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films and literature and nonsensical thoughts of 2024

the year was full of demons. art was not one of them.

literature that made me understand being human

On Keeping a Notebook by Joan Didion ★★★★★

"We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were." No one will understand why I need a journal, why I can't go a day without putting my thoughts down on paper, better than Joan herself. I fear forgetting, but I think I fear never having that piece of myself somewhere in the physical world more.

Everything Everything by Nicola Yoon ★★★

Every now and then, reading a YA novel becomes something magical. I don't know why fifteen year old me didn't read this when I was gifted it. But I'm sort of glad to read it as an adult, because of how it views life and risk taking and the act of living.

films to watch at three a.m.

Frances Ha: ★★★★1/2

I watched this and was sent into an existential crisis at 5am. In a good way. The love I have for something so simple to say "it's okay to be where you're at even if life sucks." is unmatched. I'm terrified of growing up because I think I'll do it wrong, but this film taught me to love the mistakes just as much if not more. I could write an essay about this and I probably will.

This Beautiful Fantastic: ★★★1/2

I ended the film in tears. Good ones, but still tears. If there was ever something to show me that love and change are all things that make you so human it's beautiful, then this would be it. But I mainly loved it because it reminded me of my grandpa.

The Greatest Hits: ★★★★

If a movie could devour a heart, this one did exactly that to mine. Grief is that one human emotion I've never allowed myself to feel. And music is the escape that gets me away from it. Until they looped them together. Grief is love and I understand that a lot more now.

Colette: ★★★★

I spent the whole movie rooting for her to murder her husband. And in all honesty she should have been allowed. I knew very little about Claudine, yet after this I want to feast on her works as if they were fine dining. They probably are.

On the Basis of Sex: ★★★1/2

Now more than ever we have to remember what women fought for, the equality and liberation we deserve. The film made a fire burn in my chest. Rage at why we're still fighting the same exact fight decades later.

Good Will Hunting: ★★★★1/2

This film has haunted me for years now, but I've never actually sat down to watch it. I'm glad I did when I was in my twenties. Because this is a film to rewatch when I'm thirty and forty and fifty. I think as time goes on I'll see a different way each time.

The Jane Austen Book Club: ★★★★

Oh the joys of getting to sit and yap about Jane Austen with wine and good friends. Not to mention falling in love. I think films that feel like revisiting a worn out novel instantly hold such an appeal.

Moulin Rouge: ★★★★★

If we didn't have tragedies, how would we understand being human? I've cried to lots of films, have found comfort in the layers of grief. But this one took my breath away. I'm ashamed to say it's taken me too long to finally watch it in full, but I'll never see life the same way after.

albums to play in the kitchen at midnight

On The Inside: Gotts Street Park

Special love to the song Got To Be Good. Would recommend dancing by the fridge light to this.

Songs For No One Vol. 1 & 2: Victoria Bigelow

It's soft and lyrical and invades your soul without even trying. I recommend to be listened to with wine.

The Death of Summer & Other Promises: Etta Marcus

Every song of hers opens me up like I'm getting prepped for an autopsy. She picks at my heart and expects me to be okay afterwards. Definitely 2am existential crisis songs.

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Mary Oliver, "The Moths" in Dream Work

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Anne Michaels, from "Infinite Gradation," originally published in October 2017

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i pick up the pen. i put down the pen. i pick up the pen. i put down the pen. i pick up the pen-

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how do i get the moon to notice me back

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Pablo Neruda, from “Tonight I Can Write” in Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

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Battle Scars & Ink Stains: I ready myself for battle with ink stained hands and a sword that bleeds; Written by Me

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Ancestral Grinds & Broken Coffee Cups: I pour another cup and ponder the thoughts of those that came before me; Written by Me

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manifesting that one day i’ll be that mysterious, reclusive writer that’s somehow on every social media platform anyway

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i miss it (the childhood nostalgia, the hue of colors being brighter to younger eyes still filled with wonder, the sweetness of a clementine on a hot summer day, the ease of laughter not plagued by adult sorrow, the fleeting love of a life not yet lived, the passion that still roared like a fire yet to be subdued, the impermanence of being permanent).

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One day you think: I want to die. And then you think, very quietly, actually I want a coffee. I want a nap. A sandwich. A book. And I want to die turns day by day into I want to go home, I want to walk in the woods, I want to see my friends, I want to sit in the sun. I want a cleaner room, I want a better job, I want to live somewhere else, I want to live.

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born to be an abstract concept, forced to be a percievable entity

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October leaf fall.

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To all the very sweet girls out there. I hope your heart is well. Don’t forget about yourself

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I shall think of you at sunset, and at sunrise, again; and at noon, and forenoon, and afternoon, and always, and evermore, till this little heart stops beating and is still.

Emily Dickinson, from a letter to Susan Huntington featured in Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson