Stashing Away for Safekeeping
Nearing the end of the year means a common theme starts to roll in that I genuinely love: year end lists. Not the kind that come from well known publications where they somehow try to rank or put a value on everything they watched and listened to (although it’s nice when something you love gets recognized), but the lists from friends where everything is based on feeling and connection. Except each year, I grow slightly less interested in purely what was released in the present year, and am instead drawn to those things that took their time reaching people. What albums have you heard about for a couple years, but didn’t have the chance to sit down with until now? What from your watchlist did you dig up and finally crawl into? What shows did you have the luxury of watching four seasons of, starting from the beginning? Or what did you stumble up and decide to unfold into without knowing anything about it, finding a piece of yourself in it by the end?
So that is what I want to share with you; the old new. Things like, how at some point this year, a friend shared a post about Albert Brooks and I was a little too embarrassed to admit I hadn’t watched any of his films. And yet, by the end of the next month, I had watched everything he directed that I could get my hands on, even starting to rewatch some of my favorites. It’s gratifying when consuming something with vigor gives you an adrenaline rush. For a few weeks after watching all of Brooks’ films (and even still) I found myself talking like his characters. Slightly distressed, always ready with a quick reply, while trying to remain endearing and engaged. Becoming a new devotee of something feels like entering a family’s home during a party and being swept up by all of their traditions. Like overnight, all these inside jokes are whispered in your ear and you wake up seeing your new knowledge scattered everywhere. And what a joy is was to become devoted to Brooks this year! A voice that has been with me since childhood finally had a face, and it was one I looked forward to seeing at the end of every day.
Maybe, like me, you found yourself watching a 2020 release starring Christopher Abbott, and you were so charmed by his life preserver/drawstring hat combo and screen presence that you decided to try and watch every movie he’s been in for the past 10 years. Nothing is better than making the choice to sit through any experience for someone, just to have the chance to access different versions of them, and blissfully becoming a little bit more enchanted with each performance. Abbott stars in two films released this year, Black Bear, directed by Lawrence Michael Levine (where you will find the outfit mentioned above), and Possessor, directed by Brandon Cronenberg. Specific images from both films have stuck with me more than anything else I’ve watched this year, and I know the reason for that leads back to the emotion and zeal Abbott is able to convey through the screen. There are some faces that invite you into their mind so effortlessly, that it’s almost like there’s no barrier between you at all; a face that opens the door and allows you in the room they inhabit. That’s the case for all of Abbott’s films; in Piercing, where you feel his preconceived plan fall through his hands, in It Comes at Night, where you’re faced with the decision of whether you can trust a stranger, and with James White, where no emotion is concealed as he navigates grief while simultaneously trying to take care of someone he loves dearly. What began as some kind of curiosity or attraction turned into this experience of being introduced to one of my favorite working actors. With Abbott, building a familiarity only made my interests multiply, each performance dipping me into a new portal.
Then there are things that are just straight up surprises. Those tiny bits of magic that come along, maybe you heard about it in passing once or you know someone that treasures it, and you jump in knowing nothing else. A chain of events led me to some of my favorite work this year, much of which was compiled in a series curated by Nellie Killian and made available on the Criterion Channel, titled Tell Me: Women Filmmakers, Women’s Stories (originally screened at the Metrograph in New York in 2018). In early March, Barbara Loden’s only feature-length film, Wanda, made its way into my life. I knew someone that had a poster of it framed on their wall and nothing more. In some ways, I felt when watching it that it was a suspense film. I cared so deeply for Wanda, and it felt like no ending that would give her what she deserved — and yet when it did reach that point, I was happy. For the whole film Wanda was in the spotlight, being carried from one place to another. Almost like she had no control over it, and no desire to gain control. She is constantly looked at and consumed, becoming drained of her own identity. It’s not until the end when she is in a bar surrounded by other people that all of that tension is released. Finally, she is just one face amongst many. There is chatter surrounding her, arms reaching over, and a overwhelming kindness to how she is welcomed into that crowd. Because sometimes kindness is letting someone sink into a chair without any fuss or special attention. Seeing her blend in with all these other faces, we get a sense that she can take a breath and figure out how exactly she got there, and more importantly, where she can go.
Not long after, I found a short documentary on Loden that was included in Killian’s program, but what really interested me was the introductory conversation between her and her college roommate, Jenny Slate (let it be known that I am a long time Jenny Slate devotee). The conversation allowed the two old friends to share what they loved about these films and the women that made them, and so I spent the next month slipping into the collection of short films and documentaries. There is one film within the program that undoubtedly stood out, titled Betty Tells Her Story, directed by Liane Brandon. The film is only 19 minutes and consists of two takes of a woman (Betty) telling the same story about an experience she had years prior. The first time she tells it, she takes her time with the details, placing you into each and every second. In the second take, Betty seems to have a harder time recalling all the details and instead is wrapped up in what she felt at the time. After going through the entire story once, it was like the wound was opened back up, and now she was just trying to control what was bleeding out. In 19 minutes, we see storytelling at its finest — because every memory exists in multitudes and changes each time we tell it. Our attachments to memories are more based in feelings, which often aren’t as evident to us until we allow ourselves to remember them completely. Betty recalls the same evening twice, but what we hear are two entirely different stories. And both of them are true.
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The other pattern I fell into was revisiting things I already knew I loved, sometimes numerous times. I watched Frances Ha more in eight months this year than I have in the past five years. Whenever I felt an intrusive thought sneaking up on me at night, I would pick my copy up off the shelf, collapse into my bed, and patiently wait for the moment Frances (Greta Gerwig) finds a girl crying in the hallway of a college dorm and slides down the wall across from her, just to sit there with her as she cries. It happened with other things too, like my favorite book, Too Much and Not the Mood by Durga Chew-Bose. No one writes as cinematically as Durga, and going back to the book allowed me to lean into my obsessiveness and orient myself in a way that I could look at the things I love and figure out how to speak about them. I even woke up early one morning to watch a virtual presentation in she was doing, where she shared images that were stored on her phone and paired them together. Every time I‘m drawn back to her work, I find a new way to look at something — it never feels like a repeated thought or observation. With Durga, everything is happening for the first time.
Along those same lines, there are some things you just can’t let go of. Even with things only released in the previous year, there is sometimes a sense of others leaving those in the past. Albums that are released at the end of the year often get left off of any major ‘best of’ list, and become what feel like these small, hidden gems. At some point in March when everyone was faced with fresh feelings, I threw down my jacket on a grassy hill to rest my head on, and put on Heavy Lifter by the Austin, TX band, Hovvdy. It only came out in October 2019, but by March it had already felt like an old friend. Since that day, I’ve listened to the album countless times, trying to trap its sweetness in a jar. Listening to it feels like revisiting my childhood home. The place where my mom painted our street number in red paint on the barn, with the big willow tree in the front yard that had to be chopped down, and where I got so used to the sound of a train that I was able to sleep through its passing every night. In reality, the last time I was in that house was over 12 years ago. We had moved out and my parents were in the process of selling it, but I went to visit an old friend that lived up the road. We snuck down to the house, and she pushed me through an unlocked window that led into the dining room. Together we walked through the empty rooms where nothing felt the same. There was no upright piano in the entry way, the lamp in the closet that painted constellations on the wall was gone, and my bedroom was full of blank walls. In a way, listening to Heavy Lifter gave me the chance to see everything at its brightest again. It gives me the chance to lean against the willow tree and feel its shade draping over me, to sit in the dark closet again and see the stars, and remember all the journals I filled in that bedroom, even though I wouldn’t be able to find them now.
There are other albums too, that I continue to sneak songs from into every playlist I make; I Need to Start a Garden by Haley Heynderickx, The Party by Andy Shauf, Depression Cherry by Beach House, and so on. Albums that have an impact that lingers and will always reappear during certain months. Like taking out an old jacket out come winter, and finding little notes, pens, and objects in the pockets that were left there from the previous year. Not forgotten, but just waiting to be reached into again — gleaning through our own belongings and memories.
This is not to say this year hasn’t been filled with new work that I’ve cushioned myself with too. There are many things that will be joining Frances Ha on the “to visit when you’re unsure” wall. Like Lomelda’s album, Hannah, which has permanently changed the way I sign emails or cards — now lovingly ending them with “sending you the sun”. Or the sweet Cooper Raiff’s debut, Shithouse, which reached into my memories and helped gently extract my fears before I knew what to call them. Or the continuation of my favorite show, from the minds of Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle, PEN15. In fact, there is one scene in the new season that maybe signifies what I am trying to say better than anything else could. In it, Maya and her mother are taking a yuzu bath together, and her mother comforts her by telling Maya that her mind is like a salad bowl and she can decide what’s important enough to keep in it. Maya takes a yuzu from the water, places it on her head, and says it represents her best friend, Anna. That is the first thing she wants to reserve a space for in her salad bowl. We all have the ability to pick what is important enough to stay close to us; what we want to store and cherish, and we can decide how long it gets to stay. Maybe sometimes there are things you can clear out and safely release to make room for something else. But maybe other things can have a permeant home in our salad bowls. We decide what is worthy and what we want to protect.
As the year comes to a close, I hope you all reach into your pockets or salad bowls and find something to hold onto. Whether it be something you’ve loved for years, or something new that you want to tuck away for a while. Take your time sitting with each thing that feels important. There’s no hurry to replace what’s sacred. And I hope that if you find enough love for something in particular, you break off a section of it to pass to another person to cherish. Let what has been stored for you become a new comfort for someone else. So much of what I love was generously shared with me, and I’ll never forget the people they were gifted to me by. So keep sharing your year end lists, and I will take my time reading through them, picking out the things from this year and past years that haven’t reached out to me yet.
Here’s to another year of finding bits of ourselves in art, shining a light on what breaks/heals us, and filling our baskets until they’re brimming.
Sending you the sun,
Laura
