2019, a reflection.

this space on the internet has ended up becoming my end-of-year shelter, a page on which to look back and realign. i suppose if that’s all i use it for, it’s still good enough for me. 2019 was a long year and every part of me feels its effects— it began with dancing, in clubs and in my kitchen. i sang karaoke for the first time, despite my deep fear. i quit one job and started another. i went to portland, maine for april fools day with two good friends and it felt like the kind of moment i always try to chase. i did a little more photo work, and a little less writing. i walked a labyrinth for the first time and felt something. i started running again and developed my own opinion on our political climate. i drove to St. Louis, MO for a day just to play in the City Museum. i got better at cooking and often had friends over for cocktails. in light of change, i also spent a lot of time alone and lost my mind for a bit.

i quit another job and spent two months in brooklyn, ny. i walked miles with and without purpose, and i wrote most of a second book like i hoped. i went to coney island alone on a whim just to eat a hot dog and see the sun go down. i flirted with bartenders, routinely stayed out late, and remembered how to make friends. i rode the sea glass carousel with a friend and took the ferry home to cap off a near-perfect day. i cried while power-walking down 6th st. listening to alexander biggs’ ‘miserable’ and strutted down Prince listening to st. vincent’s ‘cruel’. i lived in a soho hotel for a week and bid new york goodbye over both fancy pasta & prosecco and take-out thai. those months were monumental; the rest of the year has been a frustrating and aimless tumble. i decided to take a risk and left a town i used to love for where i write from now: starbucks again, in the throes of a quarter-life crisis.

2019 was mostly live music and too much tv, it was screams in the car and moments of deep let-down. it was unforeseeable change and habits i can’t shake. it was bouts of hope, cynicism, and wild fun— it was a song i didn’t know the words to and nothing i saw coming. and as of now, 2020 seems as much of a mystery, but i hope like hell it’s full of thoughtful direction, ambitious work, unwavering friendship, and deep freedom.

anyway, thanks for reading. here’s some art i loved this year:

RECORDS

TOP THREE:

1) i am easy to find - the national

2) immunity - clairo

3) basking in the glow - oso oso

OTHERS I LOVED:

roseville - roseville

nothing happens - wallows

sucker punch - sigrid 

good at falling - the japanese house 

crushing - julia jacklin 

first place - the brook & the bluff

BOCC - better oblivion community center

*i also listened to The Daily and Armchair Expert, as any basic podcast listener might do.

**i also read books, but not as many as i meant to. Just Kids by Patti Smith was my favorite one.

***i also saw a good many movies but was too forgetful to keep a running list. from recent memory, Booksmart was enjoyable. Knives Out was exhilarating. Little Women was perfect.

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