A few months ago, I was looking around my bedroom, and something about it struck me. I’m not sure what. Maybe I had just finished a good book, or seen something beautiful. Whatever it was, I wrote this in my notebook because of it, and I think it sums up a lot:
“Sometimes it occurs to me that not all people are right-brained creative types who are easily and intensely moved by art. There’s a term for the latter part, I think, why art affects certain people more than others. I don’t know. But anyway, I wonder what that would be like. What would it be like to not start beaming every time you see a street musician, or fiercely hug books when you finish them because they’ve moved you so much that you’re unable to express yourself? Or to grin your face off listening to music through Beats headphones, or after finishing a chart with a jazz band, because it just sounds so good? Or to get genuinely, joyfully distracted by how beautiful your yellow beanie looks against your bedspread, every day, even though it’s the same every time? To be excited to be alone with your thoughts because you know you have a scene to work on and entertain yourself with? Hell, sometimes I just look around my bedroom and am a little overcome by all the beauty I surround myself with, like my heart is exploding all over the place, or vice versa, and it’s impossibly full. Don’t even get me started on live musicals. It’s just hard for me to imagine what it would be like to not need to make this stuff, surround myself with it, treasure it, inhale it, exhale it. It’s like... everything. I don’t know how else to say it.”
In collaboration with The Creative Process, I am contributing to podcast production, learning how podcasts work behind the scenes, and improving my interviewing skills. It’s a chance to meet inspiring people, both guests and other Creative Process staff. It’s exciting to learn from writers, artists and creative thinkers who have a lifetime of experience and have contributed much to society.
Over quarantine, my best friend and I wrote the first draft of a book. It’s still very unfinished. I’ve also written several poems. I usually have several little writing projects going at a time. I also play saxophone in the AU Jazz Orchestra and I’m taking improvisation lessons. Improving my improvisation skills is a long-term project.
I’m a freshman, so I don’t have my career plans completely worked out yet. I’m a journalism major, and right now my biggest interest is in audio broadcast. I know I want to tell stories, and it’s been my dream since I was little to publish a novel someday. In the near future, I plan to keep writing, get better at improv, and enjoy college.
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My favorite times to be outdoors are those beautiful sunny days where the sky is blue and you never want to go back inside. In autumn, I love lying on my hammock and looking up at the tree canopy, or driving through the mountains and taking in all the changing colors. I’ve shared these experiences with my friends, my family, and sometimes my dogs, both of whom like to roll around in the leaves and run through snow. In general, I have always considered myself lucky to live in a place (Maryland, USA) where I experience all four seasons. I don’t want to lose any of that.
Personally I pledge to create less waste where I can, whether that’s by using reusable grocery bags or not throwing away so much clothing. I pledge to reuse things when possible and buy sustainably sourced products. At this point, to stop climate change, I think change mostly needs to come from those in power, and our policies. I pledge to support politicians who work to protect the environment and combat climate change.
Friday the 13th
by Natalie Flynn
Sheetz in the rearview mirror.
We’ve just left it behind
with the rest of the world.
Here, it’s only the night, taillight-studded,
soaking the air, spilling in through windows,
leaving faces moonlight pale,
eyes unreal and sparkling.
Route 144 stretches out ahead
like a starting line ramp to the future,
endless,
like if we get up enough speed,
the car might launch us into the sky.
The news in the atmosphere,
even as we cross into that midnight realm,
where the ordinary rules change shape:
thoughts run freer from our lips
and morning becomes optional.
Only fitting that a day made of apocalyptic humor,
a half-empty Mexican restaurant,
moonlight on a lake, and hesitant fear
should end in a final stretch so dreamlike.
This is our world for the next few minutes,
this meteorite in the shape of an Audi A4.
“Death of Me” in the speakers,
heavy pumps of fog machine cloud
that crackle with synth sparks and drum thunder
and rattle breathless laughter from my chest.
It’s Q’s song at A’s volume
And I’m gloriously trapped in between.
Like always, in some ways.
Except,
Us three, out of place.
We’ve never existed here
and we won’t for some time.
We won’t exist the normal ways either.
I think we know that.
It pulls at our edges like putty,
blending strange colors where the shadows meet.
We are less us than heartbeats linked
by thudding bassline,
less aware of our bodies,
less individuals than voices in the dark,
distorted.
Music in my lungs.
Even as I shout over it,
I’m sitting back to let it fill me,
syncopate my heartbeat,
this moment of strange quiet
as we hurtle through the darkness.
