Every January arrives ripe with new beginnings. For better or for worse, humans love a story, and the one we associate with the sun’s movement around the earth is one of change. We change the date. We resolve to make our lives different. We even commiserate about the inevitability of falling into our old ways, yet stay true to the attempt of trying. The first month of the year is a blue one to me. When my city is still drenched in snow and winter, I wake up to find the ineffable blue sky a constant guardian, and I too tell myself that this year will be different. Sometimes it is harder not to hope, even if you’re sure you’re wrong.
Imagine my surprise when my cynicism was beaten out. I think we have a common tendency to assume that negative thinking is more realistic. bell hooks eloquently stated as much in All About Love. We assume every situation will turn out to our detriment (Murphy’s Law is a pessimist’s Bible), that people will reveal their true colours (which are malicious more often than neutral), and refuse to accept joy as an emotion with as much depth and intrigue as the oft-visited misery. In short, positive thinking is dismissed as the placebo of self-help books and our trains of thought continue to loop through the worst case scenarios.
Even writing this, I find myself wondering at the hope in what I am saying. My temptation is to dismiss my own words as the posturing of someone who has had many of their defeatist predictions turn out to be false rather than an accurate analysis. I doubt that there is harm in expecting good things. We might even find the taste of being proved right sweeter than constant worrying. Here is the task I assign to myself and my readers for the months ahead: be kinder; which is to say, expect better. I hope it hurts less.
This is the first of my monthly wrap-up newsletters. My aim with this recurring section of nowhaunting is to describe and comment on the media I have engaged with during the month, give some personal updates on life and writing, then provide some thoughts on what lies ahead. Each month of the year feels precious and distinct to me, so the goal of this is to collate thoughts I would have had on my Tumblr into a cohesive article.
Media
Albums
Naked (Scarlet)
Travelogue (Joni Mitchell)
Cigarettes After Sex (Cigarettes After Sex)
Puberty 2 (Mitski)
The Gods We Can Touch (AURORA)
CAPRISONGS (FKA Twigs)
I’m always oddly proud of myself when I listen to an album by an artist I don’t listen to in the same month it came out. AURORA’s new album was the first I’d heard of hers, and it was a pleasant listening experience. I also enjoyed FKA Twigs’ previous release, and was partial to CAPRISONGS despite feeling MAGDALENE was better. Travelogue was my second last Joni Mitchell album, and I’m partial to the seven-minute For the Roses arrangement because it was already one of my favourite songs. However, my favourite album this month was easily Puberty 2, which I’d heard individual songs from before but never took the time to engage with in its entirety. Mitski’s songwriting feels so visceral and vibrant, like it ought to be listened to on the rooftop of your apartment amidst skyscrapers, stuck in the dead of summer. The best music creates its own context.
Shows
The Great (season 2)
Victoria (season 1)
The Good Fight (season 1)
Dollface (season 1)
The Crown (season 1)
+ Succession (season 3), Gilmore Girls (season 2), and Sharp Objects (season 1)
I will run the risk of sounding ridiculous and say that television is one of my great loves. When I feel terrible, tired, or bored, I can rely on an episode of some period drama or sitcom to cheer me up. I spent quite a lot of time watching television this month, and found it all to be rather superb. Dollface was an unexpected joy—I saw gifs on Tumblr and thought I’d check it out, then was quickly suckered into the whimsical and uplifting fun it offered. The Great, The Crown, and Victoria satisfied my passion for period dramas in vastly different ways. The Crown is well-made and enjoyable, inoffensive enough to watch with my mother and sister. Victoria is a lovely spectacle with romance that entertains me and my best friend, as well as providing plenty of content for jokes. The Great is vulgar but hilarious, and the second season was a good companion to me during the first lockdown of the year. After seeing The Good Fight was about lawyers and on Prime Video, I decided to give it a shot (despite never having seen The Good Wife) and found it to be funny and smart, which is never a bad combination.
I’ve listed the series I haven’t finished yet next to the plus sign. Succession’s third season is just as good as the first two, but I haven’t finished it simply because I haven’t been in the mood. Sharp Objects is dark for how I’m feeling now, but I have had it on my list for so long that I feel honour-bound to finish it. Recently I decided to come back to Gilmore Girls, the first season of which I had a great time watching last year in Vancouver, and it’s as much of a delight as ever. Next month, I’m looking forward to watching the new seasons of Dollface and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
Books
Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) reread
Despair (Vladimir Nabokov)
Hamlet (William Shakespeare)
Notes on Camp (Susan Sontag)
Hamnet (Maggie O’Farrell)
On Love and Barley (Matsuo Bashō)
Speak, Memory (Vladimir Nabokov)
Anna Akhmatova (Anna Akhmatova)
Atonement (Ian McEwan)
84, Charing Cross Road (Helene Hanff)
The Bluest Eye (Toni Morrison)
All About Love: New Visions (bell hooks)
The Sundial (Shirley Jackson)
Franny and Zooey (J.D. Salinger)
+ The Years (Virginia Woolf)
It is impossible for me to do each of these books justice and remain as concise as I wish, so I will choose to focus on Salinger’s Franny and Zooey, which I finished reading just before writing this paragraph. I don’t think Salinger likes writing about likeable characters, or even good characters (in the sense of moral goodness), but I do think he writes compelling characters. It’s the kind of slant Sally Rooney would love. His stories take on a stream of consciousness sort of lilt, where every movement is a critical piece of a person and no thought is too banal to be written out. The prose is measured, effective, the characters jump too life amidst endless monologues about the problems they perceive. It’s a beautiful book, and one whose effect I feel even moments after reading it for the first time.
Films
Little Women (2019) rewatch
Last Night in Soho (2021)
Hotel Transylvania: Transformania (2022)
Jackie (2016)
This was not a strong month for films. I enjoyed Pablo Larraín’s most recent offering, Spencer, far more than 2016’s Jackie. The newest Hotel Transylvania movie was an exercise in idiocy unfit to entertain even the lowest of society. Little Women, while being a rewatch, was as fantastic as it was the first time—my opinion improved, and it inspired me to reread the book. The only new film I truly enjoyed this month was Last Night in Soho, a gorgeous offering with a strong plot and all the London visuals I could ever want. I’d like to return to my love of old films and start using my Criterion subscription more, which is something to keep in mind for next month.
Personal
My first semester as a junior has ended. It feels bittersweet and almost impossible. I have had a high school experience marred by an ongoing global pandemic and my own mental illness. When I engage with media that describes what this is like, I find the images presented to be increasingly less applicable. For months, I’ve been thrilled when people have said I’m similar to Rory Gilmore because it means that there’s something in me that hasn’t been touched by the time I live in.
A month or so ago my dad told me that I tend to equate normal with perfect, and as loath as I am to prove him correct, I feel there may be a kernel of truth to the statement. I want to be the ideal student, daughter, and friend. I want to fulfil my personal desires without letting anyone down. I cannot, however, meet my own bar. If I get a ninety-seven, I’m disappointed because it isn’t a hundred. If a friend tells me I helped him, I’m sad I didn’t manage to do it sooner. I refuse to allow myself the grace of accepting imperfection. John Steinbeck said that when you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good, and he was right about that.
I expect to get my report card soon, and I want to stay true to my New Year’s resolutions when I open it. Despite the grades, I want to remind myself that I got what I worked for, that it isn’t the end of the world, and that my personal worth is not dependent on the numbers I receive. It is hard to be kind to yourself when you’re convinced that there’s very little that warrants your existence, but I have got to start expanding my definition of what I deserve.
Keeping with the theme of being kinder to myself, I will admit that I have been an excellent writer this year. Continuing a habit I started in September of 2021, I have written in my diary every single day. I’ve posted a Substack not just once a month, but every week on Wednesday. I’ve written poems, planned a novel, and even written a few chapters. Next month, I want to continue these habits and progress in my fiction writing. Downloading Scrivener has been wonderful, but I must return to using it!
Bear with me for some final personal updates. Next semester, I will take on maths, chemistry, and physics, and I will try to be less anxious about school. Oh, and for the first time in my life I have a boyfriend, and despite the overwhelming strangeness of the world at present that’s still the strangest thing to me.
Future
I think it’s a positive thing to have issues of this newsletter sent out every week, and I hope you’ve been enjoying my writing. My future goal is continue the tradition of posting on Wednesdays, with poems coming along as I write them. In the future, I’m game to share more about my writing process and different styles of writing. This month has been focused on abstract themes, and in February nowhaunting will take a turn for the personal. I want to look at what keeps me up at night, what anxieties I have to keep in check—to ground the writing in experience, hoping my reflections might help you too. Thank you to everyone who’s subscribed to this newsletter, and I wish you the best of luck for what’s to come.