Page 2 December 31, 2020
Your Neighborhood Therapist
Dear Neighborhood Therapist,
2020 is almost over. My friends and I all
agree that 2021 cannot come too soon. Of
course, it’s just a date in the calendar, but
what can I do to make 2021 a better year?
- We Are So Totally Over It, Hawthorne
Dear We Are So Totally Over It,
Yes, indeed it does appear to be true: 2020
is rapidly coming to an end. Dominated as
it was by a destructive pandemic, few will
miss it. Based on the available information,
it seems reasonable to assume that we will
begin to emerge from the pandemic over the
course of 2021.
Unless you’ve been vaccinated or happen
to be living in an alternate universe, all of us
are living with a fear of covid - a fear that
is like an invisible weight we are all carrying.
As its prevalence diminishes, hopefully
some of that weight will begin to dissipate.
You may not have to change much in order
to make 2021 a better year.
But you asked what you can do, not what
might happen no matter what you do. Here’s
a mental experiment: if you knew your life
would end soon and you were looking back
on all of it, what would be the things you
most enjoyed spending time doing? Whose
company did you enjoy the most? What made
you laugh? When you had a good day, or a
good hour, or a good minute, what was it
specifically that made it so?
(Of course it’s rarely ever that easy here in
the real world. Perhaps the most important
question of all is, to what extent are you able
to dedicate more time to the things that are
important to you?)
In some ways, the way to make any future
better is very simple: do more of the things
that have enriched your life so far, and less of
what has made life worse. In the context of
my work, I have noticed two things that have
tended to bring more gloom than happiness:
video games and social media.
Enjoy both in moderation, for sure! But very
little feels emptier than spending hours playing
video games alone, or scrolling through
Instagram, or doing any activity that doesn’t
provide us some concrete sense of accomplishment,
that can be appreciated by others, and
that enriches our lives.
Yes, video games are fun in the moment,
but often people find themselves looking up
and wondering, “where did the time go?” And
in the long run, turning the pages of a good
book is far more gratifying than scrolling
through Twitter.
The seemingly simple act of doing the things
that you set out to do tends to feel pretty good
for most people. So step one: think about the
activities that you enjoy most when you look
back on them. Step two: decide how you intend
to spend your time. Step three: make a plan to
do it to the extent possible. 2021 is just around
the corner. You’ll be ready to welcome it.
Please write to tom@tomandrecounseling.
com or text to 310.776.5299 with questions
about handling what is affecting your life,
your family, the community or the world.
Tom Andre is a Licensed Marriage & Family
Therapist (LMFT119254). The information
in this column is for educational purposes
only and nothing herein should be construed
as professional advice or the formation of a
therapeutic relationship. •
Entertainment
One Night in Miami Imagines a Night
With Four Black Power Influencers
By Morgan Rojas for cinemacy.com
2020 seems to be the year of turning stage
plays into strong feature films, and I am here for
it. Hot off the heels of Netflix’s homage to the
“Mother of the Blues,” Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,
comes the Amazon Original One Night in
Miami, a dazzling interpretation of Kemp Powers’
play about the infamous night four icons spent
together passionately discussing race, religion,
and philosophy through monologues and music.
Miami, 1964. Friends gather to celebrate a
surprising post-victory win for Cassius Clay
aka Muhammad Ali (Eli Goree), the underdog
who was all but guaranteed to lose his fight
against heavyweight champion Sonny Liston.
Reveling in glory and fame, Cassius is quickly
humbled when his friends arrive at his hotel
room– a room he was forced to book because
Jim Crow-era segregation laws wouldn’t allow
him to stay in Miami Beach post-fight. Over
the course of one night, Cassius and his friends,
activist Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), singer
Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), and football star
Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge) passionately talk
about their roles as leaders in the Black Power
Movement and how they can better represent
their community on the streets, on the stage,
on the field, and in the ring.
First-time filmmaker Regina King proves
that her creative talents extend far beyond
her on-screen performances as she delivers
a solid directorial debut with One Night in
Miami. Granted, the shooting script is pretty
straightforward with most of the filming taking
place in one room over one night, but she
has the thespian’s golden touch when it comes
to coaxing the best performances out of her
actors. Kingsley Ben-Adir’s passionate monologues
as Malcolm X will shake you to your
core, and Leslie Odom Jr.’s soulful rendition
of Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come”
will cause the hairs on the back of your neck
to stand up straight.
Watching this interpretation of how four
of the original Black Power influencers could
have spent that infamous night is incredibly
inspiring. While One Night in Miami
is a fictitious account, it doesn’t negate the
fact that the brotherly bond and activism
promoted between these four icons was monumentally
historic.
Distributed by Amazon Studios, One Night
in Miami is now playing in select theaters and
coming to Amazon Prime Video on January
15, 2021. •
One Night in Miami, courtesy Amazon Studios.
Morgan Rojas
“Take a leap of faith and begin this
wondrous new year by believing.”
– Sarah Ban Breathnach
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