welcome to new york, just take the elevator next time.

it was a warm tuesday in august. i woke up with the same kind of excitement i used to get the night before going to summer camp, just a little more subdued— i’m older now. i’d lived out of suitcases before, but i’d never bought a one way ticket. it was thrilling, like writing an epic run-on sentence without a plan. there’s a photo of me walking to security stuck somewhere on an old roll of kodak 400. 

i knew the drill: grab a coffee, wait and wait and board. i got a row to myself and settled in. emboldened by my stroke of luck, i ordered a vodka soda when the snack cart came by. it early, but it was a big day. “how old are you?”, the flight attendant asked. quizzically i answered, “24? do you need my ID?” he just shook his head, smiled, and brought my drink free of charge. i really wanted new york to love me, and that was enough to make me believe she did.

the plane landed on time, and after the stop-and-go deplane i headed for baggage claim. i quickly grabbed my nondescript black suitcases and backpack, all filled to the brim, and set off for a rideshare. the escalator up was thin, my bags were not— they held three months of my life in them, after all. i did my best to push them on before me, and i held onto the handles as i journeyed up a floor. only i had not been as successful as i hoped in loading my bags… my big suitcase twisted and toppled, starting a sad game of dominos, sending me and my carry-on tumbling backwards. 

yep. there i was on an airport escalator, flat on my back and holding onto my bags for dear life. i felt like a turtle someone had cruelly flipped over for sport, quite literally saved by the shell of my very full backpack. i can’t believe this is happening. there were two women above me, and they turned around at the sound of my demise, mouths gaping wide. a stranger leapt to my rescue, setting me upright and running off before i could even thank him. i told the (luckily) only two people who witnessed the fall™ i was fine. and i wasn’t lying, i really was fine. i’d been in manhattan for all of nine minutes before it knocked me on my ass. if anything, it was funny. no, it was really funny (i kept giggling to myself in the lyft). and if anything else, it demolished my pride so i could be ready to grow the way i came here hoping to. nothing like the rise and literal fall of my ego to wake me up and welcome me in. next time though, i’ll probably just take the elevator.

on kid dreams, mid 20s anxiety, and the last three years

it seems like every time i write something in this space, i begin with some sentiment of “it’s been awhile.” surprise surpise, this is no different. in true fashion, i’m still not sure what i want this space to be. i used to spend a lot of time here back when i first decided i wanted to be a writer, back when my head was full of enough ideas to keep me energized, when paying for my very own space on the internet with old birthday money felt grown-up and monumental. i was a kid with scattered dreams, eager to start living them. 

being young was fun-- driving hours on end just to see a show, carrying around a sony cybershot to photograph my friends, staying up late to write silly stories, wondering who i’d grow up to be. but it never quite felt cool. if it was, no one told me. and if they did, i didn’t listen. i just wanted to be doing something already, anything that felt like it mattered. once i got old enough, i did. i applied for a summer job i wasn’t qualified for; i even said so in my interview. by some miracle, i got the job, and by another miracle i was actually good at it. that first summer in nashville felt too good to be true; it was like someone threw some seeds in my yard and everything started coming up roses. i severed ties with a year from hell to live in a world i’d only watched from afar, and i was able to fit somewhere inside of it. i grew into a name that demanded attention, i shook hands with assurance and walked into rooms armed with all these things i didn’t know and a determination i was proud of.

that summer was important for me, and i wanted to ride the momentum of its wave for as long as i could. i went back to nashville as much as was feasible for living a few states away. i wrote a lot then too-- mostly for fun, plus an artist interview here and there. i tried to leave my youth with grace, naively assuming i’d never want it back. i saved money, did my best to grow, and trekked back to tennessee less than a year later. it was nothing like i remembered. i drove around to kill time, drank enough coffee to never not be anxious, and was really just sad most of the time-- too sad to remember to have any ambition. 

enter the inevitable: poems. a lot of them. i thought they were shit until someone told me they weren’t, and then i made a book of them. that’s the short version of the story, anyway. i felt alive again, doing something important to me. it was so all-consuming i forgot i’d ever wanted anything else. that feeling faded, as all feelings do, and i was left with the question that always seems to plague me: what do i want now? i grew up in a small pool where i didn’t have to know much of anything, much less what exactly i wanted because everything was given. it was perfectly nice, cozy and safe, but it wasn’t enough. i left for somewhere bigger and new and without even realizing it, i started to feel like i had to know everything, and like i was good at nothing much. i often still feel that way.

but there are times i wonder if we’re better off for what we don’t know. really, i think about it a lot. almost anyone whose deams have come true must’ve been naive enough to dream them at all. this is the part where i let go of reality for a minute and ask beg for my youth back. i want to dream it all over again, ask more questions than my ego usually allows, and take a billion more chances with sure belief in my capability. i know it wasn’t simpler then, but my memory likes to tell me it was. 

i’ve just spent a good portion of the afternoon sitting in my neighborhood coffee shop in brooklyn, dreaming about days i’ve already lived. i’m 24 and hard on myself and forgetting i worked hard to be here, in new york (more on that later, god willing). i also worked hard to find the patience to write the first sort-of essay i’ve been able to get out in more than a year. and i did have dreams, i did take some chances, i was naive enough to do so. i guess this is the hard part: dreaming with all i know now. 

the days might be gone where i drove hours to see a show for the thrill of it, but i still know the words to all those songs. and today, that’s enough.

- L

WWLT: historian - lucy dacus

2018

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2018

year of the mirror pic!

i started riding my bike again- through the park without a plan, and to dinner down the street. i wrote in many spaces, lots of hotel lobbies and bars. i shared my poetry for the first time in march, and in august i self-published a book. i kept one job and got another. i saw phoebe bridgers on valentines day. i dyed my hair blonde and moved into an apartment by myself. i remembered how fun it is to dance in the kitchen. i went back to therapy and realized it is, in fact, possible to communicate through conflict. i started going to a new church i very much like. i helped turn a party into a john mark mcmillan sing-along, and i danced my heart out at a haim show. i had the perfect day at a diy music festival, and a perfect night listening to a Cardigans record in a space that means a lot. i saw the National on a perfect evening and walked two miles home. i spent most every saturday with a close friend until she moved away, and each one is memorable. i found creative excitement and lost it again. i took more walks, i had less energy. i hit the year mark in some important friendships, still learning how to stick around. i continued to take a film photo everyday; i could talk forever about how that project has changed my life. i felt free and sad and everything in between. the music, the people, the photos— all of it’s changed me and as the year comes to an end, i feel it’s all for the best.

now, here’s some art i cared about (in no particular order):

• Afraid of Everything - Harrison Whitford

  top tracks: both my friends, welcome to my life, part time heart

• Sway - Tove Styrke

  top tracks: on the low, on a level

• Personal Best - Chelsea Jade

  top tracks: low brow, speedboat, personal best

• Golden Hour - Kacey Musgraves

  top tracks: love is a wild thing, space cowboy, velvet elvis

• My Mind Makes Noises - Pale Waves

  top tracks: drive, red, eighteen

• Saved - Now, Now

  top tracks: holy water, P0WDER, set it free

  *** Reach for the Sun - The Dangerous Summer

  this came out a decade ago, but i keep returning to it. it makes me feel young and weightless.

  top tracks: symmetry, permanent rain, weathered

*HONORABLE MENTIONS

Fine But Dying - Liza Anne

Clean - Soccer Mommy

To, From - Ethansroom

OTHER TOP SONGS:

Fallingwater - Maggie Rogers

It’s Alright - October Tooth

Night Shift - Lucy Dacus

Prior Things - Hopalong

The Mission - Valley Maker

Needy One - Beket

BOOKS:

I read less in 2018, but my two favorites were both by Maggie Nelson: Something Bright, then Holes, and Bluets.

on to the hope of another year, and the hope of room to be, grow, love.

xo, L