january

ice runs feral. sharpening the cold cut streets. carving the new year into a brisk newness meant for new livings, sweet kinds of loving. have you given thanks to lost friendships? what you’ve left behind and picked up what you’ve learned? have you said goodbye to all that? have you cleaned out the closet? looked at what you own? what you carry with you? have you made plans? filled up the calendar? 

as you move forward, i’m moving backwards. this month’s playlist focuses on the past in our footsteps. i’m thinking back. nostalgia. enraptured by it. i can’t help it. the past few new years, i came in with so much intention, so much promise to newness, but i think i’ll hold back this year. mostly because i’ll be turning 30. mainly because i feel i have nowhere left to go. how many rewatches of frances ha will it take to sit still with my age? to not fester? to dress my age? what the hell does that even mean? i’m moving backwards on my own terms. i’m moving backwards because there are still glimmers to the past that convey newness. turn a gem over, and there is a bit of hope in it. i’ll brush it clean with my dry hands and hope the past glimmers with something i’ve missed, something i’ve lost, something that is meant to mean well years after.

i’m sure there are plenty more things to add to this list, but here are the ones that come to me immediately. 

as with any new year, there’s plenty of room for play, plenty of play for the soul, and much for the soul to spend hours mulling over moments, sifting meanings.

much like everyone else, i find the transition from december to january quite hectic, not to mention all of the list-making. top ten for 2023. books. films. plans, people. in all this happening, the past is present. 

so i’m looking to the books that have made me, looking to the source material. i’m looking to sofia coppola’s hardcore fav, the virgin suicides. i’m looking to didion, again. i’m even looking to bukowski and murakami, boyish ordeals. boyhood seems so far away that i’m questioning, have i made myself a man? does the bell jar still hold up? many rewatches, rereads, rethinking what parts have made me who i am today. lispector, over and over. why did i like tao lin so much?

believe in the phoenix. ripping rich in cinders and flowing feathers to scrub the slate clean. a lot of investments were made in 2023, but i’m ready to rethink, reaffirm, reshift my intentions, center my time on motions ahead. as the years flood forward, i have less and less time. so i want to make sure i’m doing what i have to do in the way i have to do it. my terms, my time.

i’m hoping all of this explains why i impulse-bought the jw anderson pillow bag. why the shape of a bag, a conduit of dreams, a pillow, must be carried with me for all my essentials? am i literally doing the most here? i’m hoping all of this explains why i make the same love-mistakes, over and over again. will i ever learn? when does the student become the teacher? a friend told me, in part of new year's traditions, that you have chicken on the last day of the year and pork for the new year. as the chicken scratches backwards, the pig burrows its nose forward, with curiosity, with urge. looking forward.

as forward as we go, i hope you find wonder in 2024. like really, live laugh love bitch. you deserve it.

happy new year to you. 

as always, 

be well

do good work

keep in touch

<3,

n