Hi everyone! I haven’t written an Outside of Books post in a long time because the holidays caught up to me. 😑 I’m still working on things for my Etsy shop, but very sparingly. I have no motivation! Also still helping my son with his youtube channel – I try to motivate him but sometimes that’s hard too. He’s finding out that content creators put it a lot of work to make good content.

But the thing that has taken over our life the past two weeks is the movie Encanto! We are obsessed.😅

I didn’t have any interest in seeing the movie only because I didn’t know or hear much about it. But then I was on TikTok scrolling and this one song kept popping up…“We Don’t Talk About Bruno”! I heard a snippet of it and was intrigued, plus I love latin music – it’s my favorite kind of music to work out to. I asked my kids if they wanted to watch the movie with me but they seemed lukewarm to the idea. So I started watching it by myself but when the house, Casita, was showing it’s magical powers I called my kids to watch with me, I knew my daughter would love it. My son came in when “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” started and stayed til the end.

We love the story and the soundtrack, it gave me opportunities to talk to my kids, mostly my son about adults and how we have pasts too. Every time I watch the movie, I learn something new, but I just really love how I can relate to a bunch of the family members.

I won’t rank the songs because I love them all. But let’s talk about a few of them:

Surface Pressure | Songwriter: Lin-manuel Miranda | Artist: Jessica Darrow

I love this song, even though I’m not the oldest sibling in my family. I’m the youngest but I was the only one I out my first generation American cousins and my sister to go to a four year college and get a degree. The fact that I wanted to do that, was a big fight. It didn’t help that the college was out of state. I got lecture by my uncles of how wrong it was for me to leave the family! Yet they also pressured me about becoming a doctor (which was not in my plans AT ALL…they just didn’t know that). Here are some lyrics from the song:

“Pressure like a grip, grip, grip and it won’t let go, whoa
Pressure like a tick, tick, tick ’til it’s ready to blow, whoa
Give it to your sister, your sister’s stronger
See if she can hang on a little longer
Who am I if I can’t carry it all?
If I falter

Under the surface
I hide my nerves, and it worsens, I worry something is gonna hurt us
Under the surface
The ship doesn’t swerve as it heard how big the iceberg is
Under the surface
I think about my purpose, can I somehow preserve this?”

These lyrics really hit me now as a mom. I feel the pressure on me at times, pressure I put on myself!🤦🏻‍♀️

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We Don’t Talk About Bruno | Songwriter: Lin-manuel Miranda | Artists:  Encanto – Cast, Rhenzy Feliz, Adassa, Stephanie Beatriz, Mauro Castillo, Diane Guerrero, Carolina Gaitán – La Gaita 

I love this song! My kids love it because Bruno is so awkward and funny. He is their favorite character. I love the whole ensemble singing, it reminds me of a musical. But the beat is awesome and I can’t help dance to it. It’s so catchy. Bruno gets a bad rep in the movie but Mirabel finds out he was just misunderstood because of his gift!

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“What Else Can I Do? | Songwriter: Lin-manuel Miranda | Artists: Stephanie Beatriz, Diane Guerrero

I felt like Isabela as a child, my parents and uncles and aunts wanted me to be so perfect. Mostly my parents though , my dad wouldn’t even let me cut my long hair (it was “feminine”) until he gave up the battle in my freshman year of high school! I chopped my hair off so short the moment he said I could. 😅 It was the combination of perfection and pressures though that made me leave Hawaii to go to college. I needed a break. I love this song – here are some lyrics from it:

“I just made something unexpected
Something sharp
Something new
It’s not symmetrical or perfect
But it’s beautiful
And it’s mine
What else can I do?”

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Dos Oruguitas | Songwriter: Lin-manuel Miranda | Artist: Sebastián Yatra

The song that makes me cry even though I can’t understand Spanish, I had to look up the english translation and ugh…it’s so good. The lyrics are just so beautiful. This song is all emotion. It’s like a lullaby, my daughter loves it so much, I can hear her singing it even though she doesn’t know Spanish either, I hear her try and it’s so sweet. In this part of the movie, she likes to climb into my lap – she’s 5 and I tell her she and her brother are my oruguitas (little caterpillar). 🥺🐛 But this is the moment in the movie where Mirabel understands and acknowledges what her grandmother went through when she was younger. There is such trauma her grandma lived through, she never got to face it, she kept on going because she was a single mother of three kids and needed to survive for them. 😢 I like to tell my son that adults were young once too and things happen in life to change them sometimes. Hurt people hurt people. I love that Mirabel becomes the catalyst for change in the family…broken but put back together, even better and stronger.❤️

” Two oruguitas
Cocooned and waiting
Each in their own world
Anticipating
What happens after
The rearranging?

And so afraid of change
In a world that never stops changing
So let the walls come down
The world will never stop changing
(Never stop changing)
(Never stop changing)
(Never stop changing)

Ay, mariposas
Don’t you hold on too tight
Both of you know
It’s your time to go
To fly apart, to reunite
Wonders surround you
Just let the walls come down
Don’t look behind you
Fly till you find
Your way toward tomorrow”

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All of You | Songwriter: Lin-manuel Miranda | Artists:  Encanto – Cast, Adassa, John Leguizamo, Maluma, Stephanie Beatriz, Olga Merediz

Abuela gets acknowledge in Dos Oruguitas and in All of You, Mirabel gets acknowledge. Ugh…my heart! Apologies, acknowledgements…all we want sometimes is just to be seen. Even in a family. I come from a big family of aunts, uncles, cousins…and we lived all together for all of my childhood until I went to middle school. So I didn’t only live in my own little 4 person dysfunctional family…I got to witness all the other dysfunctional families in the house so that we were one huge dysfunctional family! lol…I can laugh now but wow…this movie brought some crazy emotions in me and memories.

“Look at this home
We need a new foundation
It may seem hopeless but we’ll get by just fine
Look at this family, a glowing constellation
So full of stars and everybody wants to shine

But the stars don’t shine, they burn
And the constellations shift
I think it’s time you learn
You’re more than just your gift

And I’m sorry I held on too tight
Just so afraid I’d lose you too
The miracle is not some magic that you’ve got
The miracle is you, not some gift, just you
The miracle is you
All of you, all of you”

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I read a comment somewhere said the movie was about generational trauma and healing. And this is it, 100% and as a first-generation American from a family of immigrants, this movie hit me hard. I love how in the end it was about love, hope and repairing something to make it better. I’m so glad my kids love it too – even though I swear this movie is more for adults than children lol.

Have you watched this movie? What did you think of the story and music?

🕯 ~ Yolanda