#zucchini though. every time I think that surely I’ll be disappointed. and every time it’s like PSYCH I TASTE AMAZING.

[hotcinnamonsunset]

10/10 did you know that baking with zucchini makes everything secretly delicious????🫐(recipe here!)

[jehanimation]

The Jehanimation Awards: separating the best of 2016′s animated movies from the rest

Between all the political turmoil, the near-relentless stream of high-profile deaths and the release of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, it has been widely accepted that 2016 was A Bad Year. As a member of the human race, last year probably was a bit of a disappointment in most respects; look at it as an animation enthusiast, though, and the picture starts to look quite a bit rosier.

In fact, I’m going to go a step farther than that and call 2016 one of the best years for feature animation in recent memory - which is saying a lot given how much the bar has been raised since the 1990s. Since the advent of CGI tore up the rulebook and made it easier for newer studios to compete with Disney on an equal footing, it’s felt like we’ve been constantly on the cusp of a new, more diverse landscape for mainstream animation, allowing a wider range of studios and directors to present wildly different visions in a competitive marketplace, rather than a single company monotonously ruling the roost. Obviously, the conservative and formula-driven nature of the business has meant that potential hasn’t always been realised, but in 2016 we got a glimpse of how that theoretical vision would play out in reality - and it was a pretty exciting thing to behold. I can’t think of many previous years in which so many companies - from the US and elsewhere - were able to produce such a broad spread of high-quality movies for different audiences, resulting in a glut of animated movies occupying the top spots in not only the worldwide box office rankings, but also in lists of the best-reviewed films of the year.

Faced with such an embarrassment of riches, it feels difficult and somewhat reductive to pit them against each other and pick out a small handful as being the best - but that’s just what we do around this time of year anyway, so who am I to argue? Still, my intention here is not to add to the somewhat adversarial sentiments that awards season can sometimes generate; this is simply my personal evaluation of all the new animated movies I got to see in 2016, with my favourites highlighted. Your own mileage will, of course, vary, because such variety is the spice of life; with that said, I’m pretty sure this list is 100% objectively correct, so I’ve no idea why you’d disagree.

Immense thanks go to the wonderful Jamie Carr for the header image and icon for this blog! Go follow her on Twitter at @neurodolphin!

THE NOTABLE OMISSIONS

Before I get into evaluating the best of 2016’s crop, I should probably acknowledge that, contrary to assumption, I am not omniscient, and was therefore unable to see every animated movie that came out last year. There are upsides to this, as it means I missed out on having to watch bargain-bin garbage like Norm of the North or Robinson Crusoe (aka The Wild Life), and was able to judiciously pass on higher-profile but poorly-reviewed efforts like Blue Sky’s Ice Age: Collision Course and Rainmaker Entertainment’s Ratchet & Clank; unfortunately, it also meant not getting to see most of the less widely-screened animated movies from overseas, which is a great shame. I haven’t, for example, been able to see The Red Turtle or My Life as a Zucchini - two of the five nominations for this year’s Best Animated Feature Oscar - nor did I catch the well-reviewed French-Canadian production Ballerina (known in the US as Leap!). I also freely confess to being underexposed to anime, meaning I didn’t see anything from Japan this year - with one important exception, which I’ll come to later. I’ll certainly hope to correct some of these oversights at a later date.

THE ALSO-RANS

The following movies are the films that - for one reason or another - didn’t quite connect with me this year. Some are better than others, but to some degree or another I wouldn’t say they succeeded at what they set out to do.

The Angry Birds Movie

This was probably the weakest animated film I saw last year, which - given its essentially functional mediocrity - reflects pretty well on 2016’s lineup as a whole, even though it doesn’t retroactively make The Angry Birds Movie any more impressive.

I’ve already written a complete review of this film, so I don’t want to waste too much additional time on this one, but looking back I do find it striking just how middling this film was, especially when viewed in the context of everything else that came out after it. It remains deeply frustrating that The Angry Birds Movie actually did a lot of the groundwork necessary to produce a better-than-expected adaptation of a plotless physics-based puzzle game - devising a striking look, hiring great actors and laying the foundation for a potentially interesting thematic discussion on the role of anger in a healthy society - before totally squandering that potential on a script that favours lightweight, rambling and puerile comedy over any opportunity to advance the characters or emotional stakes. It’s a film that lazily follows a bog-standard Shrek-lite formula of cheap pop culture gags, toilet humour and sitcom punchlines, seemingly without realising that said playbook is now several years out of date - which, I suppose, is somewhat fitting for a belated spinoff to a mobile app whose popularity peaked about five years ago.

As I say, there are aspects of The Angry Birds Movie that are slightly better than they needed to be - and I’m willing to accept that it’s not easy to reverse-engineer a script that culminates in birds launching themselves into a pig’s castle via catapult - but I feel less charitable towards it in hindsight having since seen DreamWorks’ Trolls, another brand-derived movie that applied infinitely more honest craft and creativity to its subject matter, and achieved exponentially superior results as a consequence. The fact that Angry Birds was able to utilise its stronger brand recognition and well-timed release window to ultimately outgross Trolls on a worldwide basis just emphasises the point that this isn’t a film in need of my charity, or one worth holding up for any reason other than as an example of the kind of lazy work the rest of the industry has long moved beyond.

The Secret Life of Pets

2016 was a banner year for Illumination Entertainment, as the studio not only made the jump to releasing two films within 12 months for the first time ever, but was also able to turn both into bona fide global smash hits without any reliance on their flagship Despicable Me/Minions franchise. The Secret Life of Pets was the more conventional of the two outings, with its higher box office takings showcasing the strength of the Illumination brand as it exists today; however, the film itself also offers an equally sharp insight into the how much room the studio has to grow.

As I alluded to in my recent post about Illumination, there’s a lot to admire in The Secret Life of Pets, and its great success is no mystery to me. It leans heavily on many of the studio’s established strengths, including a flair for kinetic caricature and imaginative physical comedy, and its bright visual style and design work meant it played a significant role in a broader reawakening of the general public’s love affair with talking animal movies. However, it’s also an unintentional showcase of Illumination at its weakest, particularly in its willingness to foreground shallow slapstick over meaningful story development, and its allergic reluctance to challenge the audience emotionally. That the film’s plot is essentially a beat-for-beat pet-oriented remake of the original Toy Story invites comparisons that do not flatter Illumination’s movie, as The Secret Life of Pets is an infinitely shallower film that passes up several golden opportunities to give its characters proper dimension, resulting in an experience that’s basically sweet-natured and inoffensive, but never comes close to making a lasting impression.

With $875 million grossed worldwide, The Secret Life of Pets was undoubtedly one of the year’s biggest success stories, and represents the start of a franchise with considerable potential mileage; however, the series will require a significant injection of depth, pathos and substance if the resulting series is ever going to be able to aspire to anything more than a vehicle for the episodic and rote delivery of middlebrow gags with a bare minimum of investment.

Kubo and the Two Strings

A passion project by Laika Entertainment’s president and CEO (and sadly forgotten rap legend) Travis Knight, Kubo and the Two Strings didn’t do huge business at the box office, but it’s quickly emerged as one of the critical darlings of the year, and a major awards contender. While I love pretty much everything this hugely admirable piece of work represents, I can’t quite bring myself to extend the same feeling to the film itself as a piece of storytelling.

In fact, I’d probably rate Kubo and the Two Strings as one of the bigger disappointments I experienced last year, which is a real bummer, as I have a deep and unbroken fondness for Laika’s work, dating back to their days in their previous incarnation as Will Vinton Studios. Kubo is in most respects their most ambitious film yet, blending their traditional focus on emotional intimacy and dark atmospherics with an epic fantasy sweep. When it works, it’s absolutely magnificent - their stop motion animation and design work has now evolved to the point where it almost looks indistinguishable from CGI at times, and their grasp of subtle melancholy is as peerless - but there’s a shakiness to the story’s fundamentals that I’m unused to seeing from a studio as famed for their attention to detail as Laika are. The tone lurches wildly from tearjerking grimness to flippant buddy comedy and back again; the actual quest narrative is irritatingly coincidence-driven and never more than vaguely explained, giving the audience little scope to share the journey of discovery; and most damagingly, the script doesn’t seem to know what it wants the lead characters of Monkey and Beetle, setting them up as jovially bickering sidekicks before saddling them with dramatically pivotal backstories that feel overly on-the-nose and don’t mesh with their personalities at all. The result is a film to which I gradually lost my emotional connection as it progressed, which is pretty fatal for a story that ends as intimately as this one does.

Add to that some questionable decisions regarding casting - I won’t harp on this too much, but I will say that it’s weird for a film this conscious about authenticity and tone to pass up the benefits that an Asian cast would provide in that regard, and that none of the actual cast give such indelible performances that they couldn’t have been swapped out - and you get a film ranks as my least favourite Laika movie to date. Admittedly, it’s a difficult category in which to compete, but it’s still a shame not to be able to join in the general chorus of appreciation surrounding a film that generally reflects so much of what I love about animation. I still thoroughly appreciate Laika’s work in almost single-handedly propping up the medium of stop-motion through sheer passion and bloody-mindedness, but for me the narrative elements of Kubo and the Two Strings got away from them - and when you’re making a film specifically designed to celebrate the power of storytelling, that creates a hole in the middle of the movie that no amount of technical splendour can fill.

Finding Dory

The top-grossing animated movie of the year, Pixar’s Finding Dory was always going to be a commercial slam-dunk, given the special place its predecessor Finding Nemo holds in the hearts of many; the big question was whether it was going to be able to measure up to the first movie’s legacy in terms of filmmaking. The answer? Ehhh.

That’s certainly not due to a lack of effort, of course; as I’ve touched upon in my previous post concerning this movie, Finding Dory is not a phoned-in sequel, and you can tell that returning director Andrew Stanton has put thought and consideration into how to expand the self-contained story of Finding Nemo outwards in a way that feels organic. The resulting development of the character of Dory - a mentally impaired protagonist seeking to make peace not only with her own past, but also with herself and the way her condition affects her - is rich with emotional pathos and feels like a natural continuation of Finding Nemo’s key themes, as well as forming a meaningful statement on disability in its own right.

Beyond the oasis of that central storyline, however, Finding Dory enters choppier waters. Dory’s journey may be significant in emotional terms, but dramatically it feels small, with the epic, sweeping journey of the first movie swapped for a claustrophobic single-location setting for the majority of the sequel. That reduced sense of scale isn’t helped by the flimsiness of the supporting cast, populated by half-formed ideas like Hank the octopus (who feels like he has a character-defining backstory lying on a cutting room floor somewhere) or one-note gag characters like Destiny, Bailey, Rudder and Fluke (who never come close to being properly developed). Worst of all, Finding Nemo’s protagonist Marlin is purely along for the ride this time, with very little to do other than complain in a way that becomes grating and unentertaining fairly rapidly. The result is a two-hander where one hand is significantly more developed than the other, which - as Nemo himself would tell you - makes it much harder for Finding Dory to swim in the smooth, straight lines you’d expect from a Pixar film.

That said, I’m not sure exactly what I expect from a Pixar film these days. Finding Dory is far from a bad movie, but it’s a pedestrian effort from a studio that seemed to effortlessly maintain a much higher orbit before the turn of the decade. Finding Dory owes a lot of its success to goodwill left over from those peak years, but the lack of love the movie has received on the awards circuit suggests that at least some of that is starting to run dry. There’s a Dory-style lesson to be learned there: old memories aren’t enough to sustain you forever - you have to be able to form new ones, too.

THE RECOMMENDATIONS

The following movies are the films I saw that didn’t quite make my best-of list, but nevertheless worked well enough to make a positive impression. These aren’t the year’s best animated movies - but they are good ones.

Storks

Storks seemed to come and go without anyone really noticing it happened. I myself missed it at the cinema, and catching up with it many months later, I can sort of understand why; it’s a thoroughly odd duck that doesn’t quite fit with any preconceived notion of what an animated feature would look, sound or play like. The aesthetic splits the difference between big-screen polish and Cartoon Network stylisation; the tone wants to be manic, but grounded; flippant, yet also heartfelt; rambling, but wholly plot-driven.

You know what? For all that, I rather enjoyed Storks, although I’m not sure I’d call it a completely functional film. The first animated movie from live-action comedy director Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Neighbors) is a relentlessly high-energy experience that is inevitably irritating and wearying at times, but feels full of a certain kid-in-a-candy-store enthusiasm for the boundless absurdist possibilities that animation can provide; it is also a movie that understands the importance of having a heart, and keeps it beating in the right place. Ultimately, Storks doesn’t have anything more profound to say than “babies are nice, and finding your family is great”, but it’s sincere about the way it says it, whether that’s through the oddly charming quasi-romantic chemistry between the avian middle manager Junior and scatterbrained teenage orphan Tulip, or through the engaging B-plot of a young boy reconnecting with his workaholic parents as they wait for delivery of a new baby brother. It’s also an understatedly progressive movie in a couple of ways - it’s nice to focus on a mixed-gender comedic pairing where the female member gets to be the zany one for a change, and you even get some pleasantly matter-of-fact representation of LGBT parent couples thrown in towards the end for good measure, albeit in blink-and-you’ll-miss-it fashion.

That said, this is also an incredibly ramshackle piece of work, full of non-sequitur narrative detours and extended joke sequences that don’t really land - antagonist Toady, an obnoxious business-bro pigeon, feels like an out-of-control SNL skit in place of an actual character, for example. That’s a weakness that cuts across many parts of the film, in fact; Stoller gives the script more of a mannered, improvisational feel than is strictly good for it, resulting in a whole lot of gag lines that feel purely like punchlines crafted by a writer, rather than effective expressions of character. Nevertheless, on balance, I’m happy that the revamped Warner Animation Group are using their post-The Lego Movie relaunch to establish a distinct identity for themselves, rather than going down the me-too route of their Quest for Camelot days; I think it’s even better that their chosen identity is one that tries to honour the company’s offbeat Looney Tunes legacy, as that’s a style we don’t see often enough in the modern feature animation landscape. Clearly, we’re going to be getting a lot of Lego spinoffs and sequels that uphold a Phil Lord/Chris Miller-flavoured variation of that approach, but that type of comedy is good for more than just endless Lego movies - and so are Warner Bros. In that respect, I’d like for Storks to be the beginning of a more diversified lineup from Warner Bros, not the end, which is why this imperfect little movie just about edged its way into my recommendations category; the quality isn’t always there, but the right spirit is there in spades.

Kung Fu Panda 3

In another year, Kung Fu Panda 3 would have been a much bigger deal than it ended up being. It was a very good animated movie in a year full of them, a talking animal film coming out just as the genre suddenly became ubiquitous, and a high-quality sequel to a franchise that had probably been away from the big screen a few years too long for audiences to still be invested. Heck, even in China - the market where this US-Chinese co-production was clearly ordained to sweep aside all comers - this belated threequel had its thunder stolen, reigning briefly as the region’s highest-grossing animated movie ever before the breakout success of Disney’s Zootopia took the title away after only one month.

All of that is a bit of a shame, because - as I’ve mentioned - Kung Fu Panda 3 is a very good movie, even if it is unquestionably the weakest instalment in the trilogy. It lacks the energetic freshness of the 2008 original and the impressive emotional scope of 2011’s Kung Fu Panda 2, the bracing darkness of which Kung Fu Panda 3 largely backs away from in favour of something a bit cosier and smaller-scale. In that respect, this is very much the Return of the Jedi of this series, with all that entails - right down to being set in a hidden village of cuddly bears - but none of that makes it anything like a bad film. For one thing, it’s absolutely beautiful to look at - one of the most aesthetically gorgeous pieces of animation I’ve seen for a while, with vivid colours, stylised action, stunning 2D sequences and masterful incorporation of the look of Chinese paintings into its visual style. That respectfulness goes beyond the visual elements, though; the first Kung Fu Panda may have been a watershed movie for DreamWorks in adopting a tone of loving pastiche rather than broad spoof, but the sequels have been so reverential to the genre and culture that inspired them that you almost wish they’d dropped the comedy focus altogether and pivoted the series in the direction of full-on anthropomorphic wuxia adventure, with a tone closer to the How to Train Your Dragon movies.

Still, what we’ve got from Kung Fu Panda is pretty great, thanks not only to their embrace of the excitement and philosophies of martial arts cinema, but also to their commitment to strong characterisation of their key players. Po the panda remains a delightful creation, with Jack Black consistently finding and underplaying the notes of earthy wisdom and spiritual growth in a character who could easily have come across as 100% fanboy goofball, and his relationship with the elderly goose Mr Ping - voiced with wonderful warmth and eccentricity by the brilliant James Hong - remains one of the most oddly affecting father-son relationships in animated cinema. The addition of Po’s birth father Li Shan (Bryan Cranston) to that dynamic in Kung Fu Panda 3 is handled maturely, in a way that celebrates unconventional family structures, and that emotional throughline works in tandem with the spiritual concepts of the story to provide a strong foundation. In truth, there’s not all that much going on beyond that, other than colourful action setpieces - once again the supporting cast, including Po’s brothers-in-arms the Furious Five, are left frustratingly underused and underdeveloped - leaving Kung Fu Panda 3 feeling like the slightest entry in the series; nevertheless, it’s still a satisfying, funny adventure that brings the series to a fitting thematic conclusion. In truth, Kung Fu Panda probably is a series whose time has passed; if that’s the case, I’m glad it got to impart a few more words of wisdom before moving on.

Sing

The second and less conventional of Illumination Entertainment’s 2016 efforts, the musical extravaganza Sing may have been the lower-grossing and slightly less well-reviewed of the two outings, but for my money it outdoes The Secret Life of Pets on every level creatively - to the point where I’m wondering if everyone else saw these two movies the wrong way around.

When I call Sing “unconventional”, I’m not really talking about its approach to genre and storytelling, because frankly it really couldn’t be any more conventional in those respects. This is a big, broad, goofy, follow-your-dreams jukebox musical that garnishes the X Factor/American Idol template with a sprig of Muppets-style save-the-theatre backstage drama - you know, in case the overstuffed ensemble cast didn’t already have enough underdogs to root for. Said ensemble, which includes a shy teen elephant with an angel’s voice, an overworked mother pig with dreams of stardom, a young gorilla seeking to escape a life of crime and a punk rock porcupine breaking away from her controlling jerk boyfriend, is packed to bursting with character arcs that you’ll be able to predict with perfect accuracy the moment they begin - or perhaps even before then, if you’ve seen any of the too-numerous trailers for Sing that essentially summarise the entire story beat for beat.

But when judging a movie like this, it’s important to remember that cliche is not inherently a sin - a familiar recipe can still taste fabulous when the ingredients are prepared with care and attention, and so it proves with Sing, a movie that’s made with infinitely more sincerity and ambition than it’s been given credit for. It feels good to be able to praise an Illumination movie for those qualities, and that’s where the “unconventional” aspect comes into play, as this is a film that has clearly benefited from the studio searching outside its usual creative talent pool and taking a punt on Garth Jennings, the likeable British filmmaker responsible for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Son of Rambow. A prolific director of music videos, Jennings is clearly someone with a passion for music that saturates Sing, turning what could have been an empty exercise in celebrity animal karaoke into a genuine celebration of the restorative power of music. That earnestness also bleeds into the characterisation, which - for as formulaic as it unarguably is - is written and performed with enough heart-on-sleeve honesty to paper over many more cracks than Sing actually has. Sure, there are times where it feels like the sheer multitude of characters means certain moments don’t get the focus they need, and there are certainly notes and song choices - particularly the use of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” during a moment of sombre redemption - that will be too on-the-nose for even the most wide-eyed audience member, but beyond that there’s really nothing wrong with this movie at all, to the extent that I’m a little confused every time I see a bad review of it. It’s certainly not perfect, but it’s assembled with such professionalism and such a conscious eagerness to make you happy - especially during its barnstorming, impossibly fleet-footed finale - that it seems churlish to refuse.

Despite what I perceived to be a relative lack of appreciation of its full merits, I’m happy to see that this film did well for itself, and I hope it encourages Illumination to make more movies with this kind of heart behind it. Sing’s emotional stakes may be somewhat prosaic, but they’re big and bold and dominant in a way that prior Illumination movies, with their focus on slapstick silliness, have seemed shy about embracing. In a previous post, I lamented the studio’s inability to produce a truly classic movie up until this point, and expressed a hope that Sing might be a step along the right path; in that respect, it delivered. Sing may not be the first great Illumination movie, but if they keep going in this direction, they may just get there.

THE BEST OF THE YEAR

In descending order, these are my top five animated movies of the year. They may be very different films operating and succeeding on different levels, but in my view these are the films that really encapsulated all the facets of what I love about animated cinema, and exemplify the form’s boundless versatility.

5. Sausage Party

In film criticism, originality is often taken to be a cardinal virtue; we mark films down for adhering to weathered formulas or archetypes, and give credit for the ones that do things we haven’t seen before. When Sausage Party was released last year to rock-solid reviews, many were shocked, but really, they ought not have been that surprised - after all, it’s not often that we get to see what a truly original movie looks like.

On paper, Sausage Party seems transgressive without being all that groundbreaking; after all, we’ve seen crude animated movies for adult audiences before, from Fritz the Cat through to the works of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, but there’s something about the way Sausage Party was positioned that made it unique - sure, it was made for a mere $19 million, but this was that rare R-rated animated film that was ordained to compete in the big leagues, rather than breaking out from some underground niche. US-produced adult animations usually accept their status as esoteric oddities, embracing unfashionable visual styles and anti-mainstream sensibilities; Sausage Party rejects that, using modern tools and an aesthetic that credibly approximates the familiar look of its Disney/Pixar contemporaries to mark itself as a film designed to be seen and embraced by the biggest possible audience. Regardless of what you might think of the film itself, the manner of Sausage Party’s release was trailblazing - the first proper attempt by a studio in years to break American adult animation out of its enthusiasts-only ghetto and show that cartoons for older audiences can be appeal on the same level as a live-action movie of the same genre. That Sausage Party went on to gross of nearly $100 million in the US should be seen a massive win for the medium, and will hopefully embolden the industry to further experiment with the kinds of animated stories and visions they’re willing to bankroll in future.

Of course, this victory would feel tainted if Sausage Party had turned out to be exploitative trash, but watching the final film, even hardcore Sausage-sceptics would have to admit it’s a movie that embraces substantive ideas and commits to them, hard. Your mileage is likely to depend on how well you click with the sensibilities of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (Superbad, This is the End, The Interview), who’ve made a career on exploring challenging concepts in unabashedly juvenile terms, because this movie represents the apotheosis of their operating model to date; taking the Pixar template of “what if X had feelings?” to its most lurid conclusion, Sausage Party is a deceptively literate spiritual odyssey that confronts sentient food items with the brutal reality of what they were created for, sending them spiralling into existential crisis and surreal voyages of self-actualisation. As a deconstruction and critique of religious thought, it’s intelligent in a number of ways, opting against abrasive confrontationalism in favour of a humanist, pluralist conclusion that encourages people to reject the limits that society places on them and be their authentic selves in a non-judgemental fashion; what’s just as impressive is the way it’s able to explore this essentially benign, moderate message in such relentlessly coarse, taboo-shattering terms, without feeling like it’s working at crossed purposes with itself. This is a film with legitimately interesting things to say about the evils of dogma, the need for respectful discourse, the importance of actualising your sexual identity and the destructiveness of identity-based conflict - and does so almost entirely through the medium of cartoon violence and dick jokes. All of this builds to a jaw-dropping third act of insanely violent, sexualised excess that’s honestly unlike anything I’ve ever seen in a mainstream movie - and yet somehow still feels reverent enough to the spirit of Toy Story that its credentials as a legitimate entry in the same animated adventure genre remain unbroken.

I’m ardent in my admiration for what Sausage Party represents, and I say that with full acceptance of its problems. Its gleeful indulgence of ethnic stereotyping, for example, doesn’t really pay off with a satirical point clever enough to justify it all, while the sheer crudeness of the film - the villain is literally an anthropomorphic douche - is likely to stop a lot of people from connecting. I also need to give acknowledgement to the widespread stories of mistreatment and exploitation of the animation team by production company Nitrogen Studios and co-director Greg Tiernan, which puts that thrifty $19 million budget in a different light; that can’t really be excused, but it also doesn’t invalidate the fact that the resulting film is a valuable, singular piece of pop art that’s worth much more than the sum of its parts. It’s up to you to decide whether knowing how the sausage was made is enough to put you off; all I’m saying is that it’s worth trying, because Sausage Party is both tastier and more nutritious than you might expect.

4. Trolls

One of the main reasons why 2016 ended up such a good year for animation is that, due to some strange quirk of scheduling, many of the major studios ended up releasing two films during the year. I’ve covered Illumination’s pair already, and I’ll be coming to Disney’s duo momentarily; for now, I want to give some much-needed kudos to the oft-criticised DreamWorks, who not only turned out a fine Kung Fu Panda sequel, but also somehow elevated a reboot of the Trolls toy franchise from cultural detritus into a genuinely joyous moviegoing experiences.

I expounded at length quite recently about the many virtues of Mike Mitchell and Walt Dohrn’s cuddly little movie, so I won’t add too much here, other than to say that my admiration for a film that still stands out as a surprise of the most pleasant variety hasn’t dimmed. There’s always a special kind of joy that comes with being blindsided by a great film that comes out of nowhere, and Trolls is the very definition of that: the concept sounded terrible, the early marketing was appalling, and yet the final film is confident, earnest, visually beguiling and bursting with an infectiously guileless goodwill that’s much harder to evoke in a sincere way than Trolls makes it look. Indeed, in a world where Sony Pictures Animation continues to struggle to strike the right tone with its various adaptations of the esteemed Smurfs franchise, DreamWorks deserves applause for nailing the right mix of sweetness and spice on the first attempt at what’s essentially the same concept. That’s not to say Trolls is wholly derivative, though; if the “happy forest friends” setup isn’t exactly groundbreaking, there’s ambition to its lightly-sketched philosophical exploration of the spiritual origins of happiness, while its sharp humour and aesthetic exuberance ensure it never forgets to make you feel the emotion it’s examining. If there’s one lingering disappointment, it’s that more people didn’t notice exactly how impressive this fluffy and genuinely uplifting jukebox musical turned out to be; with its theatrical run topping out at a solid but unspectacular $339.5 million worldwide, Trolls remains one of 2016’s better-kept secrets, a movie that seemed to pass most people by. That’s an unfortunate outcome for a film that I’m willing to list among the best animations of the year, but it does at least preserve its status as a surprise package waiting to be opened, shared and discovered by more people.

I hope, too, that DreamWorks take solace and pride in the quality of the work they put out in 2016. Both Kung Fu Panda 3 and Trolls both ended up as modest rather than overwhelming commercial successes, but there was a solidity and assuredness to both movies that the studio hasn’t always found easy to come by; these are qualities that will serve the company well as it prepares for life under the new ownership of Universal. Of course, DreamWorks will always be DreamWorks, and maybe inconsistency is baked into their DNA: the fact they’re following up such a strong 2016 with a 2017 slate consisting of The Boss Baby and Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie seems like a testament to that. But hey, this time last year I was busy writing off Trolls, so what the hell do I know?

3. Moana

It’s weird for me to think about this, but most people born after about 1990 or so probably don’t actually remember a time when Disney were the undisputed kings of feature animation. Ever since Pixar released Toy Story in 1995, they’ve ceased to be the only game in town, and there were times during the mid-2000s when they looked to be drifting into irrelevance; since then, however, they’ve come roaring back, and I feel as though 2016 will be seen in years to come as a point where Walt Disney Animation Studios really reasserted their dominance, even more so than their historic success with Frozen in 2013. I’ve praised Illumination and DreamWorks for the impressive feat of releasing two good movies in the same year, but that pales in comparison to Disney, whose achievement in releasing two potential all-time classics within eight months is little short of a miracle.

Due to its choice of genre, Moana was probably seen as the safe option out of the two movies, but anyone who’s seen it will know that writing it off as just another Disney princess musical is doing the film a massively reductive disservice. Veteran directors Ron Clements and John Musker’s (The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Princess and the Frog) first CGI movie feels like a substantial and welcome reinvention not just of their filmmaking approach, but of the “princess movie” template in general. This is a formula that Disney have been committed to tinkering with since the 1990s Disney Renaissance era, but never to such a root-and-branch degree as Moana, which takes only the most essential components of the template - to paraphrase the script itself, the fact that its protagonist “is the daughter of a chief, wears a dress and has an animal sidekick” - and builds a rousingly individualistic seafaring action-adventure with a refreshing perspective. It’s not just the fact that Moana feels different from her predecessors, with her Polynesian origins and stockier build, it’s that she functions differently; unlike any other Disney princess, she’s a swashbuckling hero first and foremost, embarking on a world-saving quest through active choice, rather than stumbling into one as a byproduct of some mission of family duty. On that foundation, Musker and Clements build a film that consistently zags where other Disney movies zig. This is an action-adventure that’s basically without a true villain; where the male lead, the blustering demigod Maui, remains strictly a supporting player, with no hint of unnecessary romantic intrigue; where the main animal sidekick is a scraggly idiot rooster that actively hinders the quest, while the cute, marketable pig stays home.

Of course, different isn’t necessarily better, but it certainly feels like a value-added bonus when your film is already as good as Moana is. Technically, it’s one of Disney’s most accomplished efforts, with astounding water effects and a beautiful oceanic palette, and it benefits from the same sparky dialogue and buddy-comedy chemistry between its leads that’s become a Disney trademark. Musker and Clements seem to have made progress on overcoming the somewhat episodic feel of their previous movies, with more of a sense of coherent driving momentum pushing forward the story, and they’ve certainly come on leaps and bounds in terms of cultural authenticity since the days of, say, Aladdin, with the Pacific Island setting treated with great respect in aesthetic, spiritual and casting terms. Then, of course, there’s Lin-Manuel Miranda, Opetaia Foa’i and Mark Mancina’s compositionally intricate and effortlessly catchy soundtrack, which is probably the finest from Disney since The Lion King - and hell, even The Lion King didn’t have a glam rock David Bowie style parody sung by a giant kleptomaniac crab, so maybe Moana has even that one beaten. It’s not all perfect, though; much as I loved the film, it does have a few pacing problems; the story spends an unusually long time getting Moana to leave her home island of Motunui, only to occasionally feel becalmed once the journey actually gets underway. The open ocean is an evocative setting, but it can also get pretty repetitive, and there are points in Moana where you start to miss the broader ensemble cast and diverse backdrops that we might have gotten if not for all the lonely, endless blue.

None of that was enough to prevent Moana from becoming one of the best and biggest animated movies of the year - though you get the sense that some pundits were expecting a bit more commercially from Disney’s first big princess musical since Frozen. It’s true that Moana’s solid $575 million-and-counting worldwide total doesn’t bear comparison to Frozen’s record-setting $1.27 billion - but then, when you think about it, Moana didn’t really turn out to be all that comparable to Frozen anyway. It’s possible that Moana reinvented so much about what makes a princess movie that it no longer registered as being one in the eyes of the audience - or perhaps it was never really a princess movie in the first place, and scored its own success on its own terms. Princess or not, she is Moana, and that’s good enough for me.

2. Your Name (Kimi no Na wa)

As I mentioned before, I have an unfortunate blind spot when it comes to anime, with my exposure to Japan’s prolific feature output basically limited to Studio Ghibli films and a small handful of others. That’s something I’d like to work on, so I jumped at the chance to see Makoto Shinkai’s blockbusting romance Your Name at the cinema last year as a way of putting that right; what I got was an outstanding and emotionally overwhelming reminder of everything I’ve been missing out on.

Your Name is a difficult movie to categorise - my best attempt would be “supernatural gender/body-swap tragicomedy-drama disaster romance epic”, but even that would be underselling the deft changeability and tonal fluidity of this marvellously-constructed movie, which came within a hair’s breadth of ranking as my favourite of the year. Part of that versatility comes from its mastery of the medium - I know it’s not intended to function as a primer on anime, but it couldn’t have done a better job if it tried, such is its command of everything that defines the format at its best. Here’s a 2D animated film that feels truly modern, that pushes hand-drawn animation to new levels of technical beauty and adventurous stylisation without feeling even slightly retro; here’s an animated film that can speak directly to a teenage and young adult audience, with a pop soundtrack and frank allusion to concepts of sexuality and gender identity, and evoke that lived experience of yearning adolescence in a way that feels sophisticated and universal; here’s an animated film that knows how to bring metaphysical mystery, power and spirituality to its narrative with a light touch, leaving just enough traces of magic to lend an edge of unknowable enormity to the intimate character story we’re being told. These are areas in which the best anime movies uniquely excel, and Shinkai seems to understand implicitly how to leverage these strengths without any of the weaknesses.

But Your Name isn’t designed to be appreciated on a beard-stroking conceptual level; for all its artistic accomplishment, it’s a weepy teenage romance at heart, and you couldn’t ask for one better. Its protagonists - small town girl Mitsuha and Tokyo boy Taki, who mysteriously find themselves intermittently swapping bodies - are enormously likeable leads with whom it’s easy to empathise, whether it’s Mitsuha’s longing to experience life beyond her idyllic but fishbowl-like rural community, or Taki’s increasingly passionate desire to connect directly with the girl who’s literally changing his life from the inside. The latter quest comes to form the driving emotional engine of the film, and writer-director Shinkai does a fine job of creating a palpable closeness between the two characters, whilst at the same time putting them in a situation where every conceivable obstacle - time, space, fate - stand in the way of them ever meeting. If that sounds melodramatic, that’s because it is, but Your Name knows exactly how to sell a brand of epic romance that makes the audience feel like they’re seeing something much more profound than the feelings of two people; that’s partly a function of the gorgeous hyperreality of the visuals, but also a testament to the way Shinkai unfolds the story, expanding what starts out as a light, sweet body-swap fantasy into something larger and more mythic. To say more about how Your Name pivots and pirouettes through different plot ideas and genres would give too much away about a film that benefits greatly from being unpacked at its own pace, so I won’t go further, other than to say it builds to something that’s sweeping, exhilarating and wistful in all the right ways.

If it sounds like I’m giving this movie the hard sell, that’s very much intentional - certainly, Your Name doesn’t need any more of a push in Asia, where it’s been a record-breaking success, but Western audiences seem to be much less aware of it, as evidenced by its surprise omission from this year’s Best Animated Feature Oscar nominees. This may be partly because because the film isn’t actually due to be released in US theatres until April 7th 2017, a stunningly long delay that nevertheless gives me an opportunity to urge any American readers to make sure they catch it on the biggest possible screen. After all, Your Name helped to show me everything I’m missing by not watching enough good anime; the least I can do to return the favour is to make sure nobody misses this one.

1. Zootopia

Nobody who’s followed this blog for any length of time will be shocked by this choice; in fact, nobody who saw the Oscars or pays any attention to the film industry in general will be too surprised, as Disney’s Zootopia has proven a commercial phenomenon, a darling among reviewers and an awards magnet. Inevitably, this means the film has started to attract a few contrarian potshots, but I’m not interested in engaging with that; after all if we can’t take a moment to earnestly celebrate one of the best and bravest films Disney have made in decades, then why do we even watch movies?

I’ve spent a lot of words talking about Zootopia over the last 12 months, and yet it still doesn’t feel like it’s left my system; with its incredible visual design, instantly lovable character chemistry, deft pacing and bubbling comedic energy, it encapsulates pretty much every one of Disney’s traditional strengths, while also excelling in areas where the studio have never traditionally dared to tread. As a piece of worldbuilding, its thoroughness exceeds many science-fiction films - the breathtaking wonder of the first train ride into the city of Zootopia is a Disney moment for the ages, rendered with such immersive intimacy that I’d love to see it retrofitted as a VR experience - while the film’s vaulting thematic ambitions and willingness to delve into challenging social commentary feel like a seismic sea change for a company with a reputation for corporatised artistic conservatism. That I rate Zootopia as the best animated film of an incredibly strong year doesn’t preclude acknowledgement of its imperfections - the police procedural elements are a little oversimplified, it can be episodic at times, the metaphors can sometimes be heavy-handed - but it’s the intelligent, open-hearted generosity of the thematic dialogue it opens up with its audience that makes those concerns feel small. This is a pointed, satirical and often overtly politicised piece of work, addressing deeply divisive issues of prejudice, system bias, internalised privilege and societal identity, and yet it manages to do so in a way that feels pluralistic, universally empowering and non-judgemental - a feat that most adult-oriented media struggles to achieve. It’s a film that educates without lecturing, that shows asks you to find your own answers rather than spoonfeeding you solutions, that shines a light on the problems that society faces but still lets you walk out feeling energised, rather than depressed. That’s difficult for any movie to achieve; for Disney, with almost no experience of making topical satire, to be able to pull this off while still ticking all the boxes of a superlative, adorable and hilarious family adventure is one of the greatest accomplishments in their entire 80-year history of feature animation.

Honestly, if I have any lingering feeling of disappointment about Zootopia, it’s the question of why the message it expressed so eloquently didn’t end up making a bigger impression on those who saw it. That a movie with such an explicitly educational theme of cultural unification and overcoming differences was able to gross more than $1 billion in a year as riven by political division and opprobrium as 2016 is a testament to cinema’s value as a means of escape; unfortunately, it also probably tells us a lot about the cognitive dissonance that prevents people from actually living up to the virtues expressed by the media they enjoy. I started the year wondering whether Zootopia would be as good a movie as we deserve from Disney in 2016; I ended it wondering whether 2016 deserved Zootopia. Nevertheless, I’ll try to hold on the virtues the film embodied, and take heart from the fact that children raised with this heartfelt, articulate and deeply empathetic movie stand a much better chance of learning the right lessons from it than the rest of us did. After all, if a naive rabbit and a jaded fox can learn to overcome prejudice, see things from other perspectives and make the world a better place, maybe there’s hope for the rest of us mammals as well.

[oovitus]

Weekend Reading, 7.15.18

Toward the end of this past week, I found myself grappling with a couple of missteps—or errors, or mistakes, or whatever you’d like to call them. Small things, but substantial enough to make me feel regret. They were largely unintentional (and most of them were actually pretty impersonal, in the tune of missed deadlines), but at least two impacted other people, and I was sorry.

I tried to handle the process of apologizing and moving on as gracefully as I could. One tendency I have, which I’d really like to modify, is that I tend to apologize excessively for errors. I know that it comes from a place of wanting to express my sorriness, but it also comes from a place of craving reassurance; I want to be told that it’s OK and that I’m OK. Sometimes I end up feeling that I’ve strong-armed another person into validating me. I’d like to approach mistakes differently so that I can avoid putting others in this position, which isn’t fair and is probably pretty uncomfortable.

This wasn’t exactly the week, though. I did end apologizing too forcefully, all so that I could rid myself of the discomfort of regret. I have a feeling that recognizing and accounting for mistakes without clinging to remorse is going to fall under the category of “work in progress” for a while.

Yesterday afternoon, I went to see Won’t You Be My Neighbor? I sensed that it would be good timing, and it was. The movie is incredibly tender, and if Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood figured positively in your childhood—I was allowed little TV, but always that show—then you may find it as moving as I did.

The movie is undoubtedly about Fred Rogers, and it paints a very glowing portrait, but what I like about the movie isn’t biography so much as a tribute to the idea that all people, children included, are valuable and special and lovable for who they are. Watching it encouraged me to do more of what I try to do already, but with plenty of moments of failing and forgetting: to pay attention to everyone, listen to what they have to say, and offer them my respect and lovingkindness.

Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was a show in which puppets and “real life” adult characters acknowledged that people feel sad and scared a lot of the time. At one point in the film, Rogers says that he was trying to communicate the message that feelings are “mentionable and manageable.” This included feelings like anger, which kids—and to some extent, adults—aren’t always given freedom or permission to express.

I read plenty about self-compassion and self-forgiveness, but being transported back to my own childhood and the time I spent watching Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood reached me in a different way yesterday. It allowed me to acknowledge my okay-ness on my own, to look at the last few days of seemingly continuous blunders with a little humor, and to let it all go.

Another message that Fred Rogers tried to convey is that mistakes are inevitable. He’s quoted as saying, “the most important learning is the ability to accept and expect mistakes, and deal with the disappointments that they bring.”

I’m engaging more with the world and with other people than I have in a while. This means I get to savor connection and new experiences, but it also means that I’m sometimes going to say the “wrong” thing, put my foot in my mouth, do something that ends of hurting the feelings of another person. It’s time for me to let go of the fantasy that I can connect with other people in a way that’s exclusively pleasing to them and to me; instead, I can acknowledge the inevitability of conflict and commit to handling it as compassionately as I can.

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about processing mistakes, and I’m sure it won’t be the last; as I said, this might be a lifetime project. But I’ll keep noticing and trying, and I’ll continue to feel grateful to those who are willing to let me communicate about it. Being willing to grow from mistakes, rather than being thwarted by them, is an inside job. But I think that part of the work is to hold space for others to struggle and make mistakes, too. We’re all in it together—a fact that I’m reminded of every single time I visit this particular space.

I’m embracing you just as you are on this Sunday. Here are the recipes and reads that caught my eye this week.

Recipes

Eva has created the vegan breakfast egg and sausage muffin of my dreams.

…and now here comes the sweet breakfast of my dreams: five ingredient vegan blueberry waffles.

It took me a while to figure out that zoodles on their own didn’t cut it for me, but I love mixing them with spaghetti or soba noodles. Erin’s got the same idea with this summery zucchini soba bowl.

Drooling over Kathy’s speedy fiesta bean bowl—there’s nothing I love more than quick comfort food!

The first time I saw a raspberry bakewell tart, it was on The Great British Baking Show. I’m sure I’ve never tasted one, and I’m not sure I’m ready to attempt one, but if I ever do, I’ll use Ania’s fully veganized recipe.

Recipes

1. We read so much these days about how vulnerable bee populations are, but this article made me marvel at how adaptive they are, too.

2. A compelling argument for why basic numeracy matters, especially in our technology saturated world.

3. A good look at nutrient pairings that are synergistic. I especially like the note about non-heme iron and Vitamin C (for more on plant-based iron, you can check out this post).

4. A lot of the elective research and papers I worked on while I was getting my masters involved the placebo/nocebo effect and especially its relationship with digestive illness. I was really interested to read about new research suggesting that similar circuitry may have an anti-tumor effect.

5. Sylvia Earle is a legendary marine biologist, but I knew little about her or her work until I read this interview. I loved so much of what she had to say about the natural world and our place within it, including this:

A lot of people excuse their bad behavior toward fish by saying, “Oh, they don’t feel pain.” That’s absurd. Fish have all the equipment we do to feel pain. Don’t make up stories to try to spare your conscience. You either choose to inflict pain on other creatures, or you don’t. But do they feel pain? Of course they do. Do they have emotions? Do they have a social structure? Do they bond with one another? Absolutely. It’s a smallness on our part, a narrowness of spirit and mind and heart, to think we are so special. Why not be thrilled that we have so much in common with other creatures?

I also admired her perspective on being a trailblazer, which is my characterization, not hers. Specifically, her sentiments about having entered marine biology at a time when, for women, to be a scientist was embraced as an accomplishment but not taken seriously as a profession:

One common factor for people who do succeed is a love of what they’re doing, a refusal to accept the reasons others give for why they can’t do something. I met a man who was an opera singer, and he’d been scorned in his youth for wanting to sing. It was viewed as a girly activity. But he persisted.

You have to have a sense of humor. It’s your suit of armor.

There’s humor again—an asset, a gift, and a suit of armor.

On that note, friends, happy Sunday. I’ve got a creamy, summery pasta dish coming your way this week!

xo

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Weekend Reading, 7.15.18 published first on https://storeseapharmacy.tumblr.com

[3one3]

The Sequel - 787

Two Ways

André Schürrle, Juan Mata, other Chelsea players, and random awesome OC’s

(okay they’re less random now but they’re still pretty awesome)

original epic tale

all chapters of The Sequel

“Does my face look gross? It feels gross. I usually do my lavender mask on Monday night, but I didn’t get around to doing it until Friday last week, so I didn’t want to do it again right away this Monday, and now it’s Friday and I didn’t do it again because I have to leave it for 20 minutes and then wipe it off and moisturize and stuff and who has time for that when you’re trying to serve two kinds of lasagna and feed it to a baby? But now my face feels icky.”

“It’s a little red in places but it always is after you wash your face. Can’t you do the mask after you’re finished eating?”

“No. It’s best to do it when the pores are all steamed open from the hot water. And I already put lotion on. Can you grab me another paper towel?”

Juan handed over a sheet of paper towel and Christina tried to get the pinkish blob of tomato sauce and ricotta on Lukas’ chin before it could end up flung on the floor or something else, and he loudly demanded that she stop it. She was getting in the way of his uncoordinated fork usage. She gently reminded him that he didn’t get to say “no” to her on things like that. He had plenty of opportunities to make choices for himself, and she respected his decisions, even when it meant he was going to be dressed like a clown or would ruin his finger paint project by mixing too many colors and turning it brown. Manners and cooperation really mattered to her, and so did letting Lukas learn the concept of consequences. Letting him look silly or disappoint himself was relatively easy. Imposing order without losing her patience took more resolve. André stayed out of that. He was always afraid he’d get in trouble for stepping in, even to side with her, or to encourage their son to behave and listen to her. Juan wasn’t. He picked up the bowl of lasagna and set it on the counter, out of reach.

“You have to get your face clean or you don’t get to eat,” he explained to him. “No clean, no food.” Lukas made a sour face and waved his fork around angrily, but he stilled his hands when Christina told him to stop and went in with the paper towel again. His chin got wiped off. His dinner was returned to him. He was thanked for being good. His mom felt the small satisfaction of a small victory, and tried very hard not to think about how co-parenting with Juan would probably be so different from doing it with André. “Do you want more water?” the former asked, Pellegrino in hand.

“Yes, please. Which lasagna do you like better? Judging solely by the amount of red on the baby versus the amount of green, I’m guessing he likes the regular kind,” she observed while he topped up her glass. Which is fine because that means more pesto and Alfredo for moi.

“I like the white sauce. How does it stay so creamy even in the middle layer? Why doesn’t it just leak out into the green?” Juan used his fork to point out the distinct layers in his food.

“I sandwich it between two noodle layers instead of putting it on top of or below the veggie ribbons. The veggies get a little watery even though I salted them first, so anything touching them is going to get watery. Zucchini and spinach are basically full of water. Also I cheat and put a little flour in it,” the rider smiled. “That helps to thicken.”

“Who taught you all your cooking tricks?”

“I learned some things from my mom and a few things from my dad, but mostly I read. You know that,” she shrugged. “I like to learn. If I want to make something, I take the time to research it. I don’t just Google the name and follow the first recipe. I want to know everything about anything I’m interested in.”

“That’s one of my favorite things about you. You go and find out the reason, not just the answer. I think it gets in your way sometimes though. How do you feel riding the last few days?”

“No special way. I don’t want to talk about riding. I just want to do riding. I want it to just be normal work, like it always used to be. Then maybe horse shows will be like they always used to be too.”

“I’ll leave it be, then,” the player nodded before wolfing down a big stack of squared noodles, sauces, and cheeses.

“Thank you for asking though,” Christina replied. He waited a few seconds while chewing, and then leaned over to the left to bump her shoulder with his, causing her to drop lasagna off her fork into her lap. “Heeeey.” His eyes got big and “eepsy”, like he was pretending it wasn’t his fault. Missed my shorts. Score. She used her fingers to pick up the blob of melted cheese and sauce that landed on her thigh, and ate it. “That was mean. You can make up for it by scoring a million goals at White Hart Lane on Sunday though.”

“Yeah. When are you going to make fried chicken again?”

“I don’t know. If I make it then I want to make a lot because it’s a big job and you don’t want to go through all the steps just to make a couple of pieces, and then I want to eat it for every meal until it’s all gone. And then I get fat, and don’t feel well.” Kind of like when I make lasagna, she realized. At least one of these is sort of healthy-ish.

“You’d still look beautiful with an extra kilo around the middle.”

“Uhhuh.”

“When is this modeling career of yours going to result in some bikini pictures or a lingerie ad for me to enjoy?”

“I don’t have a modeling career, and I don’t know. When adidas starts making bikinis and lingerie?” Omnomnomnom. They’d get someone else even if they did. I’m going to end up eating my feelings in Dortmund. I won’t have any friends to do stuff with so I’ll cook at home all the time and all the most fun food to make is terrible for you. Healthy and nutritious food is easy and boring. Julia Child never made a healthy thing in her life.

“You do too have a modeling career.” Juan glared pointedly over the side of his shoulder and then went back to trying to cut the Alfredo layer out of one lasagna to mix it with the meat sauce layer of the other. Lukas did that too, but with his hands. He was also talking to himself, or to his lasagna, or perhaps to an imaginary friend. The more he liked his food, the less he endeavored to interact with the adults while he ate it once he let the adults know that he was enamored with the taste in the beginning. That was always an exciting time.

“No I don’t. That’s like saying you have a modeling career. Are you a model? Or are you a football player who does ads for sponsors?”

“Maybe both?”

“But you and I are not employed for our modeling skills or our look. We’re hired to do ads for companies because we’re athletes. Our reputation in our sports is the desirable thing. It’s different,” the chatty boy’s mom argued. “You hire Adriana Lima because she’s a professional model and has skills relevant to modeling. Nobody is hiring Diego Costa for ads based on the same criteria,” she joked.

“Are you saying Diego doesn’t have a good look?”

“Yes.”

“And what are the skills relevant to modeling? Being good to look at? Knowing how to pose? Take direction? You and I tick those boxes,” the footballer countered.

“So you think you’re good to look at, eh?” Christina asked back with a lopsided smirk. She put down her fork to squeeze the lemon floating in her water class again and “lemonize” the added Pellegrino, or at least that’s how she thought of it.

“I’m told I’m not bad on the eyes, yes.” Juan remained calm rather than defensive, or self-conscious, or apologetic. She watched his profile and took in all that was good on her eyes. That included pretty much everything from the way his little sideburns stopped level with the bottom of his ear, to the slope of his nose.

“Who tells you that?” she prodded nonetheless. “Your mom?”

“Yesterday morning you said my face was so perfect that it was hurting your organs.”

“I was lying.”

“I want fried chicken.”

“Embarrass Spurs and I’ll think about it. Also, introduce me to Marcos Alonso. He is like you and Schü combined in one person.”

Lukas politely interrupted the grownups to ask for more to drink, so his mom got up to get more milk for his sippy cup. The footballer nonchalantly stole and ate her entire large piece of the pesto lasagna in one big bite, undetected. And then he laughed uncontrollably when she sat back down and tried to figure out if she was losing her mind. She was sure there was still some left on her plate. She was about to eat it when Lukas got her attention. But being tired meant she could have been totally mistaken. That happened sometimes- like when she was sure she told André about the Stephex horse and totally didn’t. There was a lot of eye narrowing at the plate, and then pensive staring. She didn’t even get it when Juan started snickering. When he admitted to his crime Christina told him he had to get up and cut some more lasagna from the pan for her, and he just shook his head and laughed more. At first she was just mildly annoyed and feeling slightly picked on, but after she replaced the food herself she wondered if Juan was going out of his way to be “pesty” and teasing to reinforce the friend part of friends with benefits. It occurred to her that she probably would have been worried if he followed two nights and the whole day in between together and then a dinner the next one with the kind of sweet flirting on show when they were together in Mallorca, or if he tried to be romantic, or extra-gentlemanly. Any kind of boyfriend behavior would have stressed her out. Making her drop food on herself and eating her food when she wasn’t looking was a different thing. That wasn’t endearing. His help with Lukas could have been considered the troublesome kind of behavior- assuming an authoritative role with her son- but she figured he didn’t even consider that, because it just came naturally to him. She didn’t think he’d put that in the subjective category.

“Do you want a cortado? I’m going to make one. I’m so cold,” she grumbled after spending the meal cleanup thinking about that potential demonstration of friend behavior.

“I don’t understand why you walk around the house in small shorts and a t-shirt or with your bare arms out and no heating on and complain that you’re cold. Why don’t you wear pants and a sweater? Or just turn the heat up!” Juan was walking around her house in jeans, a button-up, and socks.

“I don’t like wearing more clothes and I don’t like artificial heat. It makes my nose and throat dry! I want to go to bikini weather. I wish I could spend a few days on the boat.” Christina turned her lip over momentarily and then turned around to her espresso machine. “Do you want any or no?”

“Coffee or days on the boat?”

“Coffee. My espresso is pretty low caffeine, if that makes a difference in your decision.”

“I’ll have some but I don’t want the warmed milk.”

“Hot water?”

“Sí.”

“A little espresso or a lot of espresso?”

“Single. And why can’t you go stay on the boat?”

“It’s booked all the time, and when would I go? I have an everyday job, and a kid, and Schü can’t go anywhere like that.”

“Why not take Lukas and the horses to Florida to compete? Then you can wear a bikini on the beach in Miami, and what could help more to make horse shows feel like they used to than going to the competition you went to for 10 years?”

“It’s not that easy to just pack up a barn full of horses and fly them to Florida. It’s only worth it to go for several weeks at a time,” the experienced Winter Equestrian Festival competitor explained while she pulled espresso for Juan’s cup. “And it takes planning. And not every week is created equal down there. There is even a week of just hunter classes. I couldn’t go until maybe the end of next month, and if the house isn’t done by then I think Schü is going to fire everyone and hire new people to come get it finished. He would be so disappointed if I was like “Hey, babe, I think I’m going to take Lukas to Florida for three weeks instead of moving in. Is that cool with you?” How would you feel in his position?” Christina shot back over her shoulder after switching out his cup for hers.

“I wouldn’t be in it. I wouldn’t be in a position like that with the house and keeping you waiting, and I would just go to the beach with you if you wanted to go to the beach. It’s not impossible to find a way for some days off,” he argued from his stool at the counter. He was toeing a rubber ball back and forth with Lukas, who was happy to be returned to the floor to play once his dinner was scrubbed off his face, and Lucky. “If you really want bikini weather, why don’t you go away with me after next weekend instead of going to Germany? I don’t have to go to Mallorca. We can go somewhere warmer. Dubai, if you like.” The rider walked over to place his watered down espresso on the counter and slide the sugar bowl down his way, and told him that she couldn’t do that, with large, insisting eyes. And then she proceeded to the refrigerator for milk.

“Why?”  

“That would also disappoint him. I can’t cancel a trip to see him to go away with you instead. That’s just mean. I can’t decide against visiting him when he gets back from camp in favor of a Dubai getaway with you. He’d think we’re going there to lay on the beach all day and have sex all night, or that we’re doing coupley things- holding hands in the water, romantic dinners. He said that’s what matters to him. It can’t be like that. And I don’t want it either. Here, do you want this?” Christina offered the plastic container and then had to wait for him to pour a couple of drops in his coffee so she could take it back and steam some for hers.  

“Why isn’t he taking you to the beach then?”

“He offered, sort of,” she shrugged with her back to the footballer. “He asked me last week if I wanted to blow off New Year’s Eve and go away for a couple of nights. I didn’t want to. I had riding to do. I have riding to do next week too. I can’t go away for three days and then go straight to Leipzig to show. See? I have a litany of reasons why I can’t go to bikini weather in the nearest of futures.”

Juan declined to respond to the definitive and flat sounding case presented against a mini beach holiday while his ex-girlfriend very loudly steamed her milk. Lukas liked the noise and abandoned his ball to run around the counter and check it out. He always did. The sound of the frother wand at work was as powerful a draw on him as the sound of food hitting the floor was for the dogs. He was then disappointed when the noise was already over by the time he got to his mom’s feet. She was just warming the milk rather than trying to make it foamy. Not until she completed dressing up her espresso and plopped back onto her stool did Juan reply to her explanation, and he did so with an apology.

“I’m sorry if it feels to you like you’re talking to a wall that doesn’t understand. I do get it. I’m not like he was doing with constantly asking you to put things aside to spend time with him and telling you it was supposed to be for your own good,” he told her while she took grateful sips from her cup. It was hot in her hands and smelled delicious, tasted bold and full but cut just right with the sweetness of the milk. “It’s difficult for me when I know you’re wanting something you can’t figure out how to have. I get like irrationally annoyed,” Juan chucked self-deprecatingly. “Your life is like being in an obstacle course with parts that are impassable- like you have to keep turning around and trying different tests to get through and progress to the next thing. The most pressing thing I want in my life right now that I don’t have or don’t have a plan to get is fried chicken. I don’t know anymore what it’s like to want to do things and not be able to make it work, other than goals and wins.”

“It’s okay. I don’t mind. I know you’re just trying to help. It was different when Schü was “skip this”, “skip that”, “why can’t you come here” every day, all day. Believe me- I would tell you if you were doing something that bothers me, just like I’m going to tell you to get the F out of here when you’re done with your coffee,” Christina smiled.

“Why is that, by the way?”

“That you can’t stay tonight?”

“No, that you have no problem telling me when I do something that upsets you. You bend over backwards not to confront André in simple terms when he’s doing something that makes you crazy, or hurts you. First you can’t even decide if you want to say anything at all, and if you do, then you have to strategize for the best way, so that you don’t upset him back.”    

“It’s not different with you. Usually it’s just easier to decide and choose a strategy because...I don’t know. Like earlier when you got here I was thinking about whether to ask you if you’re taking this whole we-can-sleep-together thing too far and getting clingy or something. That was a whole process. Right now as soon as I stop talking I’m going to internally debate whether or not I want to call you out on why I think you’re even asking me about this. Because it’s another one of those things you want me to get to thinking about because you think the logical conclusion I’ll reach about it is that my relationship with you is easier and we communicate better. It’s doing that selfish thing you periodically promise to stop doing because you know it makes chaos in my brain and then I let chaos in my brain become chaos in my life. I’ll probably decide not to make an issue out of this because just acknowledging it and making it more of a conversation than it is in this very moment will invite the chaos and I have no room for chaos.” While Christina gazed into her milky espresso, the Spaniard reached out to gently poke at the thumb and index finger-shaped mark on her neck.

“Did I hurt you last night?” he asked distantly, as if he hadn’t heard a word she said, or the warning way in which she said them.

“No. I mean...probably, but it feels good with the...other stuff. I didn’t notice if it was really painful.” She was just happy he seemed willing to discontinue the conversation about the disparity in ease of communication between them and between her and André. To her it really wasn’t any different.

“Would you tell me if I did, or would you have this internal debate and decide not to say anything?”

“I would tell you to stop if I didn’t like it.”

“I didn’t ask if you liked it. I asked if you’d tell me if I hurt you.”

“I don’t know. I think so. Why?” Why is he all quiet and soft and doing the intensely connected to me thing with his eyes?

“I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want you to think I like to hurt you.”

“You wrap your hand around my windpipe because you think it feels...what, soothing?” the expat laughed.

“I like to feel like I have control over you. Then you react to it and you like it so I want to give you more of what you like, and then I like that you want me to control you, and give yourself over to me. I’ve told you this, cariña. You hate it when people try to control you, overtly or behind your back, but you beg me to do it. You get all wiggly like you’re losing it. You squeeze all the muscles in your core. But it’s not like you’re fighting or trying to get away. You react like you want more. If I go slow- come almost all the way out of you and then all the way in just easy, calm, over and over, slow- you react like you’re in a place like heaven in your head, and I want to give you that feeling. I love to give you that. It gives me the same feeling as making fans happy with a goal, but the whole stadium is fitted into just you. If I go faster, and reckless, you react like you’re literally going to explode, and I love that too because it’s like pure sexual want. The tighter I hold onto you, the more your body begs me to give it what it wants, and the more I feel the angel inside the body beg me to look after her and keep her in that heaven she found with me.”

“Are you telling me this because you think it’s going to make me want you to stay?” Christina asked, conjuring the same smile with which she laughed when she asked him the previous sarcastic question. His calm and honest description of why he liked to hold her throat gave her a funny feeling in her tummy, and she didn’t want it, or to show that she was having it. Humor was always a good cover for whatever she wanted to keep to herself, and always a good outlet for the nervousness that afflicted her whenever she felt a need to hide something.

“No. I don’t really know why,” Juan shrugged. “I’ve been looking at that bruise on your neck all evening. I go back and forth- does it remind me of those feelings, and all those reactions that I love, does it turn me on, or does it undo the feelings I had when I made it because it’s evidence that I have to hurt you- damage you- leave a mark on you- to get what I want.”

“You don’t have to feel guilty,” the girl whose damp hair was making her freezing assured, dropping her act meant to make him think she didn’t take him seriously, or at the very least was unaffected by what he said. She let go of the hot coffee cup with one hand to hold onto the inside of his left bicep. His elbow was on the counter and he kept scratching at the furry part of his cheek, so she couldn’t go for the handhold instead. “It’s like a hickey. Nobody feels bad about leaving a hickey. And I certainly don’t feel taken advantage of or something,” she added even more emphatically. “Like you said, I enjoy it.” But I’m not telling you why, because we don’t both need to be fully engrossed in the memory of what it’s like, Christina continued to herself. She didn’t want to start telling him how she felt special when he did that to her, lest she find herself so taken with the recollection that she consider changing her mind about how she was going to spend the rest of her night. His description of her reactions already threatened to sway her. Everything he said was right. Heaven and explosions were real things.

“Did you have to wear a scarf for your thing with the blog?”

“I just zipped my jacket up.”

“Ah.”

“Mm.”

[oovitus]

Weekend Reading, 7.15.18

Toward the end of this past week, I found myself grappling with a couple of missteps—or errors, or mistakes, or whatever you’d like to call them. Small things, but substantial enough to make me feel regret. They were largely unintentional (and most of them were actually pretty impersonal, in the tune of missed deadlines), but at least two impacted other people, and I was sorry.

I tried to handle the process of apologizing and moving on as gracefully as I could. One tendency I have, which I’d really like to modify, is that I tend to apologize excessively for errors. I know that it comes from a place of wanting to express my sorriness, but it also comes from a place of craving reassurance; I want to be told that it’s OK and that I’m OK. Sometimes I end up feeling that I’ve strong-armed another person into validating me. I’d like to approach mistakes differently so that I can avoid putting others in this position, which isn’t fair and is probably pretty uncomfortable.

This wasn’t exactly the week, though. I did end apologizing too forcefully, all so that I could rid myself of the discomfort of regret. I have a feeling that recognizing and accounting for mistakes without clinging to remorse is going to fall under the category of “work in progress” for a while.

Yesterday afternoon, I went to see Won’t You Be My Neighbor? I sensed that it would be good timing, and it was. The movie is incredibly tender, and if Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood figured positively in your childhood—I was allowed little TV, but always that show—then you may find it as moving as I did.

The movie is undoubtedly about Fred Rogers, and it paints a very glowing portrait, but what I like about the movie isn’t biography so much as a tribute to the idea that all people, children included, are valuable and special and lovable for who they are. Watching it encouraged me to do more of what I try to do already, but with plenty of moments of failing and forgetting: to pay attention to everyone, listen to what they have to say, and offer them my respect and lovingkindness.

Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was a show in which puppets and “real life” adult characters acknowledged that people feel sad and scared a lot of the time. At one point in the film, Rogers says that he was trying to communicate the message that feelings are “mentionable and manageable.” This included feelings like anger, which kids—and to some extent, adults—aren’t always given freedom or permission to express.

I read plenty about self-compassion and self-forgiveness, but being transported back to my own childhood and the time I spent watching Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood reached me in a different way yesterday. It allowed me to acknowledge my okay-ness on my own, to look at the last few days of seemingly continuous blunders with a little humor, and to let it all go.

Another message that Fred Rogers tried to convey is that mistakes are inevitable. He’s quoted as saying, “the most important learning is the ability to accept and expect mistakes, and deal with the disappointments that they bring.”

I’m engaging more with the world and with other people than I have in a while. This means I get to savor connection and new experiences, but it also means that I’m sometimes going to say the “wrong” thing, put my foot in my mouth, do something that ends of hurting the feelings of another person. It’s time for me to let go of the fantasy that I can connect with other people in a way that’s exclusively pleasing to them and to me; instead, I can acknowledge the inevitability of conflict and commit to handling it as compassionately as I can.

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about processing mistakes, and I’m sure it won’t be the last; as I said, this might be a lifetime project. But I’ll keep noticing and trying, and I’ll continue to feel grateful to those who are willing to let me communicate about it. Being willing to grow from mistakes, rather than being thwarted by them, is an inside job. But I think that part of the work is to hold space for others to struggle and make mistakes, too. We’re all in it together—a fact that I’m reminded of every single time I visit this particular space.

I’m embracing you just as you are on this Sunday. Here are the recipes and reads that caught my eye this week.

Recipes

Eva has created the vegan breakfast egg and sausage muffin of my dreams.

…and now here comes the sweet breakfast of my dreams: five ingredient vegan blueberry waffles.

It took me a while to figure out that zoodles on their own didn’t cut it for me, but I love mixing them with spaghetti or soba noodles. Erin’s got the same idea with this summery zucchini soba bowl.

Drooling over Kathy’s speedy fiesta bean bowl—there’s nothing I love more than quick comfort food!

The first time I saw a raspberry bakewell tart, it was on The Great British Baking Show. I’m sure I’ve never tasted one, and I’m not sure I’m ready to attempt one, but if I ever do, I’ll use Ania’s fully veganized recipe.

Recipes

1. We read so much these days about how vulnerable bee populations are, but this article made me marvel at how adaptive they are, too.

2. A compelling argument for why basic numeracy matters, especially in our technology saturated world.

3. A good look at nutrient pairings that are synergistic. I especially like the note about non-heme iron and Vitamin C (for more on plant-based iron, you can check out this post).

4. A lot of the elective research and papers I worked on while I was getting my masters involved the placebo/nocebo effect and especially its relationship with digestive illness. I was really interested to read about new research suggesting that similar circuitry may have an anti-tumor effect.

5. Sylvia Earle is a legendary marine biologist, but I knew little about her or her work until I read this interview. I loved so much of what she had to say about the natural world and our place within it, including this:

A lot of people excuse their bad behavior toward fish by saying, “Oh, they don’t feel pain.” That’s absurd. Fish have all the equipment we do to feel pain. Don’t make up stories to try to spare your conscience. You either choose to inflict pain on other creatures, or you don’t. But do they feel pain? Of course they do. Do they have emotions? Do they have a social structure? Do they bond with one another? Absolutely. It’s a smallness on our part, a narrowness of spirit and mind and heart, to think we are so special. Why not be thrilled that we have so much in common with other creatures?

I also admired her perspective on being a trailblazer, which is my characterization, not hers. Specifically, her sentiments about having entered marine biology at a time when, for women, to be a scientist was embraced as an accomplishment but not taken seriously as a profession:

One common factor for people who do succeed is a love of what they’re doing, a refusal to accept the reasons others give for why they can’t do something. I met a man who was an opera singer, and he’d been scorned in his youth for wanting to sing. It was viewed as a girly activity. But he persisted.

You have to have a sense of humor. It’s your suit of armor.

There’s humor again—an asset, a gift, and a suit of armor.

On that note, friends, happy Sunday. I’ve got a creamy, summery pasta dish coming your way this week!

xo

The post Weekend Reading, 7.15.18 appeared first on The Full Helping.

Weekend Reading, 7.15.18 published first on

[oovitus]

Weekend Reading, 7.15.18

Toward the end of this past week, I found myself grappling with a couple of missteps—or errors, or mistakes, or whatever you’d like to call them. Small things, but substantial enough to make me feel regret. They were largely unintentional (and most of them were actually pretty impersonal, in the tune of missed deadlines), but at least two impacted other people, and I was sorry.

I tried to handle the process of apologizing and moving on as gracefully as I could. One tendency I have, which I’d really like to modify, is that I tend to apologize excessively for errors. I know that it comes from a place of wanting to express my sorriness, but it also comes from a place of craving reassurance; I want to be told that it’s OK and that I’m OK. Sometimes I end up feeling that I’ve strong-armed another person into validating me. I’d like to approach mistakes differently so that I can avoid putting others in this position, which isn’t fair and is probably pretty uncomfortable.

This wasn’t exactly the week, though. I did end apologizing too forcefully, all so that I could rid myself of the discomfort of regret. I have a feeling that recognizing and accounting for mistakes without clinging to remorse is going to fall under the category of “work in progress” for a while.

Yesterday afternoon, I went to see Won’t You Be My Neighbor? I sensed that it would be good timing, and it was. The movie is incredibly tender, and if Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood figured positively in your childhood—I was allowed little TV, but always that show—then you may find it as moving as I did.

The movie is undoubtedly about Fred Rogers, and it paints a very glowing portrait, but what I like about the movie isn’t biography so much as a tribute to the idea that all people, children included, are valuable and special and lovable for who they are. Watching it encouraged me to do more of what I try to do already, but with plenty of moments of failing and forgetting: to pay attention to everyone, listen to what they have to say, and offer them my respect and lovingkindness.

Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was a show in which puppets and “real life” adult characters acknowledged that people feel sad and scared a lot of the time. At one point in the film, Rogers says that he was trying to communicate the message that feelings are “mentionable and manageable.” This included feelings like anger, which kids—and to some extent, adults—aren’t always given freedom or permission to express.

I read plenty about self-compassion and self-forgiveness, but being transported back to my own childhood and the time I spent watching Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood reached me in a different way yesterday. It allowed me to acknowledge my okay-ness on my own, to look at the last few days of seemingly continuous blunders with a little humor, and to let it all go.

Another message that Fred Rogers tried to convey is that mistakes are inevitable. He’s quoted as saying, “the most important learning is the ability to accept and expect mistakes, and deal with the disappointments that they bring.”

I’m engaging more with the world and with other people than I have in a while. This means I get to savor connection and new experiences, but it also means that I’m sometimes going to say the “wrong” thing, put my foot in my mouth, do something that ends of hurting the feelings of another person. It’s time for me to let go of the fantasy that I can connect with other people in a way that’s exclusively pleasing to them and to me; instead, I can acknowledge the inevitability of conflict and commit to handling it as compassionately as I can.

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about processing mistakes, and I’m sure it won’t be the last; as I said, this might be a lifetime project. But I’ll keep noticing and trying, and I’ll continue to feel grateful to those who are willing to let me communicate about it. Being willing to grow from mistakes, rather than being thwarted by them, is an inside job. But I think that part of the work is to hold space for others to struggle and make mistakes, too. We’re all in it together—a fact that I’m reminded of every single time I visit this particular space.

I’m embracing you just as you are on this Sunday. Here are the recipes and reads that caught my eye this week.

Recipes

Eva has created the vegan breakfast egg and sausage muffin of my dreams.

…and now here comes the sweet breakfast of my dreams: five ingredient vegan blueberry waffles.

It took me a while to figure out that zoodles on their own didn’t cut it for me, but I love mixing them with spaghetti or soba noodles. Erin’s got the same idea with this summery zucchini soba bowl.

Drooling over Kathy’s speedy fiesta bean bowl—there’s nothing I love more than quick comfort food!

The first time I saw a raspberry bakewell tart, it was on The Great British Baking Show. I’m sure I’ve never tasted one, and I’m not sure I’m ready to attempt one, but if I ever do, I’ll use Ania’s fully veganized recipe.

Recipes

1. We read so much these days about how vulnerable bee populations are, but this article made me marvel at how adaptive they are, too.

2. A compelling argument for why basic numeracy matters, especially in our technology saturated world.

3. A good look at nutrient pairings that are synergistic. I especially like the note about non-heme iron and Vitamin C (for more on plant-based iron, you can check out this post).

4. A lot of the elective research and papers I worked on while I was getting my masters involved the placebo/nocebo effect and especially its relationship with digestive illness. I was really interested to read about new research suggesting that similar circuitry may have an anti-tumor effect.

5. Sylvia Earle is a legendary marine biologist, but I knew little about her or her work until I read this interview. I loved so much of what she had to say about the natural world and our place within it, including this:

A lot of people excuse their bad behavior toward fish by saying, “Oh, they don’t feel pain.” That’s absurd. Fish have all the equipment we do to feel pain. Don’t make up stories to try to spare your conscience. You either choose to inflict pain on other creatures, or you don’t. But do they feel pain? Of course they do. Do they have emotions? Do they have a social structure? Do they bond with one another? Absolutely. It’s a smallness on our part, a narrowness of spirit and mind and heart, to think we are so special. Why not be thrilled that we have so much in common with other creatures?

I also admired her perspective on being a trailblazer, which is my characterization, not hers. Specifically, her sentiments about having entered marine biology at a time when, for women, to be a scientist was embraced as an accomplishment but not taken seriously as a profession:

One common factor for people who do succeed is a love of what they’re doing, a refusal to accept the reasons others give for why they can’t do something. I met a man who was an opera singer, and he’d been scorned in his youth for wanting to sing. It was viewed as a girly activity. But he persisted.

You have to have a sense of humor. It’s your suit of armor.

There’s humor again—an asset, a gift, and a suit of armor.

On that note, friends, happy Sunday. I’ve got a creamy, summery pasta dish coming your way this week!

xo

The post Weekend Reading, 7.15.18 appeared first on The Full Helping.

Weekend Reading, 7.15.18 published first on

[oovitus]

Weekend Reading, 7.15.18

Toward the end of this past week, I found myself grappling with a couple of missteps—or errors, or mistakes, or whatever you’d like to call them. Small things, but substantial enough to make me feel regret. They were largely unintentional (and most of them were actually pretty impersonal, in the tune of missed deadlines), but at least two impacted other people, and I was sorry.

I tried to handle the process of apologizing and moving on as gracefully as I could. One tendency I have, which I’d really like to modify, is that I tend to apologize excessively for errors. I know that it comes from a place of wanting to express my sorriness, but it also comes from a place of craving reassurance; I want to be told that it’s OK and that I’m OK. Sometimes I end up feeling that I’ve strong-armed another person into validating me. I’d like to approach mistakes differently so that I can avoid putting others in this position, which isn’t fair and is probably pretty uncomfortable.

This wasn’t exactly the week, though. I did end apologizing too forcefully, all so that I could rid myself of the discomfort of regret. I have a feeling that recognizing and accounting for mistakes without clinging to remorse is going to fall under the category of “work in progress” for a while.

Yesterday afternoon, I went to see Won’t You Be My Neighbor? I sensed that it would be good timing, and it was. The movie is incredibly tender, and if Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood figured positively in your childhood—I was allowed little TV, but always that show—then you may find it as moving as I did.

The movie is undoubtedly about Fred Rogers, and it paints a very glowing portrait, but what I like about the movie isn’t biography so much as a tribute to the idea that all people, children included, are valuable and special and lovable for who they are. Watching it encouraged me to do more of what I try to do already, but with plenty of moments of failing and forgetting: to pay attention to everyone, listen to what they have to say, and offer them my respect and lovingkindness.

Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was a show in which puppets and “real life” adult characters acknowledged that people feel sad and scared a lot of the time. At one point in the film, Rogers says that he was trying to communicate the message that feelings are “mentionable and manageable.” This included feelings like anger, which kids—and to some extent, adults—aren’t always given freedom or permission to express.

I read plenty about self-compassion and self-forgiveness, but being transported back to my own childhood and the time I spent watching Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood reached me in a different way yesterday. It allowed me to acknowledge my okay-ness on my own, to look at the last few days of seemingly continuous blunders with a little humor, and to let it all go.

Another message that Fred Rogers tried to convey is that mistakes are inevitable. He’s quoted as saying, “the most important learning is the ability to accept and expect mistakes, and deal with the disappointments that they bring.”

I’m engaging more with the world and with other people than I have in a while. This means I get to savor connection and new experiences, but it also means that I’m sometimes going to say the “wrong” thing, put my foot in my mouth, do something that ends of hurting the feelings of another person. It’s time for me to let go of the fantasy that I can connect with other people in a way that’s exclusively pleasing to them and to me; instead, I can acknowledge the inevitability of conflict and commit to handling it as compassionately as I can.

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about processing mistakes, and I’m sure it won’t be the last; as I said, this might be a lifetime project. But I’ll keep noticing and trying, and I’ll continue to feel grateful to those who are willing to let me communicate about it. Being willing to grow from mistakes, rather than being thwarted by them, is an inside job. But I think that part of the work is to hold space for others to struggle and make mistakes, too. We’re all in it together—a fact that I’m reminded of every single time I visit this particular space.

I’m embracing you just as you are on this Sunday. Here are the recipes and reads that caught my eye this week.

Recipes

Eva has created the vegan breakfast egg and sausage muffin of my dreams.

…and now here comes the sweet breakfast of my dreams: five ingredient vegan blueberry waffles.

It took me a while to figure out that zoodles on their own didn’t cut it for me, but I love mixing them with spaghetti or soba noodles. Erin’s got the same idea with this summery zucchini soba bowl.

Drooling over Kathy’s speedy fiesta bean bowl—there’s nothing I love more than quick comfort food!

The first time I saw a raspberry bakewell tart, it was on The Great British Baking Show. I’m sure I’ve never tasted one, and I’m not sure I’m ready to attempt one, but if I ever do, I’ll use Ania’s fully veganized recipe.

Recipes

1. We read so much these days about how vulnerable bee populations are, but this article made me marvel at how adaptive they are, too.

2. A compelling argument for why basic numeracy matters, especially in our technology saturated world.

3. A good look at nutrient pairings that are synergistic. I especially like the note about non-heme iron and Vitamin C (for more on plant-based iron, you can check out this post).

4. A lot of the elective research and papers I worked on while I was getting my masters involved the placebo/nocebo effect and especially its relationship with digestive illness. I was really interested to read about new research suggesting that similar circuitry may have an anti-tumor effect.

5. Sylvia Earle is a legendary marine biologist, but I knew little about her or her work until I read this interview. I loved so much of what she had to say about the natural world and our place within it, including this:

A lot of people excuse their bad behavior toward fish by saying, “Oh, they don’t feel pain.” That’s absurd. Fish have all the equipment we do to feel pain. Don’t make up stories to try to spare your conscience. You either choose to inflict pain on other creatures, or you don’t. But do they feel pain? Of course they do. Do they have emotions? Do they have a social structure? Do they bond with one another? Absolutely. It’s a smallness on our part, a narrowness of spirit and mind and heart, to think we are so special. Why not be thrilled that we have so much in common with other creatures?

I also admired her perspective on being a trailblazer, which is my characterization, not hers. Specifically, her sentiments about having entered marine biology at a time when, for women, to be a scientist was embraced as an accomplishment but not taken seriously as a profession:

One common factor for people who do succeed is a love of what they’re doing, a refusal to accept the reasons others give for why they can’t do something. I met a man who was an opera singer, and he’d been scorned in his youth for wanting to sing. It was viewed as a girly activity. But he persisted.

You have to have a sense of humor. It’s your suit of armor.

There’s humor again—an asset, a gift, and a suit of armor.

On that note, friends, happy Sunday. I’ve got a creamy, summery pasta dish coming your way this week!

xo

The post Weekend Reading, 7.15.18 appeared first on The Full Helping.

Weekend Reading, 7.15.18 published first on

[oovitus]

Weekend Reading, 7.15.18

Toward the end of this past week, I found myself grappling with a couple of missteps—or errors, or mistakes, or whatever you’d like to call them. Small things, but substantial enough to make me feel regret. They were largely unintentional (and most of them were actually pretty impersonal, in the tune of missed deadlines), but at least two impacted other people, and I was sorry.

I tried to handle the process of apologizing and moving on as gracefully as I could. One tendency I have, which I’d really like to modify, is that I tend to apologize excessively for errors. I know that it comes from a place of wanting to express my sorriness, but it also comes from a place of craving reassurance; I want to be told that it’s OK and that I’m OK. Sometimes I end up feeling that I’ve strong-armed another person into validating me. I’d like to approach mistakes differently so that I can avoid putting others in this position, which isn’t fair and is probably pretty uncomfortable.

This wasn’t exactly the week, though. I did end apologizing too forcefully, all so that I could rid myself of the discomfort of regret. I have a feeling that recognizing and accounting for mistakes without clinging to remorse is going to fall under the category of “work in progress” for a while.

Yesterday afternoon, I went to see Won’t You Be My Neighbor? I sensed that it would be good timing, and it was. The movie is incredibly tender, and if Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood figured positively in your childhood—I was allowed little TV, but always that show—then you may find it as moving as I did.

The movie is undoubtedly about Fred Rogers, and it paints a very glowing portrait, but what I like about the movie isn’t biography so much as a tribute to the idea that all people, children included, are valuable and special and lovable for who they are. Watching it encouraged me to do more of what I try to do already, but with plenty of moments of failing and forgetting: to pay attention to everyone, listen to what they have to say, and offer them my respect and lovingkindness.

Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was a show in which puppets and “real life” adult characters acknowledged that people feel sad and scared a lot of the time. At one point in the film, Rogers says that he was trying to communicate the message that feelings are “mentionable and manageable.” This included feelings like anger, which kids—and to some extent, adults—aren’t always given freedom or permission to express.

I read plenty about self-compassion and self-forgiveness, but being transported back to my own childhood and the time I spent watching Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood reached me in a different way yesterday. It allowed me to acknowledge my okay-ness on my own, to look at the last few days of seemingly continuous blunders with a little humor, and to let it all go.

Another message that Fred Rogers tried to convey is that mistakes are inevitable. He’s quoted as saying, “the most important learning is the ability to accept and expect mistakes, and deal with the disappointments that they bring.”

I’m engaging more with the world and with other people than I have in a while. This means I get to savor connection and new experiences, but it also means that I’m sometimes going to say the “wrong” thing, put my foot in my mouth, do something that ends of hurting the feelings of another person. It’s time for me to let go of the fantasy that I can connect with other people in a way that’s exclusively pleasing to them and to me; instead, I can acknowledge the inevitability of conflict and commit to handling it as compassionately as I can.

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about processing mistakes, and I’m sure it won’t be the last; as I said, this might be a lifetime project. But I’ll keep noticing and trying, and I’ll continue to feel grateful to those who are willing to let me communicate about it. Being willing to grow from mistakes, rather than being thwarted by them, is an inside job. But I think that part of the work is to hold space for others to struggle and make mistakes, too. We’re all in it together—a fact that I’m reminded of every single time I visit this particular space.

I’m embracing you just as you are on this Sunday. Here are the recipes and reads that caught my eye this week.

Recipes

Eva has created the vegan breakfast egg and sausage muffin of my dreams.

…and now here comes the sweet breakfast of my dreams: five ingredient vegan blueberry waffles.

It took me a while to figure out that zoodles on their own didn’t cut it for me, but I love mixing them with spaghetti or soba noodles. Erin’s got the same idea with this summery zucchini soba bowl.

Drooling over Kathy’s speedy fiesta bean bowl—there’s nothing I love more than quick comfort food!

The first time I saw a raspberry bakewell tart, it was on The Great British Baking Show. I’m sure I’ve never tasted one, and I’m not sure I’m ready to attempt one, but if I ever do, I’ll use Ania’s fully veganized recipe.

Recipes

1. We read so much these days about how vulnerable bee populations are, but this article made me marvel at how adaptive they are, too.

2. A compelling argument for why basic numeracy matters, especially in our technology saturated world.

3. A good look at nutrient pairings that are synergistic. I especially like the note about non-heme iron and Vitamin C (for more on plant-based iron, you can check out this post).

4. A lot of the elective research and papers I worked on while I was getting my masters involved the placebo/nocebo effect and especially its relationship with digestive illness. I was really interested to read about new research suggesting that similar circuitry may have an anti-tumor effect.

5. Sylvia Earle is a legendary marine biologist, but I knew little about her or her work until I read this interview. I loved so much of what she had to say about the natural world and our place within it, including this:

A lot of people excuse their bad behavior toward fish by saying, “Oh, they don’t feel pain.” That’s absurd. Fish have all the equipment we do to feel pain. Don’t make up stories to try to spare your conscience. You either choose to inflict pain on other creatures, or you don’t. But do they feel pain? Of course they do. Do they have emotions? Do they have a social structure? Do they bond with one another? Absolutely. It’s a smallness on our part, a narrowness of spirit and mind and heart, to think we are so special. Why not be thrilled that we have so much in common with other creatures?

I also admired her perspective on being a trailblazer, which is my characterization, not hers. Specifically, her sentiments about having entered marine biology at a time when, for women, to be a scientist was embraced as an accomplishment but not taken seriously as a profession:

One common factor for people who do succeed is a love of what they’re doing, a refusal to accept the reasons others give for why they can’t do something. I met a man who was an opera singer, and he’d been scorned in his youth for wanting to sing. It was viewed as a girly activity. But he persisted.

You have to have a sense of humor. It’s your suit of armor.

There’s humor again—an asset, a gift, and a suit of armor.

On that note, friends, happy Sunday. I’ve got a creamy, summery pasta dish coming your way this week!

xo

The post Weekend Reading, 7.15.18 appeared first on The Full Helping.

Weekend Reading, 7.15.18 published first on https://storeseapharmacy.tumblr.com

[oovitus]

Weekend Reading, 7.15.18

Toward the end of this past week, I found myself grappling with a couple of missteps—or errors, or mistakes, or whatever you’d like to call them. Small things, but substantial enough to make me feel regret. They were largely unintentional (and most of them were actually pretty impersonal, in the tune of missed deadlines), but at least two impacted other people, and I was sorry.

I tried to handle the process of apologizing and moving on as gracefully as I could. One tendency I have, which I’d really like to modify, is that I tend to apologize excessively for errors. I know that it comes from a place of wanting to express my sorriness, but it also comes from a place of craving reassurance; I want to be told that it’s OK and that I’m OK. Sometimes I end up feeling that I’ve strong-armed another person into validating me. I’d like to approach mistakes differently so that I can avoid putting others in this position, which isn’t fair and is probably pretty uncomfortable.

This wasn’t exactly the week, though. I did end apologizing too forcefully, all so that I could rid myself of the discomfort of regret. I have a feeling that recognizing and accounting for mistakes without clinging to remorse is going to fall under the category of “work in progress” for a while.

Yesterday afternoon, I went to see Won’t You Be My Neighbor? I sensed that it would be good timing, and it was. The movie is incredibly tender, and if Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood figured positively in your childhood—I was allowed little TV, but always that show—then you may find it as moving as I did.

The movie is undoubtedly about Fred Rogers, and it paints a very glowing portrait, but what I like about the movie isn’t biography so much as a tribute to the idea that all people, children included, are valuable and special and lovable for who they are. Watching it encouraged me to do more of what I try to do already, but with plenty of moments of failing and forgetting: to pay attention to everyone, listen to what they have to say, and offer them my respect and lovingkindness.

Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was a show in which puppets and “real life” adult characters acknowledged that people feel sad and scared a lot of the time. At one point in the film, Rogers says that he was trying to communicate the message that feelings are “mentionable and manageable.” This included feelings like anger, which kids—and to some extent, adults—aren’t always given freedom or permission to express.

I read plenty about self-compassion and self-forgiveness, but being transported back to my own childhood and the time I spent watching Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood reached me in a different way yesterday. It allowed me to acknowledge my okay-ness on my own, to look at the last few days of seemingly continuous blunders with a little humor, and to let it all go.

Another message that Fred Rogers tried to convey is that mistakes are inevitable. He’s quoted as saying, “the most important learning is the ability to accept and expect mistakes, and deal with the disappointments that they bring.”

I’m engaging more with the world and with other people than I have in a while. This means I get to savor connection and new experiences, but it also means that I’m sometimes going to say the “wrong” thing, put my foot in my mouth, do something that ends of hurting the feelings of another person. It’s time for me to let go of the fantasy that I can connect with other people in a way that’s exclusively pleasing to them and to me; instead, I can acknowledge the inevitability of conflict and commit to handling it as compassionately as I can.

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about processing mistakes, and I’m sure it won’t be the last; as I said, this might be a lifetime project. But I’ll keep noticing and trying, and I’ll continue to feel grateful to those who are willing to let me communicate about it. Being willing to grow from mistakes, rather than being thwarted by them, is an inside job. But I think that part of the work is to hold space for others to struggle and make mistakes, too. We’re all in it together—a fact that I’m reminded of every single time I visit this particular space.

I’m embracing you just as you are on this Sunday. Here are the recipes and reads that caught my eye this week.

Recipes

Eva has created the vegan breakfast egg and sausage muffin of my dreams.

…and now here comes the sweet breakfast of my dreams: five ingredient vegan blueberry waffles.

It took me a while to figure out that zoodles on their own didn’t cut it for me, but I love mixing them with spaghetti or soba noodles. Erin’s got the same idea with this summery zucchini soba bowl.

Drooling over Kathy’s speedy fiesta bean bowl—there’s nothing I love more than quick comfort food!

The first time I saw a raspberry bakewell tart, it was on The Great British Baking Show. I’m sure I’ve never tasted one, and I’m not sure I’m ready to attempt one, but if I ever do, I’ll use Ania’s fully veganized recipe.

Recipes

1. We read so much these days about how vulnerable bee populations are, but this article made me marvel at how adaptive they are, too.

2. A compelling argument for why basic numeracy matters, especially in our technology saturated world.

3. A good look at nutrient pairings that are synergistic. I especially like the note about non-heme iron and Vitamin C (for more on plant-based iron, you can check out this post).

4. A lot of the elective research and papers I worked on while I was getting my masters involved the placebo/nocebo effect and especially its relationship with digestive illness. I was really interested to read about new research suggesting that similar circuitry may have an anti-tumor effect.

5. Sylvia Earle is a legendary marine biologist, but I knew little about her or her work until I read this interview. I loved so much of what she had to say about the natural world and our place within it, including this:

A lot of people excuse their bad behavior toward fish by saying, “Oh, they don’t feel pain.” That’s absurd. Fish have all the equipment we do to feel pain. Don’t make up stories to try to spare your conscience. You either choose to inflict pain on other creatures, or you don’t. But do they feel pain? Of course they do. Do they have emotions? Do they have a social structure? Do they bond with one another? Absolutely. It’s a smallness on our part, a narrowness of spirit and mind and heart, to think we are so special. Why not be thrilled that we have so much in common with other creatures?

I also admired her perspective on being a trailblazer, which is my characterization, not hers. Specifically, her sentiments about having entered marine biology at a time when, for women, to be a scientist was embraced as an accomplishment but not taken seriously as a profession:

One common factor for people who do succeed is a love of what they’re doing, a refusal to accept the reasons others give for why they can’t do something. I met a man who was an opera singer, and he’d been scorned in his youth for wanting to sing. It was viewed as a girly activity. But he persisted.

You have to have a sense of humor. It’s your suit of armor.

There’s humor again—an asset, a gift, and a suit of armor.

On that note, friends, happy Sunday. I’ve got a creamy, summery pasta dish coming your way this week!

xo

The post Weekend Reading, 7.15.18 appeared first on The Full Helping.

Weekend Reading, 7.15.18 published first on

[oovitus]

Weekend Reading, 7.15.18

Toward the end of this past week, I found myself grappling with a couple of missteps—or errors, or mistakes, or whatever you’d like to call them. Small things, but substantial enough to make me feel regret. They were largely unintentional (and most of them were actually pretty impersonal, in the tune of missed deadlines), but at least two impacted other people, and I was sorry.

I tried to handle the process of apologizing and moving on as gracefully as I could. One tendency I have, which I’d really like to modify, is that I tend to apologize excessively for errors. I know that it comes from a place of wanting to express my sorriness, but it also comes from a place of craving reassurance; I want to be told that it’s OK and that I’m OK. Sometimes I end up feeling that I’ve strong-armed another person into validating me. I’d like to approach mistakes differently so that I can avoid putting others in this position, which isn’t fair and is probably pretty uncomfortable.

This wasn’t exactly the week, though. I did end apologizing too forcefully, all so that I could rid myself of the discomfort of regret. I have a feeling that recognizing and accounting for mistakes without clinging to remorse is going to fall under the category of “work in progress” for a while.

Yesterday afternoon, I went to see Won’t You Be My Neighbor? I sensed that it would be good timing, and it was. The movie is incredibly tender, and if Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood figured positively in your childhood—I was allowed little TV, but always that show—then you may find it as moving as I did.

The movie is undoubtedly about Fred Rogers, and it paints a very glowing portrait, but what I like about the movie isn’t biography so much as a tribute to the idea that all people, children included, are valuable and special and lovable for who they are. Watching it encouraged me to do more of what I try to do already, but with plenty of moments of failing and forgetting: to pay attention to everyone, listen to what they have to say, and offer them my respect and lovingkindness.

Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was a show in which puppets and “real life” adult characters acknowledged that people feel sad and scared a lot of the time. At one point in the film, Rogers says that he was trying to communicate the message that feelings are “mentionable and manageable.” This included feelings like anger, which kids—and to some extent, adults—aren’t always given freedom or permission to express.

I read plenty about self-compassion and self-forgiveness, but being transported back to my own childhood and the time I spent watching Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood reached me in a different way yesterday. It allowed me to acknowledge my okay-ness on my own, to look at the last few days of seemingly continuous blunders with a little humor, and to let it all go.

Another message that Fred Rogers tried to convey is that mistakes are inevitable. He’s quoted as saying, “the most important learning is the ability to accept and expect mistakes, and deal with the disappointments that they bring.”

I’m engaging more with the world and with other people than I have in a while. This means I get to savor connection and new experiences, but it also means that I’m sometimes going to say the “wrong” thing, put my foot in my mouth, do something that ends of hurting the feelings of another person. It’s time for me to let go of the fantasy that I can connect with other people in a way that’s exclusively pleasing to them and to me; instead, I can acknowledge the inevitability of conflict and commit to handling it as compassionately as I can.

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about processing mistakes, and I’m sure it won’t be the last; as I said, this might be a lifetime project. But I’ll keep noticing and trying, and I’ll continue to feel grateful to those who are willing to let me communicate about it. Being willing to grow from mistakes, rather than being thwarted by them, is an inside job. But I think that part of the work is to hold space for others to struggle and make mistakes, too. We’re all in it together—a fact that I’m reminded of every single time I visit this particular space.

I’m embracing you just as you are on this Sunday. Here are the recipes and reads that caught my eye this week.

Recipes

Eva has created the vegan breakfast egg and sausage muffin of my dreams.

…and now here comes the sweet breakfast of my dreams: five ingredient vegan blueberry waffles.

It took me a while to figure out that zoodles on their own didn’t cut it for me, but I love mixing them with spaghetti or soba noodles. Erin’s got the same idea with this summery zucchini soba bowl.

Drooling over Kathy’s speedy fiesta bean bowl—there’s nothing I love more than quick comfort food!

The first time I saw a raspberry bakewell tart, it was on The Great British Baking Show. I’m sure I’ve never tasted one, and I’m not sure I’m ready to attempt one, but if I ever do, I’ll use Ania’s fully veganized recipe.

Recipes

1. We read so much these days about how vulnerable bee populations are, but this article made me marvel at how adaptive they are, too.

2. A compelling argument for why basic numeracy matters, especially in our technology saturated world.

3. A good look at nutrient pairings that are synergistic. I especially like the note about non-heme iron and Vitamin C (for more on plant-based iron, you can check out this post).

4. A lot of the elective research and papers I worked on while I was getting my masters involved the placebo/nocebo effect and especially its relationship with digestive illness. I was really interested to read about new research suggesting that similar circuitry may have an anti-tumor effect.

5. Sylvia Earle is a legendary marine biologist, but I knew little about her or her work until I read this interview. I loved so much of what she had to say about the natural world and our place within it, including this:

A lot of people excuse their bad behavior toward fish by saying, “Oh, they don’t feel pain.” That’s absurd. Fish have all the equipment we do to feel pain. Don’t make up stories to try to spare your conscience. You either choose to inflict pain on other creatures, or you don’t. But do they feel pain? Of course they do. Do they have emotions? Do they have a social structure? Do they bond with one another? Absolutely. It’s a smallness on our part, a narrowness of spirit and mind and heart, to think we are so special. Why not be thrilled that we have so much in common with other creatures?

I also admired her perspective on being a trailblazer, which is my characterization, not hers. Specifically, her sentiments about having entered marine biology at a time when, for women, to be a scientist was embraced as an accomplishment but not taken seriously as a profession:

One common factor for people who do succeed is a love of what they’re doing, a refusal to accept the reasons others give for why they can’t do something. I met a man who was an opera singer, and he’d been scorned in his youth for wanting to sing. It was viewed as a girly activity. But he persisted.

You have to have a sense of humor. It’s your suit of armor.

There’s humor again—an asset, a gift, and a suit of armor.

On that note, friends, happy Sunday. I’ve got a creamy, summery pasta dish coming your way this week!

xo

The post Weekend Reading, 7.15.18 appeared first on The Full Helping.

Weekend Reading, 7.15.18 published first on https://storeseapharmacy.tumblr.com

[oovitus]

Weekend Reading, 7.15.18

Toward the end of this past week, I found myself grappling with a couple of missteps—or errors, or mistakes, or whatever you’d like to call them. Small things, but substantial enough to make me feel regret. They were largely unintentional (and most of them were actually pretty impersonal, in the tune of missed deadlines), but at least two impacted other people, and I was sorry.

I tried to handle the process of apologizing and moving on as gracefully as I could. One tendency I have, which I’d really like to modify, is that I tend to apologize excessively for errors. I know that it comes from a place of wanting to express my sorriness, but it also comes from a place of craving reassurance; I want to be told that it’s OK and that I’m OK. Sometimes I end up feeling that I’ve strong-armed another person into validating me. I’d like to approach mistakes differently so that I can avoid putting others in this position, which isn’t fair and is probably pretty uncomfortable.

This wasn’t exactly the week, though. I did end apologizing too forcefully, all so that I could rid myself of the discomfort of regret. I have a feeling that recognizing and accounting for mistakes without clinging to remorse is going to fall under the category of “work in progress” for a while.

Yesterday afternoon, I went to see Won’t You Be My Neighbor? I sensed that it would be good timing, and it was. The movie is incredibly tender, and if Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood figured positively in your childhood—I was allowed little TV, but always that show—then you may find it as moving as I did.

The movie is undoubtedly about Fred Rogers, and it paints a very glowing portrait, but what I like about the movie isn’t biography so much as a tribute to the idea that all people, children included, are valuable and special and lovable for who they are. Watching it encouraged me to do more of what I try to do already, but with plenty of moments of failing and forgetting: to pay attention to everyone, listen to what they have to say, and offer them my respect and lovingkindness.

Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was a show in which puppets and “real life” adult characters acknowledged that people feel sad and scared a lot of the time. At one point in the film, Rogers says that he was trying to communicate the message that feelings are “mentionable and manageable.” This included feelings like anger, which kids—and to some extent, adults—aren’t always given freedom or permission to express.

I read plenty about self-compassion and self-forgiveness, but being transported back to my own childhood and the time I spent watching Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood reached me in a different way yesterday. It allowed me to acknowledge my okay-ness on my own, to look at the last few days of seemingly continuous blunders with a little humor, and to let it all go.

Another message that Fred Rogers tried to convey is that mistakes are inevitable. He’s quoted as saying, “the most important learning is the ability to accept and expect mistakes, and deal with the disappointments that they bring.”

I’m engaging more with the world and with other people than I have in a while. This means I get to savor connection and new experiences, but it also means that I’m sometimes going to say the “wrong” thing, put my foot in my mouth, do something that ends of hurting the feelings of another person. It’s time for me to let go of the fantasy that I can connect with other people in a way that’s exclusively pleasing to them and to me; instead, I can acknowledge the inevitability of conflict and commit to handling it as compassionately as I can.

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about processing mistakes, and I’m sure it won’t be the last; as I said, this might be a lifetime project. But I’ll keep noticing and trying, and I’ll continue to feel grateful to those who are willing to let me communicate about it. Being willing to grow from mistakes, rather than being thwarted by them, is an inside job. But I think that part of the work is to hold space for others to struggle and make mistakes, too. We’re all in it together—a fact that I’m reminded of every single time I visit this particular space.

I’m embracing you just as you are on this Sunday. Here are the recipes and reads that caught my eye this week.

Recipes

Eva has created the vegan breakfast egg and sausage muffin of my dreams.

…and now here comes the sweet breakfast of my dreams: five ingredient vegan blueberry waffles.

It took me a while to figure out that zoodles on their own didn’t cut it for me, but I love mixing them with spaghetti or soba noodles. Erin’s got the same idea with this summery zucchini soba bowl.

Drooling over Kathy’s speedy fiesta bean bowl—there’s nothing I love more than quick comfort food!

The first time I saw a raspberry bakewell tart, it was on The Great British Baking Show. I’m sure I’ve never tasted one, and I’m not sure I’m ready to attempt one, but if I ever do, I’ll use Ania’s fully veganized recipe.

Recipes

1. We read so much these days about how vulnerable bee populations are, but this article made me marvel at how adaptive they are, too.

2. A compelling argument for why basic numeracy matters, especially in our technology saturated world.

3. A good look at nutrient pairings that are synergistic. I especially like the note about non-heme iron and Vitamin C (for more on plant-based iron, you can check out this post).

4. A lot of the elective research and papers I worked on while I was getting my masters involved the placebo/nocebo effect and especially its relationship with digestive illness. I was really interested to read about new research suggesting that similar circuitry may have an anti-tumor effect.

5. Sylvia Earle is a legendary marine biologist, but I knew little about her or her work until I read this interview. I loved so much of what she had to say about the natural world and our place within it, including this:

A lot of people excuse their bad behavior toward fish by saying, “Oh, they don’t feel pain.” That’s absurd. Fish have all the equipment we do to feel pain. Don’t make up stories to try to spare your conscience. You either choose to inflict pain on other creatures, or you don’t. But do they feel pain? Of course they do. Do they have emotions? Do they have a social structure? Do they bond with one another? Absolutely. It’s a smallness on our part, a narrowness of spirit and mind and heart, to think we are so special. Why not be thrilled that we have so much in common with other creatures?

I also admired her perspective on being a trailblazer, which is my characterization, not hers. Specifically, her sentiments about having entered marine biology at a time when, for women, to be a scientist was embraced as an accomplishment but not taken seriously as a profession:

One common factor for people who do succeed is a love of what they’re doing, a refusal to accept the reasons others give for why they can’t do something. I met a man who was an opera singer, and he’d been scorned in his youth for wanting to sing. It was viewed as a girly activity. But he persisted.

You have to have a sense of humor. It’s your suit of armor.

There’s humor again—an asset, a gift, and a suit of armor.

On that note, friends, happy Sunday. I’ve got a creamy, summery pasta dish coming your way this week!

xo

The post Weekend Reading, 7.15.18 appeared first on The Full Helping.

Weekend Reading, 7.15.18 published first on