Blog

is this who I am now?

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

I got super carsick yesterday, which isn’t something that happens to me regularly. (boat sick, yes… Carsick, no.) When the waves of violent nausea set in I instantly remember a Tuesday, a few weeks ago, when I also experienced a severe case of carsickness, to the point of vomiting multiple times all over my best friend’s car. Terrible.

I also realized that, aside from the following day when I spent a few hours in the car dead asleep, I hadn’t been in a car since that fateful Tuesday nearly three weeks ago. This is due to working from home, and covid. (Covid is 100% to blame! The number of canceled plans proves that if it had been up to me, I would have been out doing things…) It begs the question: is this who I am, as a car passenger, now?

I hope not! (especially since I’m headed out of town on Saturday)

As I drove home from dropping my husband off, cool air on my face and music in my ears, my mind began thinking about how much life had changed. There once was a time my car was driven daily and I plowed through a dozen+ podcast episodes weekly and found myself grabbing coffee from a drive-thru… I can’t even imagine that life now.

It sounds exhausting.

I’m certainly happier at a slow pace.

I was dropping my husband off for a business trip, which is another huge thing that has changed… He used to travel for work 2-3 weeks out of most months, whereas this is the second business trip he’s taken in 4 years.

Sometimes it feels as though nothing changes and we allow boredom to set it. Minus the onset of what seems to be my new “friendship” with carsickness, I’m finding myself so grateful for the chance to reflect back on how those specific things have changed for the better…

Taking time to pause and look back to evaluate changes and growth can be a beautiful thing.

August slipped away…

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

Here’s a super quick post about what I learned in August:

  • You can plan and prepare for many things, but they will unfold the way they are meant to and that’s ok. Probably better, to be honest.
  • The internet can be terrible, but it can also be magic. We’ve reached the point in this game where we need the magic that is made from a small boy and his deep love of corn and the world of artists on TikTok who see the potential.
  • No matter how safe we are, how insured we are, or how we “plan for the worst” sometimes we just get screwed.
  • My best friend’s mom makes the best cupcakes in the world.
  • When you deeply love someone and write about them in your book, and then everyone who reads your book falls in love with them too–this is exactly the sort of thing I didn’t know I needed to happen, but it did and I want to do that again and again and again with my people.
  • The Resort on Peacock is brilliant. (that’s all. That’s the line here.)
  • Covid is weird. Like, my thighs are crazy week and my tastebuds make things taste wrong. (they also enhance salty and sweet in the worst of ways). It leaves me exhausted but prohibits me from sleeping. People die from it, but also there are no restrictions anymore… I’m in a giant swarm of Covid brain-fog and confusion over here, going on 8 days strong. Also, something as simple as folding a t-shirt becomes hella hard.
  • My people create amazing things.

Gigi & Nate

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

Every once in a while a story comes along that stirs us so deeply we may never quite be the same. I was fortunate to be invited to screen the new Roadside Attractions film Gigi & Nate, which releases on September 2nd. As both a die-hard film AND animal lover, it may surprise others to learn that I’m not actually a fan of films about animals. It’s weird, I know. I wasn’t expecting to love the movie, but I did.

SYNOPSIS

Gigi & Nate is the story of Nate Gibson, a young man whose life is turned upside down after he suffers a near-fatal illness and is left quadriplegic. Moving forward seems near impossible until he meets his unlikely service animal, Gigi – a curious and intelligent capuchin monkey. Although she is trained to assist Nate with his basic needs, Gigi helps Nate find what he needs most of all: hope.

Review

Gigi & Nate is a powerful offering of several stories and substories that, when allowed by the viewer, pack a powerful punch. I want to preface this opinion with some cliche phrase like in a nutshell, or at its heart, but I can’t. This story is too complex.

Inspired by a true story of a quadriplegic and capuchin monkey service animal, Gigi & Nate tells the story of Nate, a daring and adventure-filled teen boy whose life is turned completely upside down just before he is set to leave for college. The film shows us how hopeless Nate’s once bold life becomes. As his extreme disability takes its toll on every member of the family in significant ways the film does a powerful job of conveying a heaviness that (thankfully) many of its viewers can’t fathom. When Gigi comes along, a rescued capuchin monkey turned service animal, the world opens up for Nate (and his family).

As a story about a hopeless life turned once again hopeful, this is a beautiful and heartwarming story. It hits all of the notes just right. Viewers are left feeling good as the credits roll, which is likely the point. If that is all someone takes from this film, that’s enough. Beyond this very formulaic recipe for a feel-good movie though, there is so much more at play.

Again and again, this film shows us varying degrees of people without empathy vs. those who are empathetic. We see this with the “petting zoo” Gigi is rescued from. We see this in the family members terrified of the change (perceived chaos) bringing Gigi into the home could cause. Once again we see this in the people outraged at the use of service animals. In this storyline, our focus of such divides is a monkey, but beyond the movie we experience such divides every day. Today finds our real world riddled with division. Our families are more divided than ever, divorce rates are significant, and the missing ingredient in the majority of these divisions is an ability to empathize.

Additionally, Gigi & Nate offers us an honest glimpse into how trauma and grief can disconnect us from those we are closest to. Statistically more marriages and families crumble in the aftermath of significant trauma or loss than not. Anyone who has walked this fine line of tragedy understands this. While it feels as though it would be the opposite, the truth is that when we are exhausted and grieving we often don’t know how to do the vulnerable work needed to nurture those connections–sometimes this feels impossible. This film handles this very relative narrative so beautifully.

Two other subplots that really struck me were extremism and before/after connections. In the first, we meet two organized groups of people during the course of this film whose hearts are to protect animals from abuse. One is the organization that rescues Gigi and the other we see later in the film protesting service animals. The origin of both groups of people clearly came from a place of justice, concern, and outrage over abuse. The journey for each of them though went In different directions. We see the passion of one side growing into helping and hope while the other grew more narrow-minded and less compassionate. Removing animals from this scenario, this subplot resonates with so many things happening in the world around us. The latter subplot shows us powerful examples of before and after connections and how they evolve.

In closing…

Gigi & Nate is a beautiful story about the healing power of both empathy and connection. The film utilizes the opportunity to share varying (and powerful) angles within the story and characters to provide the audience with a complete and dimensional picture of what is a truly hope-filled and poignant story about a man and his service animal.

I was disappointed not to be able to attend junket interviews with cast, due to having covid, as I had so many things I wanted to ask. Gigi & Nate left me a little bit more wide open for the differences in the lives of others that I may not understand.

If you need something lovely to do this long weekend, supporting this beautiful film sounds like a win/win.

a forbidden love…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

In the spring of my sixth-grade year, my friend asked me if I wanted to skip school with her. She was part of an eclectic group of middle schoolers who left campus often for things like fast food, hanging out, and anything other than dull afternoon periods. I was terrified, but coming into a braver version of me, I agreed.

As we were walking the streets of our small desert town she asked me what I wanted to do– hanging out at one of our homes wasn’t an option for either of us. Without much thought, I asked, “Can we go to the library?”

I knew it was a nerdy response for a middle school girl, in 1988, to make. She was reluctant in her agreement, but this was what we did.

Our town library was fairly small by public library standards, but it was amazing to me… mostly because I hadn’t ever been. I had begged my mother for years to take me to the library for books, but she always said “No”. She told me it was too expensive. She told me a lot of things to discourage me from asking, but her excuses never took away my deeply rooted desire to walk among the stacks.

Someone saw me going into the library in the middle of a school day and called my mom. I sat curled up and looking through a stack of books, in absolute heaven, when I caught sight of her storming up the walkway to get me. This marking of my first time in a library would also be the only time I ever saw my mother in one.

When I was fourteen I had a not-so-secret relationship with a boy named Michael. This boy wouldn’t be my first kiss, but maybe my first love. He definitely became my first love OF kissing, as we were swept up in kissing pretty much anywhere we could manage.

Fourteen is such a magical, difficult age. Especially for us. We were both kids in a very conservative Christian children’s group home. Things like dating, and especially kissing, were not allowed. A million years later I have to wonder if part of the magic of those days was in discovering the secret places to make out, in addition to discovering each other.

Of the many hiding spots we found, my very favorite was on Tuesdays when our high school class took trips to the nearest public library. Living in a new town, this library was filled with nooks and crannies to duck into and explore. It was magic.

The books were magic too. As restricted as almost every aspect of our lives were–there seemed to be little overseeing of what books we checked out. I suspect certain adults thought reading kids were quiet and behaving kids. This is not true.

I still feel my knees go a little weak when I step into a library… the smells of decades of books and possibilities… Everything about it feels like untapped magic.

Possibly though, there is still that slight prick of something forbidden and beautiful to be had there and I’m not going to lie–I love that part too…

Psst… hey you, did you happen to see that my memoir Girls, Assassins & Other Bad Ideas is finally out? You can learn more about it and grab a copy by going here!

If you’d like to keep up with what’s happening and the scoop about other awesome and amazing things ahead of schedule, you can do that by going here!