THURSDAY 21ST DECEMBER 2023
15:32pm
It’s the year 2000. A movie named The Grinch Who Stole Christmas officially entered the world. I was the same age as Cindy Lou Who, the girl who saved Christmas, the girl who turned out to be the inner child I hadn’t yet tended to. Perhaps I’m not the only one who felt this way.Â
In Cindy Lou’s words, the chaos is superfluous. Christmas is the best time of year, they would tell her. This is how it should feel. Shop windows in Whoville have clocks that count down the hours, seconds, and minutes in the lead up to Christmas Day. Her eyes would widen as she’d listen to others explain that joy and satisfaction came from the places she didn’t fully understand or connect to. They’d say that it’s normal to find fulfilment in red and green, unusually large roast dinners, wrapping paper, and romanticised drunken furore. Tis’ the season, they would say. Twinkling lights would swell beneath the glare of Mount Crumpit as Cindy Lou’s discontentment would deepen, her windowsill widening the gap between her wishes, and the inclinations of the residents of Whoville.Â
Besides often being told of the physical resemblance between us, I recognise the urgency in her eyes. The responsibility she feels to fix. To mend what she thinks is broken. The handheld mirror she treasures, a lot like my own. The role she played in facilitating reconciliation, much like the one I mastered. In the pursuit to understand the disconnect in the people that surround her, she discovers that compliance is the winning tool and qualifier for social belonging. To question is to contest, to undermine, to rebel. This is a test she continued to fail. To refuse to look away from things that aren’t pretty wasn’t the norm. She asked questions for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She and I too have these things in common.Â
She looked across the shop floor, waiting for the Who’s to wake from their tinsel hypnosis and purchasing panic. In the wrong place at the right time, she encounters the outcast, a creature perceived to be dangerous, a figure who then becomes a hyper fixation of sweet Cindy Lou. The Grinch. I know the ache of feeling responsible for tempering the moods of grumpy men, particularly at Christmas time, steady but quite unsure why my own skin thickened around them, as I watched my presence soften theirs. I was the one who would pacify them. Not yet inured to the complicated power imbalances. Fixed in place as someone who’s neither a child nor an adult. As Britney Spears once said: not a girl, not yet a woman.Â
Cindy Lou challenges the mayor, skilfully interviews past lovers and loiterers of the Grinch, climbs a dangerous mountain alone, and yet, we hold hands with the heart of her strong will when she’s alone in her bedroom, singing. Seeming both 9 and 90 years old, all at once, she faces the mirror and brushes her impossibly glossy hair the way a black and white movie star would. She paces the immaculate room in soft pink pyjamas, her small frame engulfed by the volume of her angst. A longing that wasn’t quite loud enough for others to detect, both hardening and softening her.
Faced with the burden of the consequences of adult decisions, Cindy Lou trusts that she has the power to right the wrongs of others. To help them see good in places no one dares to visit. She asks the questions, she listens to the answers. She wants to understand what happened to The Grinch, why he became who he is. If good or bad really exists, and if so, is it permanent? Can someone always find their way out of a place they’ve begrudgingly found themselves in? Can they do it alone? Can she help them do so? Is there a quick fix? Can she be the one to do the fixing? The story isn’t about Cindy Lou, nor is it a redemption arc for The Grinch, or those who harmed him, yet for most of the characters, a sense of resolution and satisfaction is portrayed and finalised, but more than anything, we witness a conclusion in the connection.
So, for Cindy Lou Who, the girl who gives others the grace to be more than they first appear to be, the future is, much like the grinch’s heart, changing, and warm. She wants to be heard but she won’t shout. There are things adults need reminding of, and Cindy Lou wants to be the one to remind them. It can be lonely to sit at the adults dinner table, only to find that you’re being given children’s cutlery, but she pays no attention to the judgments of others, and the infinite limitations that follow this. She knows it’s just the way things go sometimes. This acceptance serves as a prerequisite to the compelling sense of self she demonstrates. She treats other Who's, creatures, and The Grinch, based on their individuality, rather than their given name badge. Wouldn’t it be comforting if things were always so simple? As a child, her curiosity, investigative journalism instincts, striking array of collars, ability to gently match the intellect of adults, red tights, and oversized dictaphone, symbolised, for me, a person who took action and followed their own instincts. It kind of still does. The Who, who found herself in the wrong place at the right time, will be the one to save herself. Cindy Lou Who.Â
Who’s your leading creature of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas?
Thick, fresh, sparkling snow of the day:
Apparently, Mercury be retrograding hard, (perhaps this is why my laptop has been misbehaving for a few weeks now), however, I *think*, with the help of the apple care team, all has now been resolved. Writing on my phone has been weird and fun but i’m happy to have my little typing toy back in action.
Sludge & snow blocking the roads:
I was accidentally hit in the face by Remy’s toy last night, twas comedic timing perfection (so sorry you missed it), alas, my face is still a little sore today.
The snow has melted, the roads are clear, I’m looking forward to:
Catching up on some Christmas movies! I have many to get through still, please do share any niche faves. Trashy suggestions are always welcome xoxo
I haven’t seen the grinch, he’s probably in the mirror.
I never looked at The Grinch like this, i think i need to rewatch it.