It’s 2023! Maybe you’re still in bed reading this at 3 pm, maybe it’s 9:30 am and you’re hungover. However this newsletter finds you: Hello and Happy New Year ✨
I’m on my way to brunch at Le Crocodile because I stopped drinking a few months ago and despite having gone out last night, I wanted something a little indulgent to look forward to. If it can’t be alcohol, a fancier than normal dining experience will do.
2022 is behind us - despite me still thinking it’s 2019 - and what I love more than a fancy dining experience is a fresh start. I have no illusions about becoming a new person just because the calendar page flips, but I always welcome a pause to assess how I want to show up in the new year, even as the same old me.
Going into 2023, I’m thinking about what it would look like for me to intentionally notice and chronicle all of the little moments that actually make up my year. That way, when this time rolls around next year I’m not left scratching my head like, “Where did the time go?” I’ll actually have a very accurate record of it. I want to intentionally print photos, capture meaningful moments in video, journal, keep mementos and cards that remind me of important experiences, and share these life moments with the people who matter most to me.
I used to be really good at this, and if Webshots, Flickr, or my Facebook profile were still things, I’d be able to prove it. Disposable cameras were my jam before I got my first digital camera in 2004 (a Kodak EasyShare LS743, to be exact) and I have boxes of photos and albums.
My digital camera went with me everywhere, always secured around my wrist with the trusty strap. I took photos of everything, as was the mode du jour in the early and mid aughts, and because of that I have crystal clear memories of my college years and early 20’s. Well, there’s one exception. A college roommate told me a few years after we graduated, “I have such a good record of our college years except for Junior year because your camera was broken, so there’s hardly any photos of what happened.” TBH, that’s probably for the best.
Since becoming estranged from my parents, I’ve lost the photos and videos that are the only visual source of truth of my childhood. My parents did a really good job at taking photos, printing them out, and putting them into photo albums to document all of the traveling and living we lived. They probably have 15 or so albums that are filled with proof of life from birth through high school and the loss of that archive has been pretty devastating. Last month when I dug through my boxes from storage and rediscovered some of my personal belonging and treasures, I was filled with a fullness that I hadn’t felt in a long time. There was this sense of remembering who I was, what I wanted from life, and this silent invitation to allow myself to reactivate some of those parts of myself that I had let get buried away. It reminds me of the last section of one of my favorite poems in the world by Derek Walcott (which I have referenced at least three times in this newsletter over the years):
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
These personal artifacts are reminders of how rich and deep and dimensional life can really be. It creates meaning in a world that can sometimes feel like one big infinite and passive scroll on a rectangular screen. Not to get too deep, but I truly feel like holding space for these experiences in tangible ways is proof and a reminder of our humanity, our aliveness, and our very existence.
In 2023, I don’t want to let my memories and moments sit in the cloud, on a device, or disappear on an Instagram story. I’m going to make them real.
Get this week’s playlist here.
If you’ve got plans, vibe shifts, resolutions, etc. for 2023, I wanna hear them - hit reply and let me know. :) I hope this year is a good one for you, friends.
Meghan