dear reader,
it’s lovely to have you here. a special hello to my new subscribers, welcome!
i recently celebrated one more year around the sun!
it was a lovely day (i took annual leave lol), bought a nintendo switch, ate at my favourite vegetarian restaurant, ate korean bbq with my family and then watched the vanderpump rules reunion finale with chels.
since the birthday festivities, i’ve been feeling very nostalgic. i’ve been reminiscing a very specific time in my life, my senior year.
senior year jade was bubbly, quite outgoing, not afraid to talk to new people. she was always looking for more guy friends and an invite to a house party. obsessed with being the alternative girl, she thrifted her clothes, only listened to triple j and began watching more independent films. her biggest challenges at the time were:
getting to the very front of an all ages cub sport gig
finding a designated driver for house parties
choosing the perfect formal dress with matching accessories
not stumbling on the final music extension performance
she was confident but insecure about her place in this world. her ethnicity bugged her and she often wished she was white.
her hair was very, very long. she was growing it out all year, waiting until after graduation to cut it all off. it was symbolic, her way of letting go, saying goodbye to the place she had spent thirteen years of her life. she cut almost a ruler’s length of hair! her fresh look welcomed her into a new era and it made her feel ready.
this newsletter is dedicated to senior year jade. she’d be so proud of where i am today, she’d be in awe!
here’s to feeling nostalgic on your birthday. stay sparkly,
jade x
lorde dedication
i think we all have that lorde memory.
for me it’s driving around the suburbs at night with my best friend chels. lorde is blasting the speakers. we’ve just graduated high school, we have nowhere to be, we just drive around. our life is in front of us. we didn’t know what it looked like but we knew we had each other and we also knew we had lorde and that felt like more than enough!
looking back, it was such a special time; not yet broken by adulthood, we were ready to tackle the world head on. a sweet naivety that i don’t think i’ll ever feel again.
i would love to read your lorde memories - reply back with yours!
The song ends with a frustrating notion, that our childhood ‘will never be enough’. In the end, we have to leave our comfort and ease to move forward. The song fades out the same way as it fades in at the beginning, functioning as a farewell, gesturing us into the adulthood.
How Ribs Has Become the Magnum Opus of Lorde’s Discography
By Camikara Yuwono
submission by Indya Pearce
Nostalgia and childhood are like Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’ It’s blurry, sentimental, silly and its got fairies in it. (If you didn’t believe in fairies as a child then were you even a child?)
This work explores friendship and nostalgia, through my relationship to one of my closest friends. It touches on our collective memory, and multi-experiential childhood narratives focusing on a primary school play together. There is this unique experience when you are so close with someone as a child, then you part with them for a long time, until finally, you meet again one day as adults. In your mind, this person took one very large leap over the magical boundaries from childhood to adulthood. It’s funny to think back on how embarrassing we were as children but to also remember all the playful, naïve and innately joyful experiences made.
I am deeply reminiscent of those moments of childhood bliss with her, and I know that we can and must recreate them as adults to nurture our inner child together. Especially, because we don’t even realise that the memories we make in the present will be nostalgia in ten, fifteen or twenty years. This painting serves as a reminder to be silly and dance and dress up and be messy. These actions turn into inner healing and ultimately create nostalgia for years to come.
Ps. I still believe in fairies.
Indya Pearce is a visual artist practicing in Meanjin (Brisbane), Australia working across multiple disciplines such as painting, photography, drawing and textiles. Majority of her subject matter features oil painted faces and bodies, generally depicted through vibrant, surrealistic colours. Her works address concepts surrounding body image, relationships, identity and self-worth. She is also strongly inspired by film, cinematography and mythology.
you can find indya here:
ig: @indyapearce.art
youtube: subscribe to indya’s youtube here!
movies i watched for the first time in my senior year that changed my brain chemistry
Me, Earl and the Dying Girl (2015)
The Spectacular Now (2013)
Colossal (2016)
Nocturnal Animals (2016)
Nerve (2016)
Donnie Darko (2001)
Arrival (2016)
The Virgin Suicides (1999)
music i listened to in my senior year
collage kit - senior year
my dad would buy me a copy of the latest frankie mag every time he would return from a business trip. i hardly read them anymore so i’ve repurposed them for collaging. enjoy the kit!
reading
media that were bible to me
founded by tavi gevinson when she was only fifteen, rookie mag was everything to me. it was there for me when i needed advice, it was how i found collage, it provided comfort for anything i was going through. i used the search bar religiously, typing all sorts of things: ‘how to find a boyfriend’, ‘fighting with my mum’, ‘collage kit’, ‘feeling lonely’, ‘i have a crush’. i miss it dearly, thank goodness it’s archived! i still have it bookmarked in my favourites and i visit it from time to time. thank you tavi for making something that helped me become the creative i am today.
sadly, another piece of discontinued media. yen magazine was a mix of frankie and rookie. every two months, i would buy the magazine at my local news agency and carry it in my tote bag until the next issue was released. i’ve found old issues of yen at op shops and flea markets and it makes me jump with excitement. it’s like finding buried treasure! the last flea market i went to, i found the issue with tavi gevinson on the cover - it was a miracle!
things i would tell my younger self
you are not surrounded by many people that look like you and that will make you feel displaced. that’s okay. do not blame your ethnicity for that. look for belonging in your role models - yasmin suteja, communitychannel and furrylittlepeach.
acne is not as bad as you think it is. start using the ordinary now!
do not measure success with your report card. let that shit go and have more fun.
your first music festival will be something you reminisce about to this day.
you don’t need to be the loudest person in the room. listen more.
that overwhelming feeling you get is called anxiety. go see a therapist.
play pretend and imagination with your sister more. there will come a day she will stop playing with her toy figurines and that will make you sad.
you will get invited to a boy’s formal. stop stressing about it.
other people in your grade will start having sex and that’s none of your business.
seek advice from your mum. she’s there for you no matter what.
schoolies is a waste of money.
don’t hate your school so much. yeah, the principal sucked and the school was problematic at times. stop harping on the negatives and spend more time with your friends and the teachers who have your back.
photos from senior year
last notes
nostalgia is so bitter sweet.
god, i miss house parties.
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remember! - i have replies turned on so please let me know what you thought of the newsletter or any ideas for upcoming themes. i’m also open to submissions. if you have something you would like to share, let’s get in touch!