Yearbook: Vol 2

On Keeping a Newsletter

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And before we begin, Happy birthday Kelly. I’ll be texting you real soon.

“Why did I write it down? In order to remember, of course, but exactly what was it I wanted to remember?” Joan Didion, On Keeping a Notebook

I have a very good memory. This has always been hard to explain to people. If you borrow a book from me you will see that, at the corner of some pages, a date is written and there will be a note of some kind. A remark on the weather or an itinerary for the day. A way of keeping record of what I was doing for context on the annotations ahead. Or else, if I ever needed to remember and found I could not I might look for the book I had been reading at that time in my life and see somewhere a small hint of the past world I’d been avoiding by retreating to the narrative at hand. Though that is not about remembering, that is about forgetting. I don’t simply remember, I compile. So to say, I feel my memory.

Let me be clear, I’m not talking about looking at specific moments and remembering how I felt. Yes, I can turn to a memory and find my old sadness. What I mean now, however, is when I sit and think about last fall, I feel it’s average. As if stepping into a steam-filled bathroom the sensation of my time in that place settles on my skin so clearly it might worry me enough to cover my head so it wouldn’t mess up my hair. It is as real to me as the temperature outside. There is an aura, a genuine manifestation of each sensation of time. Which is not so much direct memories, but a compilation of their occurrence. The way that some names have colors or people see sounds. I feel memory. This has always been hard to describe.

This newsletter is the closest thing to that manifestation. Colors, songs, emotions, events, photos, all compiled under one theme and month to articulate its complexity. A premonition of a kind, here is what I think I’ll see when I remember you. It records in closer detail the workings of a year for when I would like to remember it, for when that inevitable moment comes that I step into it again and can see what it had all added up to.

This year has not been good. I don’t need to tell you all that it is right here. Starting with stagnation and ending with failure, followed by rest. Right in the middle a piece on the blues. These themes came out of lived experience. These were the foreboding energies I was wading through as the start of a new month approached. I wrote them down both because they were real and to remember them. I have been thinking though about what Didion said. Why do we keep a notebook? What do we want to remember? She argues not the factual account of time. What will it matter to me at 50 what I believed at 25? What I talked about in therapy? To write it down was not to say this is fact. That is a foolish goal. My ambition lies only in documenting what was true, in revealing myself to myself.

I read somewhere that fall was like a delivery of the past. They said something like, here is sunshine from your 7th birthday. I could see that, but I could also see that this is a promise of the universe. How often I recognized my 23-year-old self, or 19. You can look at the newsletter of the past year and find that more often than not I talk about this younger self who arrives to me at various times throughout the year. She seeks me out more than I let on. Perhaps my memory is good, but writing has allowed her a kind of realization I might not have had if I hadn’t been compelled to record this all. I recognize the call in me, I recognize her touch. I have recorded her meticulously and I would not forget the vulnerability of a revelation, even if it was only to myself. I could not mistake to whom these thoughts belong. Each age has always had to me a particular weight but there is little variation between two numbers. Two people? The differences are endless.

Keeping this newsletter, recording this year, is infinitely more important than having it a year ago. It records what last year lacked in real weight. The strife, the fear, the lethargic energy. It also remembers that which gets lost in its average. It better registers the nuance of such things. My despair was big, but hope was there even if it wasn’t bigger. August was about failure but it was also about the fact that we do often bump into our younger selves and find that they are proud of us nonetheless. The blues promised an end. Stagnation was followed by movement. I wrote this all down because it was true at the time but also because I believed one day I would feel differently about these things and I would like to recognize my 25-year-old self when the universe delivered her. I know that once I leave this age I will constantly be seeing her.

Bad years happen and we remember them. We feel them. We avoid going back. This was not a year of no consequence, I feel the weight of it tremendously. I feel the relief of its ending profoundly. Any mathematician though will tell you the imperfection of average. The effect of outliers, the data that can be lost. I have always tried to take this into account. Perhaps that is the purpose of those records on my dog-eared pages. Here is the true day-to-day of a year which will only be a single feeling for you when it is over. And here is my record of truth that exists now as I write it all down. I am writing it down not because it is what I want to remember, but what I hope not to forget:

I got to go home this year. I bought good soap. I went to the movies with my friends and I loved my imperfect self more fully and with consideration for my complexity. The doldrums ended, the blues ended, the powerful play went on as you might say. Grace ran a marathon, Keil came to New York, Maddie, Kelly, and Ava all convened weekly on cold desperate nights to watch movies and laugh. Kelvin went to Paris, Emily moved home (right down the block from me) again. My drinks were free (because I had insufficient funds,) Amanda was just as I remembered her. Margaret got engaged, Olivia came for brunch. The cats woke me up in the dead of night. I read many books, I abandoned many more. I missed deadlines and I made them. I wrote good sentences and many typos. I laughed great big belly laughs with Avery and Dalia in a bar on the LES. I started it one way and ended it another which is something to be proud of.

If I could pick another calculation for the year, I’d have liked to toss only these things in, just out of curiosity for what the equation would tumble out. I’m sure the year would average out to love.

The most important thank you needs to be said to you all. I hope you know that your presence in my life is of great importance to me. Not for the fact that it adds a certain prestige or speaks to my ego and desire to feel talented. I mean that I remember you all. I remember what you say and I remember which newsletters you feel aligned with. There is something deeply brave about finding an author or commenting for the world to see that the words you read spoke precisely to something you recognized in yourself. I do not take your dedication, your posting, sharing, liking, your being here lightly. I find it hard in each moment to express my gratitude when you interact with me and my work and I am trying to now express to you how moved I am. I am proud of the community that exists here not as something I made, but as your individual selves who contribute so much richness. This place is only as good as the people who are part of it. Which is to say, it’s a pretty good place. Be proud.

If you were here last year you know I love personality quizzes. Find out which of my newsletters you are with this quiz! Have no fear, however, this is a momentary glimpse at your current state of mind. It may only reveal what right now you need to hear!

Share with me your results! I got:

This part includes both paid and free newsletters. *The paywalls on any newsletter here will be lifted for all to enjoy during this month of reflection, rest, joy, and reminiscing. As a gift of gratitude from me to you.

1. Most likely to earn a like and comment months after it was posted: Even Sweet Girls Get the Blues

   1. “We left and I was sad even after. It hung around the air for a few more weeks until one afternoon I got off the subway and I realized it was gone. To me, this was the most important lesson of my life. Some journeys through this world conclude without much of our participation. For no reason in particular and without pattern or formula.”

2. The fan favorite: The Mortality Rate of Desire

   1. “In my bedroom after the pain subsided, I retreated to a daydream because it’s easier to let my imagined self have than to let my real self want. I remember the absolute rule of the universe: In order to be kissed you must first enjoy what it means to be alone.”

3. The author's favorite: Soap Does Not Mistake Itself For Perfume*

   1. “Then a piece of me always hoped that like cologne or laundry detergent, when we separated this part of me was there. Knowing that scents evoked such a memory, I hoped for others it was the same. Hoped that when that smell averaged out all they could find was love.”

4. Prettiest mood board: Let Me Help You Understand

   1. 

      Need I say more?

5. Best theme award: Fine Line in the Doldrums

   1. “The song ended with nothing else behind it. All I could hear now was the waves rolling up on the sand like sheets on a bed. There was no crash, just the sound of overlap. Still staring out into the black I said aloud to the darkness, like the universe was listening just beyond it, I’m going to be okay. And I drove home.”

      1. For writing about stagnation this newsletter came together pretty quickly. It was also the first theme after Yearbook vol. 1 and I think it set the tone for the year. That is, unintentionally, I noticed my sadness and despair but felt hope anyway.

6. The best use of voice and craft: The Lost Myth of Love

   1. “People used to joke I was a narcissist, shallow, they told me to be at least a little modest. I walk the steady line, living still, not immortalized in mythos or stars. Still, I have not felt half as malnourished as those moments I waited for love to come from somewhere else, when I had so much of it to give right here.”

7. The underdog: Grace Runs a Marathon

   1. “We forget to process what we think as in between for what it is, periods of rest or times of celebration for the truly incredible things we do. Standing with Grace on the sideline was a reminder that yes, this is my life happening, and its unexpected beauty is often rich and deeply moving. That most parts of life are difficult to anticipate.”

8. The most typos award: Notes From Bed*

   1. “I was afraid to want anything to do with him and perhaps we couldn’t dream next to each other, but we could talk. I had learned to get by on the things that had no name. Sleep that was not rest. Men you could not let witness you.” (I tried to edit this post and substack was glitching so I left all the typos in as part of the charm.)

This year wasn’t superb. I wanted to create an altar for the universe in which I gave only what I wanted to see back. Here is my offering, my olive branch, my materialized hope that what in this year will end and new things will take their place.

1. The wonders of the world: the ocean, the stars, flowers, love, kisses

2. Birthday candles

3. A heart

4. Photographs old and new with people without.

5. A disco ball

6. Love (as letters as feelings as gifts as laughter as stitches as everything)

7. and always, of course. Words.

My therapist this last week asked me about my goals for the next year of Chloé In Newsletter. I thought, really thought, before I said as humbly as I could:

“I try not to make goals. I always end up surpassing them.”

This newsletter to me is a success. It has been so for a while. Any continued numerical value, of increasing subscriptions or general sharing, is extra. It’s hard to pick a goal in that regard because I could say I want to reach 5,000 subscribers but the joke is I feel no different when I arrive there. Is it a testament to my talent? My perseverance? Do I win an award will my career field finally accept me? I don’t think so.

This year has proven to me many truths. That good years move into bad years, that bad feelings move into indifference, that joy accompanies all things. It proved to me that I could live and feel like a success and equally feel as if I had failed. Numerically I haven’t failed but feeling wise. I want to do better and it might not have occurred to anyone, as I have not pointed it out, but I have really fallen in love with this newsletter all over again, at a time where I found it daunting where admittedly it was the last thing I felt capable of doing. So I guess if I really thought on it I could make a goal list, perhaps you can join me a year from now and we can see what we’ve done.

1. To love the act of creating even if it renders the product imperfect

2. To share this beautiful difficult life with you all

3. To connect with the world in an authentic and genuine way

4. to get back on track for 10 AM newsletters!!!!!!!!

5. To be proud of what we make.

This is our year in music. I have compiled (almost) every song that I have put at the start or end of my newsletters. I put them in order if you’d like to coast along this year we’ve had once more. Or if you’re adventurous you can hit shuffle and see what strange things we felt, what songs seemed to capture a month. Who knows how it will feel, who knows what you’ll remember. Enjoy the wild ride.

This is a mood board less for October, more for life as it moves on from this year. Spoiler alert: I hope its full of everything.

Ava+Keil: My siblings are the most talented people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. Thank you for constantly being the artists I dream of becoming. I’d go back to being a teen again just to live together in our house one more time. Also, I am not sure if you guys know this, but I decided to do creative non-fiction after I wrote a piece about you. So to say, you’ve always carried me in the right direction.

Mom+Dad: There are no two parents I think more deserving of thanks yous and no child more incapable of expressing such gratitude. My parents are immovable forces in hope and faith for what I do. In a year where I didn’t believe they believed. I thank them for that and for the sacrifice it takes to be such wonderful parents.

Grandpa+Jane: As always, I must thank you both for your continued interest in your grandchildren’s art, however it is we pursue it. Your insight on what I have offered the world, and too what the world offers me, is one I am fascinated by and deeply appreciative of. So thank you always. If better words existed to encompass the expanse of my feelings I’d use them but I find it impossible at present!

Friends: It is with the utmost gratitude that I thank my friends who I will not list outright because they know who they are and they are competitive and will ask me why they weren’t first on the list. Your presence in my life is one that has no words and few things really truly have no words. I want to say something about love but you’re all so good at it what could I tell you that you don’t already know? Thank you for your home-cooked meals, your movie nights, for two years ago, for today, for tomorrow. Promise to find me in every lifetime?

Internet Friends: There are few things in this life so sweet as the people we meet on the internet. The faith and support that has been offered to me by people who have never even met me is not lost on me in place of all the other love I feel and have. It is right there toe to toe. Thank you all for showing up in my life and the courage to continue to show up to a place as fraught and anxious as the internet. You add a richness to my world that is irreplaceable. I would notice if you were gone.

Hunks: Thank you Hozier for releasing a song on the two-year anniversary of my newsletter. Thank you Harry Styles for writing the song Boyfriends. Thank you Calahan Skogman for being 6’4”. Thank you Lee Pace for smiling at me when I crossed the street. Thank you Jude Law for always being there in my time of hunk-less need. Thank you to all the hunks real and imaginary that I fall in and out of love with during the year. You keep my life interesting and my daydream worlds enticing.

Bart from hinge: Once again, last but not least, I have to thank Bart who matched with me on hinge when I was 23. I like to think we hit it off, you signed up for my newsletter, but the conversation to my despair died out. I just checked though and you’re still here! I thanked you last year so I thank you again for sticking around. It’s okay if you don’t actually read these, especially after I drunk-emailed you last winter. What can I say, I find your devotion very romantic.

To year three.

See you all oh so soon.

Love always,

Chloé