This is the best movie I've watched, possibly all year. I watched it on an evening after a life-giving art workshop with Barby Asante, where we discussed our feminist toolkits and asked each other questions, answering with more questions.
This is the second in a series of workshops a few girls and I are doing with Barby, as she develops something for Medwards' art gallery. I remember on the evening of the first session, being late, I pedalled so quickly from choir at Sidney back to Medwards that I made it up that hill in 6 minutes -- a new record, possibly a WORLD record because that hill takes the wind out of any normal person.
In this second session we'd been asked to bring things that were our 'feminist toolkit', or more simply put, things that kept us alive (I'm not sure why it was feminist but I used that as a way of choosing from the many many things that keep me alive a few more specific things). One girl talked about her jewelry/piercings, bought or given at special times by special people. Another girl mentioned her journal and books of poetry. I brought along the 'What I Wish for Miriam by Emily' book that Em gave me when I first flew here, the one that reminds me of our invisible soul-glue bond and that almost always makes me cry when I read it. I talked about that, and the poem by Hannah, the Wyken Vineyard day card from Mum, the post-death birthday card from Auntie Sheila, and a birthday card from Grandma, all which are stuck up in places in my room so that the words from these wise, good, kind and strong female figures in my life surround me and build me up, reminding me who I am, where I've come from, how I'm loved and what I need to remember where ever I end up going.
The question game we played after that was wonderful - it entailed asking someone a question, and their 'answer' had to be a question directed at another person. The questions grew off each other, we asked about family, rituals, politics, emotions, religion... Personal and invasive and 'mattering' questions since no person was required to answer. And for each question you wondered about other people's answers and answered in your heart as well, which was probably more important, to know first what you think about the nature of God and love and safety before basing it off someone else's response. A sort of enforced self analysis.
After that I cycled down to watch The Florida Project with Alex. Moonee and her friends running with the flip flop slapping, exhausted but inexhaustible run of childhood, or eating ice crema, taking turns to each have a lick, or taking joy in making the shaky noises the come from singing into a fan made me think so much of my own childhood, and miss it. The film was a huge nostalgia trip, and yet at the same time it was about circumstances entirely foreign to me, childhood in an environment of danger, desperation, violence, hatred and poverty. Alex said so aptly afterwards that you felt like someone had wrung out your insides by the end of the film.
When we came out of the theatre at midnight, a drunk girl was singing 'Wonderwall' along to the guitar accompaniment of a homeless man.
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