Despite being on a whirlwind time period of my life where I have had to accomplish things that it may take others way more time, I want to keep making sure to take my son to see and experience new  adventures. With that in mind, I took him to watch Mirai a an animated Japanese film.   The movie has been nominated for Best Animated Feature Film at the 76th Golden Globe Awards and I am trying my best to catch as many nominated movies this year.  I am not too sure how this ended up being a top goal for me this year but I am rolling with it. I suppose this goal came about partly because it has been a tough year and I needed a bit of whimsy and fantasy. Besides award-nominated films, I have also caught many films that will never be on any best-list. And that was just fine with me this year.

Considering that I am about to bring about upheaval once again to my life, Mirai was quite apropos for this time in my life. For this time in this last back half of the year.  The movie is heartwarming and most definitely has an interesting and different animation look than all the other animated films I saw this year (i.e. Ralph Breaks the Internet; Incredibles 2, Sherlock Gnomes etc). The movie centers around a young toddler boy named Kun who has a hard time adjusting to his newborn sister Mirai-which means “future”. His coping strategy ends up being that he time-travels to meet family members from the future and past and they provide him with insight and inspiration. Rather, their history and understanding the context of their lives provides guidance and inspiration.

My son liked the film although he didn’t entirely get it. The movie may in some ways be more for adults.   The fact that we have traveled to Japan and have ridden a bullet train there gave us much to feel connected to as well. Afterwards, I explained the movie to my son and it got me talking about my grandmother and great-grandmother.  I wanted to provide context to him for our current lives. A roadmap, of sorts.   It is a conversation that we will have to have again and again in different points of his life.   I am, at some point, going to do one of those ancestry DNA tests for fun and we shall see what further points of our lives it illuminates (if any).

After we had such a serious conversation, we did then start talking about the fun parts of the movie and the line that his mother utters as a kid (his time travel back to when she was younger).   She notes that it’s more fun when it’s messy. Word! I couldn’t agree more and we giggled at that thought. Messiness is a good thing. I have a messy desk at work- a sign of an active mind.   I have a messy closet. It means that I like to just see what inspires me that day. The living room is messy with toys -both my son’s and my dog’s- all over the floor. A sure sign that fun is being had. Children have to be allowed to be messy. The messiness can be a sign of creativity coming together. Occasionally, I clean up and put things in an orderly fashion. But that lasts just for a few hours.

You know what else is fun and messy? Food!  I love wet food that gets all over the place. Dry orderly food is just not my favorite.

I can go on and on about messiness. I have always been messy and I believe that I always will be. And it is fun. Well, except for when I am forced to clean it up. But I am an adult I can push back on being made to clean up. That’s my prerogative.