"Yard Work is Hard Work" But So Are Relationships

I really enjoyed Jodie Mack’s animation, “Yard Work is Hard Work”, namely because of the catchy songs and her amazing use of magazine clippings. But I also really liked it because the couple in the story tried to work through their problems instead of giving up. Many couples call it quits when things get hard and nothing can be more emotionally distressing than money problems. They cried with each other, they fought with each other, but in the end they tried their best work through it.

I took the renovation of their house to symbolize a renovation of their relationship. They both agreed that they needed to make a change and they worked very hard to do it. Yet, in the end they did not win the competition, even after all of the hard work on their house. I took this loss to also mean that even though they tried hard at their relationship, something still wasn’t right. I interpreted the end of the animation as having the message that even after a couple works really hard at their relationship, sometimes things just don’t work out. The ambiguity of the ending made me think that the couple had two choices: try again, or give-up. Regardless, I admire the character for trying hard in the first place, especially in a world where it has become the standard to just give up.

Communication

            I really enjoyed the variety of poems that Garren Small offered during his lecture. It touched on a lot of different but equally powerful types of love and desire, some of which we have not addressed much in class, such as his poems about parental love, or feeling the power of seeing someone else’s love from afar. The hustle and bustle of city life in many of his poems highlighted the importance of communication and the difficulties that come with attaining it, something that Small seemed particularly passionate about. His poems had the warmth of a content love along with the coldness that comes with being alone in a crowd of people.

            In many questions that have to do with morality, I often find myself saying that the answer is communication. How can you protect your daughters from the hegemonic representations of women in the media? Talk with them. How do you protect your sons from the ever growing ease of access to pornographic images? Discuss it with them. How do you help someone grieve for a lost loved one? Get over a break-up? Apologize for doing something wrong? The answer is always communication.

           But Small’s lecture helped remind me that communication is not only a solution but a preventative. It’s a way to stay on a path, not just to get back onto it once we’ve strayed. Communication can keep a relationship alive, not just revive it. Many people forget about communicating with each other until the relationship is already at its breaking point. Yet, Small’s poetry still left me with the question of why we sometimes find it so difficult to share what we are feeling and thinking with others. Is it because we are afraid of being honest with the other person, or is it because we are afraid of being honest with ourselves?