Bibliographic 2.12: Goodbye 2023
So many things happened this year. Sold the house, bought a new car, moved into my partner’s house, co-parented, signed a book deal, quit my job, started a new job, was in my best friend’s beautiful wedding, travelled to Greece and LA. Got my gallbladder removed, got Covid, got two adorable kitties. And those were just the bigger things! This year was so vast; sometimes terrible, sometimes glorious. (So many things happen in a year, I wrote in a poem for that beautiful wedding.)
When Clara was born, I commissioned a friend to paint a Frank O’Hara quote to hang in her bedroom: Grace to be born and live as variously as possible. It has the same energy as this lyric from one of my favourite songs of 2023: I want to live a vibrant life, but I want to die a boring death. If there was ever a year of living variously and vibrantly, it was 2023.
The Frank O’Hara quote remained in Clara’s room until we moved, and now that she’s just about nine years old, she has opinions on what goes on her walls. It was more important to her to have room for Stranger Things and Taylor Swift posters, so the Frank O’Hara is propped up above my little home office nook instead. It makes more sense– it’s the kind of sentiment a forty-something-year-old who is painfully aware of the fragility of mortality appreciates more.
Even if this year was sometimes hard, it was hard in a way that I feel an immense gratitude for: it’s a privilege to make your own life changes, to welcome messiness and complication while also feeling confident that you can, ultimately, handle it. I think about this a lot when I consider the state of the world, how lucky I am to have the opportunity to sometimes fuck things up and be confident that I’ll be safe, that my daughter will be safe. I feel such sorrow and helplessness for those who don’t have these opportunities.
I leaned on a lot of people this year, and am grateful beyond words for them. I also leaned on a lot of art, and before this year ends I wanted to document it somewhere. So these are the things that helped get me through this year:
Taylor Swift: Because Clara’s transition from listening to kids’ music to pop music happened officially in 2023, the entire oeuvre of Taylor Swift opened itself up to us– the early albums I never really cared for, the TikToks and YouTube shorts, the trivia, the merch, all of it. And I was ready for it. Being a fan is such a big part of my identity and witnessing Clara and her friends embrace Swiftieness was a delight. I know there are problems with monoliths, but watching the Eras Tour in theatre, the kids dancing and singing joyfully, felt so pure and uncomplicated. We went twice.
Annie Erneaux: I read Getting Lost at the beginning of the year and felt a little hmmmm about it (I recommend starting with The Years instead), but I was still compelled to keep reading more of her books, and when I went on summer vacation steadily made my way through her bibliography, not getting enough of how she documented her childhood, her lovers, her family. My first reading love has always been snapshots of a life and she reminded me that reading about one person’s life can reveal so much about many lives.
Succession: For the first few months of the year when I was in the depths of separation paperwork and moving logistics and emotions were too close to the surface, listening to music made me too raw, so instead I watched the entirety of Succession, binging Seasons 1-3 so I could watch the final season in real time. I listened to Succession podcasts. I read articles and Reddit threads. I’ve spent most of my life burying company swag at the bottom of a drawer, but I bought a Waystar Royco hat. I loved being manipulated into loving a family of horrible people. I loved the way the writers didn’t pander to the audience and overexplain. I loved how funny it was (when I realized that Jesse Armstrong also co-created Peep Show, I understood why.) I love how well the show stuck its landing in the series finale. A perfect piece of art.
Summer concerts: A handful of sublime summer nights watching my favourite bands outside– boygenius and The National were the highlights. My favourite parts were watching Phoebe sing the part in “Letter to an Old Poet” where she changes the “Me & My Dog” bridge from I want to be emaciated to I want to be happy because I’d listened to that line in my car and choked up so many times. Reclaiming the past, looking to the future, and then throwing in an amphitheater of fans singing along felt so special. Then, for The National we got floors and Matt Berninger was so close to us that when he reached into the audience, we grabbed his hand and it’s silly to say it was thrilling, but, listen, it was thrilling!!! We all sang along to Vanderlyle at the end, and we were exhilarated and moved.
Karaoke: Emily and I love planning a karaoke night, and we had a few this year, all of them involving a sparkling item of clothing, at least a few Taylor Swift songs, and whomever wants to hang out with us for a few hours. (Her and Adam’s wedding was the most epic of these nights.) Does karaoke count as art? It’s something like it in the way that it creates a form of energy. To sing a song in karaoke is to do a close reading of it– you don’t realize exactly how long an intro is until the screen tells you there are 24 bars or you forget how long a song is until you think you’re done but realize you still have another two verses left. Also, there’s very little in life that enthusiastically singing songs can’t put into perspective. If you can perform a song at karaoke, you realize you can do anything, and we all need that kind of pep talk every so often.
Anyway, I’m ready and eager to put 2023 behind us and to make new memories in the new year. For 2024 I wish for a lighter touch, more ease, more energy expended externally rather than internally. I wish for more laughter, more parties, more rest.
I wish for grace through the hard times, or that I remember that it’s okay if I don’t quite follow through. Mostly I wish for peace.
Stay safe and healthy,
Teri
(P.S. Back to Bibliographic 3.0 + writing in 2024, too.)