A Poem for 2023 (& An Introduction)

hi hi hi hello

hello my loves

This is a two part letter. First, my yearly poem, which you may have already seen on TikTok, but reading things yourself is different than watching a little video with voiceover. (Duh.) Secondly, an explanation on why I’ve decided on the name Point of Departure for this newsletter, through the lens of an unedited journal entry. Thank you for being here from the beginning <3

---

A Poem for 2023

In 2023 I trusted myself—
finally, 
carefully released
my grip on myself
I counted all the days
painted the same phrase 
172 times
traced petals and wrapped
thorn covered stems in 
silver thread
I assigned colors to months and
re-read my own journals
I started selling my art, 
I let myself take the leap over
all the years and years
of self doubt
and fear
I read 56 books and visited 
7 states and 3 countries
I attempted to write poems
about being happy and in love
ate all of the tomatoes R grew
and said yes when he asked me
to marry him
I sewed myself a blue dress 
swam in fresh water and salt water
watched the sky turn red with fire
smoke again
I made flowers for people I love
and for strangers
cried so hard at the ways we find
each other amongst all the 
wreckage
I sat on the balcony 
drinking coffee, hung the love notes
on the inside of the 
cupboard by the sink
fell asleep every night with the cat
curled next to me
I kept myself facing forward
one foot in front of the other
there is no hand on the back
of my neck, there is nothing
keeping me in place 

The name of this brand new newsletter is pulled from a line in a book titled “To Be Determined” by Duncan Wooldridge (thanks Duncan!) In lieu of an explanation for this choice, I present you with a journal entry:

November 11, 2023

At alabaster (alone) reading To Be Determined—about photography—it’s so good. There was a line I think I want to be the title of my newsletter—Point of Departure—in reference to the idea that photographs are always points of departure that will be reshape and re-contextualized in the future. “…the image continues a connection back to that moment. But such connection is always also something new, changed by its new relationship to absence, as well as to a gradually disappearing access to its contexts and meanings. The photograph begins again, and the encounter becomes ours.”

I feel I’ve been so consumed over the course of my life with finding out who I “really am” and getting back to her, as if it’s something to get back to, rather than build forward. I’ve been so fixated on the past, understanding mine, even building a future that my past self would resonate with, rather than thinking about my present and future self as something that has yet to exist. How different would my sense of self be if I thought of myself as something I’m continually meeting/uncovering for the first time, instead of a concrete person I’m trying to get back to or perfectly attain?

What is this obsession with knowing myself and what does that even really mean? Am I just trying to be in control—of who I am, can become, want to be. When I say I want to be the best version of myself, what does that even mean and why do I assume I’ll recognize her.

For whatever reason, I didn’t record the actual line that inspired the name, but it reads:

As origin is the earliest condition of an object or the place where something begins – and is continually moved away from – so an origin is no more and no less than a point of departure.

Wooldridge is referring to photographs as the point of departure.

I am referring to my notion of self as the point of departure.

A point of departure towards a life I’m still in the process of creating. Towards growth, and becoming, and change. Towards all the beautiful and devastating and ordinary possibilities that stretch out in front of me.

Xo,

B