Movie: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Comedy Movie: Tag
Thriller: A Quiet Place
Coming of Age Movie: Love, Simon
Podcast: Limetown (season 2)
Literary Anthology: Chelsea Hodson’s Tonight I’m Someone Else: Essays
Book Club Type Book: The Wife Between Us
Most Relevant Book: Michelle Obama’s Becoming
Poetry Book: The Prettiest Star
Album: Mac Miller’s Swimming; Hozier’s Nina Cried Power EP; J. Cole’s KOD; Boygenius
Best movie soundtrack: Love, Simon
Song: Childish Gambino’s This Is America; Penny and Sparrow’s I Fall to Pieces; Julien Baker’s Souvenir; Mac Miller’s Self Care
Art exhibit: James Webb’s Prayer
TV Show: Maniac, Bojack Horseman (season 5)
Worst Movie: The Little Mermaid (the new one was awful, don’t waste your time)
Worst Book: Nine Perfect Strangers (not including some truly terrible titles I was paid to review)
Not Released This Year, But I Experienced for the First Time This Year:
Musical(s): Natasha and Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812; 36 Questions (find this on iTunes it’s an entire podcast musical with *hold for suspense* Jonathan Groff, I know!)
Book(s): The Road, American Gods
Books that spoke to my spirit: The Life of Pi; Eat, Pray, Love
Books that helped my mental health: Unfu*k Yourself; The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fu*k
Poetry Book: Milk and Honey
Personal Accomplishments:
Read/Listened to over 100 books this year.
Reached 50,000 words for my February novel goal.
Wrote an entire manuscript for a poetry/photography book.
Saved up enough money to invest in a Full-frame Camera, a Nikon D750.
I did more photography shoots for hire: one-month twins, engagement, family.
Got to see many live shows: Hamilton, Book of Mormon, Peter Pan, Oklahoma, Superman the Musical, Holiday Inn.
I voted for the first time.
The Best Memories:
Place I visited: Glacier National Park, Montana
Hike: Grinnell Glacier Trail
Show I saw: Book of Mormon (sorry Hamilton)
Concert: Childish Gambino
Restaurant: Kamehachi (sushi joint in Chicago)
Sitting up at the Hancock Observatory and watching the fireworks over Navy Pier
Museum: Art Institute of Chicago
Favorite reading spot: Under a tree in the backyard; on the roof
All my friends from college who drove up to visit me and let me play tour guide around Chicago
Things I Worked On:
Writing goals and confidence
Learning how to rest and destress, especially amid expectations
Learning to expect more from myself
I’d describe this as a year of:
Transition
Mind-numbing tasks and busyness to get through
Hardest Moments from the Past Year:
The switching of pastors at my home church
Which led to the dissolution of a community centered church night for twenty-somethings
Post reading The Bell Jar, if you’ve read it, you know why.
Finishing Songs of Ice and Fire because the next two books seem to never be coming out. I’ve invested so much time (reading over 5,000 pages within 6 months) it’s hard not to know the ending
States I Visited This Year:
Montana
Alabama
Illinois (living here again this year)
Indiana
Ohio
Missouri
Most Memorable Scenes from Books I Read:
Unbroken: The Billy Graham scene
Star Wars Aftermath Series: An Alderaan citizen turned Stormtrooper watching his home planet be destroyed for rebelling
The Road: Sitting at the desolate remnants of a beach, so haunting
Dear Evan Hansen: Zoe singing in her room because I subconsciously heard the soundtrack version which gave an extra dimension to the story.
Becoming: The harsh reality of "80 and Sunny" being a bad omen from Chicago gangs
Into Thin Air: The moment he realizes his narrative was addled because of exhaustion and distorted perspectives causing a journalistic enigma
Of Mice and Men: I just cried and cried at the end of this
The Bell Jar: her throwing clothes out the window into New York city; crawling up under the house (especially paired with Hozier's song "In a Week"
Goals for Next Year:
Reread my favorite classic literature books.
Continue to get to the theater.
Edit my book drafts and a few key short stories.
Get hired for more photography needs (wink wink, do you need photos?)
Travel more
Space
Let’s keep the lens between us.
A trail of shoes
Miles traced by travel-bound souls.
Ballet flats, dusty hiking boots, suede pumps,
Time-stamped footprints
The click and shoot
Though less shaking fingers and knees.
Hear my memories rattle
Edges bent, shoved in stacks, touched up.
Do you remember now, too?
I offer my sight as sacrifice
A nice slice of yesterday.
Let’s keep the lens between us.
A secret, mechanism whirring
Us conferring, about angles
And body and skin pink
In embarrassment.
My speech matches the lens
All aware of imperfections,
Body-bulged direction,
Mismanaged corrections.
I meant no harm
When I caught
Your frown, your upper arm,
Your bloated anger on film
And it developed into doubt
Nothing hides:
Size of your head, space between
Your eyes, breadth of your burdened
Shoulders, shadows of missed sleep, wrinkles you
Tried to elbow away, roll of your hips
Even a lover would miss,
Delicateness of ankles,
Prominence of jaw,
Creamy chocolate skin tone.
You only see your reflection and imperfection
—framed meals never tasted,
personality never experienced--
The invalidity of strangers calling you beautiful
But when my camera tells of your beauty,
Child, you must believe
With the vigor of clapping for fallen fairies.
Let’s leave a lens between us.
The silent shot, this is me,
The real me, flimsy and flat,
Blood-stained and bullet holed,
Thin and wide, singular and
Duplicated, a million copies floating
Around like leaves. I, too, fell from trees
A camouflage cast to unsee my mistakes
Posed lives everywhere
See me they all whisper
While displaying a mask.
Let’s leave a lens between us.
Your sunny, money flash
Of a trial-free smile
While I’m a mile of free trials
Spam annoying, but better than an empty inbox
Another dopamine screen between,
I mean a clean swipe from behind a shield
You can’t hurt me armor from charmers
Pulled from pockets at conversation’s pause
As if stepping out the door is a war
Let’s leave a lens between us.
This game of freeze frame
Pick and choose, bruise and booze,
Vices in grooves, judge’s gavel battered,
Dress-up worn and tattered,
Fingers twisting them in and out of focus.
My lens, my pretends tens of friends
You, me, the camera
One of a trinity, to be mistaken
I’ve taken a score of pictures
What’s a few more
I’m sure the next one will be perfect.
Let’s lodge a lens between us.
A loop of look at this one.
Long exposures tracing roads I never traveled,
A brick of sick churning when turning off the camera,
The body I finger delicately
Holds the stares that scare me.
I have the world in my hands,
Screen after screen,
A team of screams building in my throat
For my frame game tamed my sight
And restrained my fright.
Let’s lodge that lens between us.
Give me space, a little more space,
and you’ll be in full frame
my name forgotten, your look immortal.