This post contains spoilers for the book! :) I've purposely avoided movie spoilers outside trailers so you're in the clear.
A Wrinkle in Time (1962) by Madeleine L'Engle has been made into a movie directed by Ava DuVernay and starring Storm Reid. We all know this but I am just establishing why I'm making this post. That's why, everyone. And I think that's the reason I started rereading them but honestly I'm not positive since I started so long ago. Sometimes things just tell you you need to be with them.
(It was definitely the movie but I need to be with these books.)
The story is about Meg Murry, a 13 year old frustrated outcast, and an incredible journey. She lives with her 10 year old twin brothers Sandy and Dennys, 5 year old soulmate supergenius brother Charles Wallace, a couple pets, and their incredibly accomplished scientist parents. Or, just their mother. Their father was on a top secret government science mission and disappeared. Wrinkle is the story of Meg, Charles Wallace, and Meg's schoolmate Calvin O'Keefe going on a sci fi adventure to find Mr. Murry. They're guided and supported by a handful of (all female) otherworldly beings to fight an oppressive evil or at least rescue their father from it.
The book, though a girl power sci-fi adventure is also super Christian, something I had no idea about until I got older. Though I come from some Catholic behaviors passed down through generations, I wasn't really raised knowing anything about religion except for my own childhood obsession with Greek mythology and interest in the paranormal. So, I took any references to Christianity as the same, some interesting historical fantasy. There's references to Shakespere and Meg recites the Declaration of Independence so to me it was just another thing I didn't really know much about. The Murra\y children are far smarter than I was when I first read the book. It's totally #valid to be deterred or put off by it but I think Wrinkle has so so much to say and "Jesus rules" isn't even on the list.
L'Engle's writing is so immersive and so wonderful and painful and sweet you can feel the things Meg feels and as adults, creatures, and Charles Wallace give her lessons I can't help but feel like they're being taught to me. Along with Meg, this journey has reminded me of the importance of knowing what your faults and strengths are, stubborness and forgiveness, standing up when you feel you can't, loving yourself and others, resisting society urging you to change who you are to fit in, knowing and wanting to know-- everything it takes to be a person. I finished rereading it for the first time in who knows how long in the airport waiting to come back to California from a wonderful amazing trip to see Seventeen in Texas. I was overwhelmed with anxiety and fear of traveling alone and the pain of parting with my loved ones and though all these emotions totally informed my State, I wept at the end and the lessons I was soaking up. I'm finding it difficult to write about it and describe the feelings even though I insisted to myself and Rana that I'd make this post. But it's that kind of book, the kind where feeling and color and music are what one could describe it best with.
Wow, now that is a really great and unintenional segue.
TW Death, mental illness, substance abuse. hardcore personal miserable shit begins NOW
It was a dark and stormy night when I was on the bus to therapy thinking about this book while listening to Loona. It actually was not at all dark and stormy though recently it has been so I feel very immersed in the mood of the quote used as the first line of A Wrinkle in Time. The song Unknown Secret (Sonatine) was really triggering some emotions in me as I thought about Meg and Charles Wallace and had some intense epiphany when I decided the song would make a great AMV.
A couple years ago my dad died. It destroyed me, I am destroyed. But I have been for a long ass time before that. When I was very little, he was my one and only, my knight in shining armor but I didn't know he was an alcoholic and that's why he had to leave. To me, he just left. He moved away to live with friends (a 12 step program) and didn't need me like I needed him. He returned though, clearly not that long after though for me it felt like eons, because my mother was pregnant. My sister is his biological child and I am not and though I loved him so still and was so happy to be with him again, it felt that his "real" child was what brought him back. That's a whole other can of worms but it's a big part of our story. As time passed and I got older and more defiant and less loving and he struggled with depression on top of his constant struggle to stay sober, I was sure he didn't love me. He didn't look me in the eye, in my mind he didn't talk to me except to tell me to do something so my mom wouldn't yell at him. He did whatever my sister wanted and left me alone, I was a burden. I believed this for years, until right before he died. He relapsed on painkillers because nobody knew his physical problems were so bad, and we confronted him as a family. I told him I thought he didn't love me and he was brokenhearted. "You're my person." As I had countless times, I told him to show it, and I didn't really get it until I held his hand in the hospital and then hugged him for the last time. I told him I was sorry, he didn't even want to hear it. He knew I lashed out at him because I was in pain and he didn't care. I knew with all of me that he didn't give a single shit, he just loved me. He died the day before I was supposed to visit him. I barely went to see him in the almost two months he was in the hospital because of my own fear and mental illness. Unhappy end.
But I realized, looking at the lyrics to this Loona 1/3 song and thinking about how juiced I am for this fucking movie, that I still, to this day (even though I've thought it, tweeted it, and said it out loud, all things I thought would make it go away after I had this epiphany) somehow feel somewhere I can be Meg. That I can save him. That the young childhood me can go on some magical adventure and use all the love that I have in my body to bring the dad that loved me more than anything back to my family. Not even the dad who dragged an oxygen tank around the living room making horrible frightening noises but the dad that took me to the Berkeley hills when it snowed like a miracle to make a tiny snowman and keep it in the freezer until after he died. I would still have it but our fridge broke and there was no point in having gross 10 year old water in the nice new one.
I don't know when my "real" dad "died" but through a really heavy therapy session and lots of reflection, what I've gained from applying this story to my adult life is that love is it. There was never anything I could do to save my dad. To stop his depression or his addiction, to keep him from dying or metaphorically dying, to make him love me the way I needed him to. I was just a girl and even the me now that's legally a woman couldn't do anything. He might've been taken by evil; addiction, child abuse, the healthcare system we have in the United States, but I had no guardian angels and that's okay, in a way. He loved me every moment of my life, maybe before I existed, maybe he loved me as much as love exists. It feels like that now. And my sadness and anger my whole teen and early adult life was because I loved him too. But what I have to do from now on, what Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which taught me, is that I have to keep loving. It's all we can ever do. I couldn't rescue him from a dark force, I couldn't go back in time and make his parents love him or give him the mental health assistance he needed. I can't bring him back to start over but I can keep loving him and love the people in my life. Treat people with care, with kindness and communication, to be open and understanding like Aunt Beast, to be gleeful like the Happy Medium. I hope that now I realize what little control I have I can really get to know it and to be brave like Calvin, honest like Charles Wallace, and still be wonderfully emotional like Meg.
This book, and its sisters, meant a lot to me as a child and reading them now I find so much more strength in them and in Meg. She's up there with Violet Baudelaire, Sakura Kinomoto, Hermione Granger, Usagi Tsukino and every girl from a book that made me feel like I belong.
SUPER PERSONAL UPSETTING STORY OVER!!
I'm so excited for this film. Meg and Charles Wallace read as autistic though it isn't said outright, and who knows how they address it in the film, if they're any kind of neurodivergent at all, and I hope so but honestly I would be surprised if it is addressed. If it isn't I trust that the characterization of the children is the same and people can read into them the same way. I'm putting all my trust in this. We do know that the Murry children are biracial and as a biracial person I'm Super Fucking Excited ! ! ! It's a specific kind of loneliness to be isolated among your own family and it's hard to figure out how to navigate through it. I wish very badly I had been taught about it, that I had seen someone like Meg be mixed growing up but what can you do. Being raised by whites stunts that no matter how good their intentions and Hollywood thinks we still aren't ready for all kinds of shit. I think, as I've said 47 times in the past two months, it would be untrue to the story and irresponsible to make Meg white in a 2018 retelling so it's another layer of blessing DuVernay got to do this movie. And the casting of the Mrs. Ws.. I'm so so happy that they get to be the Hagrids of kids today. To have women as wise and powerful guardians that exist on their own and not to contrast or compliment men is going to be such a blessing and such a strength. You guys. You guys I'm so excited.
I am just going to keep rambling so I will leave you with a couple quotes.
And in the introduction by L'Engle herself,
What other Collective members have to say!
Alicia: I wish I had my 4th grade book report abt it :(((( this is why hoarding is good!!! Honestly it's probably in a box in my mom's apt....
Rana: i never read it honestly bc it was next to narnia in my 5th gr library and when i read narnia i was Horrified by Christian Themes as someone who was brought up despise of Deniers of the Goddess. BUT i did watch the movie & liked it but always thought it should have been more fantasy-esque bc the mrs of that movie i hated & are super creepy
Alicia: It's real bad omg
Rana: they should have used jim henson but that's my opinion on everything!
Lala: CHARLES WALLACE!!!
The book, though a girl power sci-fi adventure is also super Christian, something I had no idea about until I got older. Though I come from some Catholic behaviors passed down through generations, I wasn't really raised knowing anything about religion except for my own childhood obsession with Greek mythology and interest in the paranormal. So, I took any references to Christianity as the same, some interesting historical fantasy. There's references to Shakespere and Meg recites the Declaration of Independence so to me it was just another thing I didn't really know much about. The Murra\y children are far smarter than I was when I first read the book. It's totally #valid to be deterred or put off by it but I think Wrinkle has so so much to say and "Jesus rules" isn't even on the list.
L'Engle's writing is so immersive and so wonderful and painful and sweet you can feel the things Meg feels and as adults, creatures, and Charles Wallace give her lessons I can't help but feel like they're being taught to me. Along with Meg, this journey has reminded me of the importance of knowing what your faults and strengths are, stubborness and forgiveness, standing up when you feel you can't, loving yourself and others, resisting society urging you to change who you are to fit in, knowing and wanting to know-- everything it takes to be a person. I finished rereading it for the first time in who knows how long in the airport waiting to come back to California from a wonderful amazing trip to see Seventeen in Texas. I was overwhelmed with anxiety and fear of traveling alone and the pain of parting with my loved ones and though all these emotions totally informed my State, I wept at the end and the lessons I was soaking up. I'm finding it difficult to write about it and describe the feelings even though I insisted to myself and Rana that I'd make this post. But it's that kind of book, the kind where feeling and color and music are what one could describe it best with.
Wow, now that is a really great and unintenional segue.
TW Death, mental illness, substance abuse. hardcore personal miserable shit begins NOW
It was a dark and stormy night when I was on the bus to therapy thinking about this book while listening to Loona. It actually was not at all dark and stormy though recently it has been so I feel very immersed in the mood of the quote used as the first line of A Wrinkle in Time. The song Unknown Secret (Sonatine) was really triggering some emotions in me as I thought about Meg and Charles Wallace and had some intense epiphany when I decided the song would make a great AMV.
Can I meet you
at the end of this beam of darkness?
I still don't know
far away along that light
Time engraved in the unknown secret faster to the second
everything will happen
when I cross this sleepless night
Could you greet me at the front?
I would work harder and quicker then
A new world will open up to me
A couple years ago my dad died. It destroyed me, I am destroyed. But I have been for a long ass time before that. When I was very little, he was my one and only, my knight in shining armor but I didn't know he was an alcoholic and that's why he had to leave. To me, he just left. He moved away to live with friends (a 12 step program) and didn't need me like I needed him. He returned though, clearly not that long after though for me it felt like eons, because my mother was pregnant. My sister is his biological child and I am not and though I loved him so still and was so happy to be with him again, it felt that his "real" child was what brought him back. That's a whole other can of worms but it's a big part of our story. As time passed and I got older and more defiant and less loving and he struggled with depression on top of his constant struggle to stay sober, I was sure he didn't love me. He didn't look me in the eye, in my mind he didn't talk to me except to tell me to do something so my mom wouldn't yell at him. He did whatever my sister wanted and left me alone, I was a burden. I believed this for years, until right before he died. He relapsed on painkillers because nobody knew his physical problems were so bad, and we confronted him as a family. I told him I thought he didn't love me and he was brokenhearted. "You're my person." As I had countless times, I told him to show it, and I didn't really get it until I held his hand in the hospital and then hugged him for the last time. I told him I was sorry, he didn't even want to hear it. He knew I lashed out at him because I was in pain and he didn't care. I knew with all of me that he didn't give a single shit, he just loved me. He died the day before I was supposed to visit him. I barely went to see him in the almost two months he was in the hospital because of my own fear and mental illness. Unhappy end.
But I realized, looking at the lyrics to this Loona 1/3 song and thinking about how juiced I am for this fucking movie, that I still, to this day (even though I've thought it, tweeted it, and said it out loud, all things I thought would make it go away after I had this epiphany) somehow feel somewhere I can be Meg. That I can save him. That the young childhood me can go on some magical adventure and use all the love that I have in my body to bring the dad that loved me more than anything back to my family. Not even the dad who dragged an oxygen tank around the living room making horrible frightening noises but the dad that took me to the Berkeley hills when it snowed like a miracle to make a tiny snowman and keep it in the freezer until after he died. I would still have it but our fridge broke and there was no point in having gross 10 year old water in the nice new one.
I don't know when my "real" dad "died" but through a really heavy therapy session and lots of reflection, what I've gained from applying this story to my adult life is that love is it. There was never anything I could do to save my dad. To stop his depression or his addiction, to keep him from dying or metaphorically dying, to make him love me the way I needed him to. I was just a girl and even the me now that's legally a woman couldn't do anything. He might've been taken by evil; addiction, child abuse, the healthcare system we have in the United States, but I had no guardian angels and that's okay, in a way. He loved me every moment of my life, maybe before I existed, maybe he loved me as much as love exists. It feels like that now. And my sadness and anger my whole teen and early adult life was because I loved him too. But what I have to do from now on, what Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which taught me, is that I have to keep loving. It's all we can ever do. I couldn't rescue him from a dark force, I couldn't go back in time and make his parents love him or give him the mental health assistance he needed. I can't bring him back to start over but I can keep loving him and love the people in my life. Treat people with care, with kindness and communication, to be open and understanding like Aunt Beast, to be gleeful like the Happy Medium. I hope that now I realize what little control I have I can really get to know it and to be brave like Calvin, honest like Charles Wallace, and still be wonderfully emotional like Meg.
This book, and its sisters, meant a lot to me as a child and reading them now I find so much more strength in them and in Meg. She's up there with Violet Baudelaire, Sakura Kinomoto, Hermione Granger, Usagi Tsukino and every girl from a book that made me feel like I belong.
SUPER PERSONAL UPSETTING STORY OVER!!
I am just going to keep rambling so I will leave you with a couple quotes.
The Medium lost the delighted smile she had worn till then, "Oh why must you make me look at unpleasant things when there are so many delightful ones to see?"
Again Mrs. Which's voice reverberated through the cave. ["There will no longer be so many pleasant things to look at if responsible people do not do something about the unpleasant ones."]
♡
Father said it was all right for me to be afraid. He said to go ahead and be afraid. And Mrs. Who said-- I don't understand what she said but I think it was meant to make me not hate being only me, and me being the way I am. And Mrs. Whatsit said to remember that she loves me. That's what I have to think about. Not about being afraid. Or not as smart as IT. Mrs. Whatsit loves me. That's quite something, to be loved by someone like Mrs. Whatsit.
And in the introduction by L'Engle herself,
In each book the characters are living into the questions that we all have to live into. Some of these questions don't have finite answers, but the questions themselves are important. Don't stop asking, and don't let anybody tell you the questions aren't worth it. They are.
♡
Alicia: I wish I had my 4th grade book report abt it :(((( this is why hoarding is good!!! Honestly it's probably in a box in my mom's apt....
Rana: i never read it honestly bc it was next to narnia in my 5th gr library and when i read narnia i was Horrified by Christian Themes as someone who was brought up despise of Deniers of the Goddess. BUT i did watch the movie & liked it but always thought it should have been more fantasy-esque bc the mrs of that movie i hated & are super creepy
Alicia: It's real bad omg
Rana: they should have used jim henson but that's my opinion on everything!
Lala: CHARLES WALLACE!!!
wow i thought i commented last night, but it didnt go through but thank you for sharing your story <3 it definitely adds context to how important a story like this can be important to both kids and adults
ReplyDeletei am very excited to see good portrays of older wise women especially because youth culture is suffocating!!!