enough featured in a movie I saw at BYU International Cinema. Clear Springs...do they make onion rings like that anywhere else?

I’m going to miss the creeks and the little places for camping in and around Seguin and then the state parks up in the Hill Country (fall is the best time of year for camping in Texas, fall being November). The Hill Country, beautiful and remote and covered with wild forests. Wildflowers, every spring: bluebonnets, Indian paintbrushes, Indian blankets, primroses. Spring is my favorite time of year in Texas. It’s the best place in the world to be in springtime.

More or less what our highways look like in the springtime, in a good year (Pinterest)

I never went to Austin very much--well, except their airport, but that is a small airport that tbh I am glad to see the last of for now. But everyone in that part of Texas knows that Downtown Austin is a place to be avoided at rush hour. The few times I have driven through downtown Austin, though, I loved it. We would combine with the stakes in Austin for Youth Conferences, and let me tell you Austin is where the cool (Mormon) kids are from. A lot of those cool kids are here in Provo.

When people ask me what part of Texas I’m from I say San Antonio. Because it IS the best part. Marion is close enough to the Alamo and the downtown museums that we took epic field trips in elementary school. My parents, they’re from out of state, and they’re...tourists, so they like taking us to the tourist magnet, the Riverwalk in downtown San Antonio, but it’s a beautiful place with bridges and boat rides and the best of local culture on display. Better than Venice. The zoo is...mediocre but the last time I went was over ten years ago. The Japanese Tea Gardens at Brackenridge park are spectacular.  I went on field trips to the auditorium at Trinity University to see plays based on classic short stories when I was in middle school. And then I graduated from high school in that auditorium.

Downtowm SA

San Antonio also has the best freaking NBA team. I am a Spurs fan for life.

The Church built a temple in San Antonio. It has beautiful stained-glass windows and in one of the ordinance rooms a mural of the Hill Country with wildflowers painted by a lady from my home ward, the late Ardyth Haecker. It was completed in 2005 and the night before the dedication I was part of an enormous cultural celebration in the Alamodome. The temple is on Stone Oak parkway, overlooking Loop 1604 (another place to avoid during rush hour), right on top of a hill at the edge of the Hill Country.

Corpus Christi is where my family would go to the beach. And it's getting its own post.

Gosh, I love Texas history. I grew up right in the middle of where some of the more significant events happened, so I’m biased. But we had our own war of Independence from Mexico. We had an epic last stand at the Alamo. I read a biography of Sam Houston a few years ago and let me tell you, we need more people like him in today’s government. He may have been from a pro-slavery state but he was vehemently against the other southern states’ wanting to break with the Union right up until the Civil War, at least that’s what I gathered.

And NO state has state pride like Texas. I may live anywhere else in the world, but I will always own my Texas pride.

I like to think that the Texas flag is made out of part of the US flag.

Edit of a personal photo of the Alamo

I’m going to miss the culture. There’s the cowboy/folk/country element, for sure. My brother David spent several years growing up playing fiddle at the local oprys and I went to a few of his shows--lemme tell ya. But there is also a strong Latino heritage in the area, lots of Spanish place names and architecture and glorious, glorious mariachi music.

Also, the FOOD. Food is very important in south-central-whatever-Texas. Everybody (except me) loves spicy food. My home ward would do a chili cookoff nearly every year. My mother is going to miss the tamales. I’m going to miss the breakfast tacos made on homemade flour tortillas, wrapped in tinfoil, stuffed with cheese, egg, potato sausage, bacon, onions, refried beans, and other fillings and toppings to taste.

arielle clementine

My mom served her mission in Houston, Spanish-speaking. We almost never went to Houston (but before the temple in San Antonio was built the adults in my ward would go to the temple there every so often, and let me tell you the Houston Temple is beautiful). But my mom learned to make somewhat authentic Mexican food--enchiladas, fajitas. We’re taking that with us. To this day a quesadilla is a staple of my diet.

I’m going to miss driving through West Texas. Yes, it’s a pain in the butt, but I learned to enjoy the ride, especially when every landmark we passed would mean we were that much closer to that somewhere else we wanted to be. You go into the Hill Country, and then pass through lots of plateaus and buttes right up until you reach Fort Stockton, and then after that you’re in a desert and it’s so barren that you can feel the moisture coming off your skin, but at least there’s mountains. And then, after like six hours and six hundred miles, you’re in El Paso.

Butte visible from Interstate 10 just outside of Fort Stockton

It’s not just saying goodbye to all of these places, though. Moving means saying goodbye to all of the people that my family has spent the last twenty-odd years building relationships with. Each ward unit in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is supposed to be like a family, but no ward IS a family more than the Seguin Ward of the Kyle Texas Stake. When my dad moved there, it was just a branch. There was a Spanish branch there for a little while, but we’ve been a ward since I was a kid. Dad got to be bishop for a little while, even. There weren’t a lot of girls in my young women’s group, but they were some of my best friends growing up. Our chapel has hymnals in both English and Spanish.

There’s a handful of families that have been there as long as Dad has, if not longer. And there are families that come and go that you never forget. Some of them are transplants from Utah/Idaho/Arizona, like my folks. Some of them are local. A lot of them are converts. We have dinners parties like no one’s business--Thanksgiving, Christmas, Halloween, boy scout fundraisers, that sort of thing. Back in the day when General Conference was only broadcast to the chapels we would have pot-lucks in between the Sunday sessions.  And yes, we take turns feeding the missionaries.

LDS Chapel, Seguin

On the Stake level, we’ve made a lot of unforgettable friends too. Up until 2008, we were part of the San Antonio East Stake. Then we got put into the Kyle stake. Our stake center in Kyle is a 45-minute drive from my house and it made no sense for my family to attend functions there. But we stuck it out. We made it work. We have friends clear up and down I-35 from the east side of San Antonio to New Braunfels to Buda, friends with whom we share a common faith. After Dad got released from being bishop he served off and on in the high councils of both stakes. Since he and mom both speak fluent Spanish they have usually been assigned to work with the Spanish-speaking members on ward and stake levels.

We have friends outside of the church, too. My mom says that her co-workers at the Seguin hospital are like family to her, and she will miss them. I didn’t have a lot of friends at school--I had social problems. The few I did have were priceless. I sadly didn’t realize it until my last couple years of high school. But I did learn. No one can ever take their place.

Texas was never home for my mom and dad. Other people who live there, they have their parents and siblings and aunts and uncles and cousins living close by, they get together every so often. We have to travel out of state to see our extended family. But now Dad is moving back to his hometown, we’re renting a house from his aunt right next door to a place where one of my cousins is living and a couple of doors down from a few other cousins. It takes two minutes to drive to his mom’s house, but if there’s good weather and you feel up to it you can walk.  Mom can take weekend trips up to Utah to see her family. That’s their idea of being home. So I’m happy for them. And I’m happy for my younger siblings who get to have that experience.

Winter Sunset, I-10 West of Seguin

That little house in Texas is home to me in the sense that it’s where my story began. It’s the place that, after much trial and adversity, I was able to get away from in order to accomplish Great Things™. It’s enough of a home that I have a few ideas for potential fantasy novels set in that region, so if I want to take a trip back I can definitely call it “book research”. If I’m ever successful as an author, I will come back for book tours and give inspirational speeches to kids telling them that they should read books and go places in life. Yes, Texas is home, but there is so much more to the world.

So the Cole family is leaving Texas. We're going to be closer to our extended family. But we will miss the family that we had here. We will remember it as a place of the world that we made a little brighter. That is reason enough to say we’re happy that we were there.

Finding Gratitude

There's a million things I haven't done. And not having done them drives me crazy.

Some of you may or may not be aware of this, but for the last few months my depression has been worse than usual. My parents and other responsible adult figures have encouraged me to make going to work at my job my number one priority. Which means no taking time off of work for cosplay (no Saturday events) or for family (second year in a row I've missed the Fourth of July in Arizona). 

This year in general has been rough. The few cosplay events I have been to have usually been accompanied by some degree of anxiety, so I haven't really been able to enjoy them as much as I would have wanted. 

Photo from this spring

The stuff I usually agonize about is, with all this on top, harder to manage. I just want so many things that time and money prevent me from having. When I don't have them, when I have to wait longer for the money to buy that new costume or order that new t-shirt, I get frustrated. When I get home from work, I'm tired and I don't feel like working on costumes or writing, let alone put in the effort to work on actually finding a real job. So the things I want to have get delayed...and delayed...and delayed. I pass the time at work gathering wool about what to put into my stories, but I get home and I am too eager to find an excuse to not spin it. I don't get to eat out every weekend. I don't have a lot of food in my fridge, and I don't feel like cooking much. I'm stuck at a job that I don't want, I don't have money to buy everything I need or want, I'm not going to the places or doing the things that I want to do. And worst of all, I never get to spend time with the people I want to see the most.

I never get what I want, right when I want it, as much as I want it. 

All I focus is on what I want.That just makes me more miserable.

This morning, I had a moment of inspiration. Instead of thinking about what I don't have and haven't achieved yet, I could instead feel gratitude for the things that I do have. The things that I have done. What I HAVE accomplished.

Last September, right before Comic Con, I was having a really bad time. All I could focus on were the areas where I was failing. But during a phone call with my mom, she reminded me of the things that I have achieved and the things that I had to look forward to that very weekend. Her sharing that with me was a reminder that I am worth something. That I am capable of doing things--good things, great things, difficult things.  

You know, I could use the same kind of perspective right now. 

I don't get to see my cosplay friends a lot. But we have shared a lot of good experiences. Why be sad about the fun I could be having, when I can look back and remember the good times? 

There are a lot of costumes I want to build or I am somewhere in the stages of building. I don't have time/resources to allocate to creating one-hundred-percent-screen-accurate-costumes right now. But I have already created outfits for a lot of my favorite characters. I've sewn a few of them myself, even. I'm not the best at crafting things by hand, but the stuff I do put together looks good, and it tells a story. People recognize these characters and appreciate me for bringing them out. And I've been able to create some beautiful art through cosplay.

I don't have time to be a full-time writer/author right now. It makes me sick sometimes, to think of all the story ideas that I have that I don't have time to sit down and write, even in my spare time. Guys, being a writer is hard work!

But I do have these stories to tell. I have places to go in my head and my heart. I have stories that I can plan out in my mind. When I get the chance, I can sit down and chip away at them, a little bit at a time. Even though I can't share them all right now, the ones I have created have given me a place to go where I can be happy and safe, and where I can find a different way to analyze my fears. 

I know I haven't posted as much in my blogs as I've wanted to so far this year. But looking back, I have actually written a lot of posts over the last two years, and some of them are actually great.

I don't get to travel a lot. I haven't been outside of Utah since Christmas. I haven't been able to travel anywhere new lately. The only time I ever left the country was when I was three, and that was for a wedding in Mexico I don't even remember. I did get to go to Nauvoo and Florida when I was little, but I feel like it doesn't count. I haven't really BEEN anywhere cool since becoming an adult. And I've been telling myself for years that I was going to save up money and travel. 

But I have been to fantastic places. Right here in the West. I see these places sometimes every summer. I know where they are. I can always go back to them in my mind.

There are friends I don't see in person a lot. But I post things on social media to make them laugh. I still know them. They still know me.

I haven't been able to go out much this summer. But I have made it to four wedding receptions in the last three months--that's actually kind of a record. And I have also been doing a lot of reading--more on that coming next week.

Some of you know, I have invested a lot of my soul in Salt Lake Comic Con in the last few years. Salt Lake Comic Con regularly has a high turnout of big-name celebrities. But I have never had the money to get photo ops or autographs with any of them--except for Carrie Fisher and John Rhys-Davies. Those were two experiences that I will never forget. I also met Ray Park and Daniel Logan in passing. And LeVar Burton. I may want their autographs but I HAVE met them and that's saying something. I may not have gotten their autographs but it was still just as cool to meet them. I've meet some of my favorite authors as well, and been able to meet up with my friends in the professional geeking world. 

And as for the other celebrity guests--Mark Hamill, Chris Evans, Jeremy Renner, Anthony Daniels--I've been able to go to their Q&A panels. I've been in the same room as them, and been entertained by them with thousands of other fans. I saw and heard them in person. Some of the things they've done at Salt Lake Comic Con have gone viral over the internet, and I am able to say that I WAS THERE. And there are guests that I want to come or to come back very badly to upcoming conventions. But if I complain about them too much, I'll forget the good times we HAVE had with the people who HAVE been. And when looking back, I shouldn't listen to the snarly voice in my head that says "You should be grateful for what you already got and stop asking for more." No. Just be grateful. Just feel it.

sltrib

I don't live in a penthouse. I don't have an apartment all to myself. I'm still living in the Provo "bubble." But I do have a nice place to live. And I can decorate it however I want. I'm walking distance from BYU campus and some good shopping areas, fast food, and I can get to a bus stop easily. (Plus I haven't misplaced my UTA farepay card for the last several months. There's something to be said for that).  

I'm not a perfect person. I'm not a flawless Molly Mormon. I don't go to the temple EVERY week. I don't make it to church sometimes because I sleep in. Sometimes I only read my scriptures for five minutes instead of fifteen. I haven't done any visiting teaching this summer. And I get angry. A lot. Over stupid little things.  But I am striving to be a good person. I do things that invite the Holy Ghost in my life. I'm trying to socialize more with my ward. I go to the temple when I have the time and energy, and I've been doing better the last couple of weeks. I've started reading through conference talks with my scripture study. 

I have my temptations and weaknesses. But I don't let them define who I am or who I want to be.

I don't have a car, but walking everywhere keeps me in somewhat good shape. My job requires physical activity as well. I'm actually pretty tough physically. And even if my mental health is a mess my physical health problems aren't usually worse than the occasional cold. 

Pinterest

Remember that meditation I posted last year, Your Focus Determines Your Reality? If all I do is focus on how badly I want something, then the negative feelings will harm me. If I focus on everything that is going wrong, then my life is, indeed, a disaster.

If I take time to look back and think about the things that I do have--a place to live, food to eat, a decent job with reasonable hours, lots of costumes, lots of memories, lots of friends both near and far away--then I realize that I not only have a lot, but I AM a lot. 

What I have may not be the same as what the more-accomplished-adult in the Ritz has, but I shouldn't give in to the trap of thinking that what I have isn't "real" or as important. 

This line of thought inspired me to re-read a talk that President Uchtdorf gave in conference a few years ago, "Grateful in Any Circumstances." It's humbling that I've finally figured out what that talk was about and that I have a reason to apply it. Gratitude isn't so much counting off your specific blessings as it is having the capacity to appreciate those things--the capacity to feel that these things are gifts from God. Especially when times are hard. Seeing the good in the world, in your life, requires faith.

I know my posterity may not be satisfied that I have not kept very consistent personal records over the last several years. But I hope that when they read these blog posts, they will be able to see how I was able to find the positive in difficult circumstances. That's all I want for anyone who reads this next week to get from it, too.

The Lizy Reviews: Moana (With In-depth discussion)

Disney’s recent princess movies have a habit of coming out when I need them to. Tangled was a capstone for a period in my life when I’d had a change in perspective and understanding, and it encouraged me to follow the dreams I was starting to discover. Frozen happened when I had put my first really bad battle with depression behind me. It reminded me that my Autism and my obsessive side were gifts as much as they were a curse, and that the best way to bridle them was with love.

Now here we are. It’s 2017. Moana is officially the last movie I will ever see in the Provo Dollar Theater before it goes the way of all the earth. And it comes at a time in my life when I’m torn between what’s expected of me by other people and what I want for myself. Moana navigates her internal conflict to find a way to save her island from an ancient curse.

Disney UK

This review will be full of spoilers, so you know the drill.

First Reactions

I cried when Grandma Tala died. Literally. Granted, I was having a stressful day. So at that particular scene I let it out.

I was hesitant about Moana because I know Disney is trying to be politically correct and do the whole diversity thing in their movies. But I kept hearing lots of good stuff about this movie. Turns out, I’ve forgotten how much I actually like Polynesian culture.

Giphy

If you want to be too hard on this movie, you can look at Moana as just Tangled or Frozen rehashed in Polynesia. The girl has an obligation to society but she wants to follow her dream, and she overcomes get things the way she wants. Moana acts like a typical spunky Princess, almost kind of like Rapunzel. Her affinity for boats also gives me a bit of a Pocahontas vibe, too. But Moana breaks the mold in several ways--including, most notably, a lack of a romance or marriage plot. And it’s actually refreshing. The film just focuses on the adventure. Moana is already an empowered female character, and she has lots of physical agility and a thorough education. The only thing she doesn’t have going for her: no one is allowed to leave their small island. And she wants to go. Badly.

We never get the full story of how/why Maui stole the Heart of Te’Fiti. He probably just wanted its power like all the other baddies in the movie. But Maui is a fun character. Especially when he has a shark head. Shark-head Maui is the best Maui!

Giphy

My favorite thing about the movie? The music. Oooooh, the music! When I heard Lin-Manuel Miranda singing “We Know the Way,” I knew it was real.

Moana is definitely a family-friendly film. There are some scary moments when Moana and Maui take on the lava monster, and some rude humor to watch for. But it's very clean and uplifting.

Overall, I like Moana even better than Frozen. This is the Disney movie I’ve been waiting for.

Gender Roles: Moana versus Maui

One of my small concerns/critiques about this film is how it portrays and projects gender roles in the contrast of Moana and Maui.

The island society that Moana comes from is fairly egalitarian. The men and women of the island may have separate roles but they aren’t discussed and it doesn’t make them better than the other.  Moana is next in line to become chief after her father. She is never picked on or demeaned or told to do something because she is a woman. Maui calls her a princess but that’s about it. As far as gender roles, this is about as level a playing field as we’ve ever gotten for a Disney film.

Pinterest

Enter Maui. The story revolves around fixing a mistake that Maui made, and at the outset Moana expects him to do it himself. However, he ends up backing out of the venture and Moana has to save the day. Maui is also a more comical character than Moana. His physical strength, magic powers, and knowledge of wayfinding and lore are important to the story. However, he is a trickster responsible for the calamity in the first place and a shape shifter. He’s a braggart. The audience is not supposed to respect Maui or idolize him as much as Moana--even though Moana is being pedestalized for reasons that don’t embody traditional femininity.

Here’s the thing: you can’t jump to the conclusion that just because Moana is the hero that all men are jerks or that women don’t need men to save the world. Because Maui came back to help her and it took both of them to deal with Ta’ka. Yes, selfishness of the Maui variety is an actual problem. Yes, people need to put that selfishness aside to help each other. It is a message that transcends gender or gender roles.

But there is something to be said about the fact that male Disney characters keep being maligned as unfaithful and narcissistic. Most Disney heroes and princes--most of them, NOT all--are either underdeveloped or emasculated in some way. Maui is no exception. He’s a rounded character but not really a traditional hero with a moral compass. He has super-strength but he can’t really do anything without his magic fishhook, and he needs Moana’s help to get the fishhook back, but this also supports the point that he and Moana can’t accomplish anything without help from the other. Maui’s masculinity is a caricature. Moana isn’t a perfect person, either, but it’s not as easy to see her flaws. Moana and Maui are great characters, but is it possible to create a strong female character without marginalizing the male in some way?

Ta’feti/Ta’ka was definitely female but other than that had no real personality beyond her fire duality. She was a goddess and characterized as one. She doesn’t really behave as a person. So Disney hasn’t had a good female villain since Mother Gothel. But Ta’feti/Ta’ka isn’t really a villain. She simply IS.

Beautiful fan art (Pinterest)

Forgot to mention: the ocean. It's definitely gender-fluid in every sense of the term. Maybe based on its relationship with Moana it's a little feminine. The ocean is never really explained except for the fact that it "chose" Moana. But I wonder why they needed to make the ocean crest into a hump whenever it wanted to interact with Moana? Other than to make it distinguishable. There are plenty of things they could have done. Just a small nitpick.

As far as gender, I don’t think this movie is saying anything radical. That can be a good thing. To a point, gender is not as irrelevant to the subliminal message as you think. But the film is careful to tie Moana back to her people and her family. I'm not saying I have a huge problem with this. It's just something I wanted to point out.

The Music

The music of Moana is a voyage in itself. Lin-Manuel Miranada, we already know, came into the spotlight as the composer for the Broadway musical Hamilton. One of the peculiarities of Hamilton is the way that different lyrics and meloides are attached to certain characters and then repeated in different songs to tie the show together. We see the same technique at work in Moana. Grandma Tala’s line “who you are” first appears in “Where We Are.” Then it gets repeated in “I Am Moana” and “Know Who You Really Are,” and it even gets referenced by the crab Tamatoa in “Shiny.” “I am Moana” is probably the best song in the whole movie because it blends together the themes from “Where We Are,” “How Far I’ll Go” and “We Know the Way.” With the slant rhymes, the rhythm of the words, the visual imagery in Shiny and the rap in “You’re Welcome,” we know that we’re dealing with a master hip-hop artist here. However, Miranda is also a master at more traditional Disney melodies. “How Far I’ll Go” and “We Know the Way” are my two new favorite songs. "Shiny" is the best Disney Villain song since freaking "Mother Knows Best," and it has a vibe similar to "Friends on the Other Side" and "Friend Like Me." Also, may I mention that unlike Frozen and Tangled, we get a reprise of "We Know the Way" at the very end of the movie. Major points.

The Mythology of Moana

Moana does not recreate Polynesian mythology straight from the myths, but it is more accurate to its source material in the details than Hercules or Pocahontas--not that those were bad movies; Moana is just better.

This is what the big picture looks like in Moana’s world. Creation is either the result of divine benevolence (Ta’Feti) or accident (Maui).  Other miscellaneous beings--Ta’ka, the Kakamora, and the sea monsters--don’t have any real relationship to humans to benefit or harm them intentionally, but if you bother them they will bother you back. If you have something they want, though, good luck.

Business Insider

The humans in this story stay on the island away from other creatures (the island is a “safe” zone”), find purpose and order in their lives in carrying on their traditions, living their lives, and staying in boundaries. It is when they have been on the island too long without leaving or changing that Ta’ka’s curse begins to sap away at the life of the island. The island peoples have to expand in order to survive but Moana and Granma Tala are the only ones on their island who recognizes this. The only world that anyone knows is the island and everything else is legends.

Giphy

The voyaging ancestors of Moana’s people found purpose in exploring a bigger world, in expanding their domains and being connected to different islands. They did not limit their resources to a single island which is a lot more practical in an economic sense as well as a spiritual one, and Moana’s story illustrates both of these aspects.

To conventional audiences, Maui can come across as a jerk. And he is. Because he is a trickster. Everything he does, including acts that result in creation, are for kicks (“that was just Maui messin’ around). He isn’t necessarily good or bad. He’s just self-motivated (although the mini-me in his tattoos lends a human touch by acting as his conscience). He is a shape-shifter. His identity is fluid, so while it can benefit him to change his shape, you also can’t trust him because you don’t know who he really is.

What Is the Message?

Who am I? That is a question I have been asking myself a lot lately. Am I supposed to be a responsible adult? CAN I do the things I’m supposed to to take care of myself? Is being a geek and a writer and a dreamer something I can do on the side, or is it going to keep me from being who I’m supposed to be?

Moana spends the film asking herself the same questions. And like her, I am drawn to the horizon of what I it is possible for me to do with my talents. If I can do everything in my power to achieve my goals, who knows what I can create? Who knows where I can go, what I can do, who I can meet, who I can be? That’s the tantalizing question.

Moana is about finding out who you really are. And not just for the heroine. Is the dumb chicken just a dumb chicken? Can Maui be Maui without his fishhook? And does Ta’feti, the benevolent creator, need to be Ta’ka, the fuming destroyer, just because her Heart was wrongfully taken from her?

“I am Moana,” sung by Grandma Tala’s spirit and by Moana after Maui ditches her on the high seas, is the most powerful moment in the film. It is okay if you have to give up. It’s okay if you fail, says Grandma. I will be with you. What matters is who you’ve become because of what you’ve experienced. What matters is that you ARE capable. And what matters, Moana decides, is that she CAN finish the mission herself.

nicktheilart.deviantart, via Pinterest

The nice thing about Art, including animated films, is that you can interpret it however you want, and there is not a 100% correct answer to what a piece of art is absolutely about.

It can look like, to some people, that the message of Moana is to go and do whatever you want with your life and don’t worry about your family obligations or their values etc. And that is a valid interpretation. But here is my perspective as a person of faith: sometimes doing the thing, including doing the morally RIGHT THING, can mean going outside of the boundaries that other people set. Or even boundaries you set yourself.

Now, forbidding people to leave the island was kind of a stupid idea in the first place. And Moana didn’t leave just to follow her dream of sailing the seas: she did it to save her people. The fact that voyaging was her dream gave her the courage to pursue that option. Her people’s food supplies were threatened. It was a matter of life and death. If they didn’t change their fishing grounds or make contact with other islands to trade for food, they were going to DIE (talk about your cheese getting moved). Moana had the courage to voice a different idea. She had the courage to take action and do something that would solve the problem. But doing that required her to be different. She spent her life doing everything in her power to fit in and be a good girl but in the end she had to be an agent of change.

I had a thought during my church services last week. You don’t have to conform to what the world thinks you should do. Strength comes not from giving in to your carnal desires or doing whatever you want. Nor does it come from listening to people who say that doing so is the secret to happiness. Strength comes from doing what you believe in.

Pinterest

Sometimes having standards is what makes you different rather than what makes you a sheep. Sometimes the way you interpret your standards or work within the boundaries is going to come across to some people as going outside an accepted limit. Sometimes, events beyond our control make us different from the crowd and you get labeled for it. Sometimes you don’t reflect the image of what other people think an ideal person should be--the truth is, you never do. Sometimes what you believe in your heart isn’t going to be the same as the way everybody else thinks even if you identify with that group.

Moana is a film that speaks to everybody. Because it is a film about being different. Because it is going beyond the accepted limits that carries you to fulfilling your destiny. And sometimes your destiny can be doing more than even you dreamed.