#joachim trier
I kept a blog from 2012 to 2019. This blog. I had tried others, but they sputtered and died. This one, this accidental online scrapbook, lived beyond my expectations. This became my confessional, my soapbox, my panic room, my memory palace. In many cases I didn’t know what or how I would write until I had posted my sentences, my misgivings. One thing would lead to another. Themes or patterns would emerge from an author’s body of work. Fragments of my life would merge with strands of fiction or film. And I would find more reasons, consolations, to stick around. But I was never sure what this mixed bag would amount to.
In 2017, I began fantasizing publishing a book based on my favorite posts. “Essays from the Blog,” the subtitle would say. It may sound a bit pretentious to call them “essays,” but what the heck. A number of them were indeed deeply, shamelessly personal essays, long and introspective. Some of the more circuitous or self-indulgent pieces were even surprisingly coherent and well structured. But structure was the least of my concerns then. I never intended to write proper book reviews or movie reviews; many other people with more time and talent had been doing those. I didn’t think anything here was worth monetizing. I didn’t aim to turn any of my ramblings into something viral, legit, or woke.
Still, at some point, I thought I had written enough stuff that even years later didn’t make me cringe. Oh, sure, a lot was sentimental writing, mostly incidental babble I needed to put out there to make sense of or to calm down the chaos in my head. But I had published a poetry collection, my first book, in 2008 and even designed my own cover for that one, so why not a second book, this time an essay collection based on my blog posts? (Here’s one sample cover I made in 2017, all squiggles and splatters from my shaky hands and addled brain.)
Oh, yes, one can dream. Or, at the very least, one can revisit one’s dreams. And so it’s 2022 and I’m back, sort of. I’m here again prowling my own Tumblr pages. I’m reliving some cringey moments when I was having way too much fun (or too much sadness) posting all these words and images. I see that some links are no longer working, some references or jokes are dated, and some people (men!) have been canceled. I see so much, maybe too much, I cared about—and not enough. I see the gaps, missed opportunities, so many other writers and artists and musicians, heroes of mine, I never got to write about, people I never got to thank.
Well, I did what I could, I blogged while I could. And so now, thanks to Tumblr, I can revisit all these books I’ve read, movies I’ve watched, people I’ve loved. A math teacher. A little nephew. An ex-boyfriend. The ones who danced in The Big Chill. The one who sang “Moon River.”The one that got away. Characters in a novel that made me want to go on living. Actorsandactresses who made me laugh and think. Spiritual teachers who helped me breathe. Poets who unlocked my doors.Wonder junkies.Major weepers.Old flames.New loves.Friends of my heart.Keepers of my light. “Sticking Around” was my way of thanking them all.
A few years back, when I was no longer regularly posting, a dear cousin asked me about my blog: “Is it still on? What is it about?” In an email I wrote: “Still there, but no longer as active. It’s mostly book quotes and excerpts. Usually at the end of each month, I’d write an essay that directly or indirectly explains why an author or theme mattered to me. I’d tell a story connecting that book or movie or topic in relation to a personal experience or a memory or a mood.”
Telling her what this blog was, how I did whatever it was that I thought I was doing here, made me think again of that digressive, chatty, mopey voice I had adopted (or that had adopted me) for my more personal posts. It was a persona that, ten years since this blog began, I find to be both still-me and so-not-me-anymore. Which is both unsettling and comforting now that, at 59, I find myself occasionally dipping in—and dripping with—nostalgia and yet managing to climb back onto dry land and stay curious about the years to come.
InThe Worst Person in the World, the acclaimed film directed and co-written by Joachim Trier, my favorite scene is a monologue delivered by the deeply empathetic Norwegian actor Anders Danielsen Lie. It’s about nostalgia. It’s about remembering a time when physical objects mattered most—the books we held in our hands, the record stores we browsed at. Now most of them are gone. But some of us keep going back to those pleasures, or to the memories of them, even when they no longer give us as much pleasure as they used to.
The man speaking in this quietly devastating moment attributes his sentimental mood to his being an old fart. Like him, I “grew up in an age without Internet and mobile phones.” Then he admits that all this looking back is also because he is terminally ill. There is no future for him. “Now I have nothing else” except “knowledge and memories of stupid, futile things nobody cares about.” He says it’s not even nostalgia, it’s fear of death.
So what kept me blogging all those seven years? And what makes me revisit this blog now? What keeps me revisiting favorite books, favorite scenes, favorite people, real or fictional? Yes, it’s nostalgia. But, no, not fear of death. It’s fear of losing sight of what matters. I think that’s why I keep coming back. More than ever, this blog reminds me of what mattered to me then and what still matters now. Maybe in the end it’s all there in these three words (coincidentally the title of my favorite Carl Jung book):memories, dreams, reflections. When the physical objects and the people I held dearly are no longer within reach, what else is there to hold on to?
Sure, nothing’s permanent. We lose the ones we love. We learn to look back and let go. We sputter, we wane. Late in life, I find this blog existing beyond the years I kept it. The words remain, if not on paper then on this screen, this blogosphere of fleeting pleasures and lingering pastimes. I may or may not be able to publish a book based on essays from this blog. Life is short, life is long, memory is tricky, reflections fade. But for now some dreams remain.
Probably one of the best movies of 2021. Frankly, I thought the girl was selfish, especially in that very moment she switched the lights on and stopped the world and ran away from her commitment to run towards her ‘cheat.’ But as the film progressed, I could see the tragedy waving. It illustrates the time of our lives when we’re in a state of confusion and in denial. She is perhaps a go-lucky girl with her own principles where she’s the one who makes decisions and choices for her life. I bet that things didn’t go her way because of how fate turned and ended in some kind of miserable mystery, she still looks like found her own passion.
The Worst Person In The World (2021)
The Worst Person in the World (2021)
Director - Joachim Trier, Cinematography - Kasper Tuxen
“I feel like a spectator in my own life.”
The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier, 2021)
The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier, 2021)
The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier, 2021)
The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier, 2021)
The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier, 2021)
The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier, 2021)
The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier, 2021)
The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier, 2021)
The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier, 2021)
The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier, 2021)
The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier, 2021)
The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier, 2021)
The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier, 2021)
The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier, 2021)
The Worst Person in the World | 2021
I’m so tired of pretending everything is okay. It sucks being in so much pain. It sucks. Everything sucks. I don’t want to be a memory for you. I don’t want to be a voice in your head. I want to be happy together.
Aksel, The Worst Person in The World
