Rookie magazine folded a couple months ago, and I didn’t realize it, but I guess I’m still processing my feelings around that and it’s inadvertently influenced the things I’ve been thinking about, inspired by and setting goals around. I found Rookie later age-wise than most, probably. I started reading Rookie in 2013, my junior year of college. It set my head on fire. I started writing more, listening to lots of Riot Grrrl, going to lots of underground shows and meeting lots really cool girls.
So much of my creative endeavors, socializing and discovery revolved around girls making things from their bedroom for other girls in their bedrooms.
But all of that started to fall away slowly after I got my first job in copywriting three years ago. I stopped writing creatively and for myself because I enjoyed my work and began focusing on sharpening my skills to reach career goals. I started my now on hiatus podcast, Girl Noise during a breakup, but then stopped after 11 episodes. I’m still not sure why. Work, life, self-consciousness?
Even as I moved from my first grown-up girl apartment to another, I paid a lot of attention to creating a dreamy, girly space in the bedroom where I felt safe and inspired. But now that I’ve moved in with my boyfriend, my bedroom can’t really be the same girly sanctuary anymore. I’m finding ways inject that same sentiment into a shared space. And I’m determined to do so now more than ever. My boyfriend will have his office and I’ll have the bedroom to decorate and make a space that I can feel inspired to create. The bedroom walls are painted a New England green, so I’m going to buy blue plaid bedding, a Pendleton blanket and decorate it kind of like a teenage boy’s bedroom, which is what my actual teenage bedroom looked like, with band posters plastered all over the walls and a red and black color scheme. I’m excited about this because 1) teenage bedrooms house creativity, wonder and rebellion and 2) I think tapping into that boyish teenage bedroom vibe will remind me of my own creative courage in my teenage years.
And I’m in such a lucky position to enjoy the work I’m doing and find fulfillment in it, but I don’t want to continue feeling fulfilled just enough to where I completely lose touch with the joy of writing for myself. So when I created my mood/vision board for the start of 2019, I knew that this year needed more Girl Noise. Girl Noise is something I read in Rob Sheffield’s book, Talking to Girls About Duran Duran that I’ve held onto ever since.
“My sisters were the coolest people I knew, and still are. I have always aspired to be like them and know what they know. My sisters were the color and noise in my black-and-white boy world—how I pitied my friends who had brothers. Boys seemed incredibly tedious and dim compared to my sisters, who were always a rush of energy and excitement, buzzing over all the books, records, jokes, rumors and ideas we were discovering together. I grew up thriving on the commotion of their girl noise, whether they were laughing or singing or staging an intervention because somebody was wearing stirrup pants. I always loved being lost in that girl noise.”
I used to marinate in so much Girl Noise. I even used to make a fair amount of my own. So this year I want to go backward to move forward. I want to get back in touch with an old part of myself that has gone dormant and that I miss. I want to wear cute mini skirts and go see cool bands, I want to read more books and more things written by cool girls on the internet, I want to start writing creative nonfiction essays again and self-publish them like a lo-fi ho, I want rediscovery my love of discovering new-to-me music and movies. Maybe I’ll even pick up the microphone again and bring the podcast back. I definitely want to blog more and a lot casually on here. And I’m gonna do it all from my bedroom.
