Terror, the Thames, and teasers, oh, my!

Why it's worth making the thing already, plus an exclusive to Substack poem video

The photograph of “The first wistful glimpse: the twist of the Thames" that inspired my poem Untitled Thames

Happy Tuesday, Dear Readers! I am popping into your inboxes briefly today to share a poem with you and to tell you that I will be sharing an exciting announcement next week in the newsletter, so make sure to subscribe below so that you don’t miss the news.

I am reflecting on past summers and their respective creative projects today, and am reminded that six years ago (thank you Facebook memories), I wrote my first short film, Ready for Lou, and made it a reality with the help of my wonderful partner. I will forever be indebted to the talented and generous Renee Miller and Alyson Muzila for being the best co-stars a first time filmmaker could have asked for.

September 2018. My partner did most of the cinematography for my short film, but I filmed some exterior shots in Charlestown on a warm weekend that fall. My six year old self was so joyful at making a movie of my own.

Five years ago, I edited Ready for Lou and shared it on YouTube. It’s so close to my heart; the title character (whom I play) is named after my beautiful grandmother Lou, whom I’ve not met in this current version of life, and the plot is loosely based on an experience I had an audition years ago, where the director decided to surprise the actors and have us sing a solo acapella song when we arrived (no matter that I was asked to prepare a monologue and NOT a song). Spoiler: I LOVE to sing - to my cat. I am incredibly self-conscious about my singing voice and do not perform for others, so this experience struck terror into my heart.

As with so many experiences that evoke fear and shame, it was uncomfortable at the time and, over time, rolled around in my brain and heart long enough to make me curious about what a story based on this experience might look and sound and feel like.

The result is Ready for Lou - available for you to watch below - a short film that follows an actress for a day in Boston and the unexpected connection she makes with a stranger when her headshot doesn’t show in time for an audition.

(Also, this cover photo YouTube chose always makes me giggle, ha.)

When I originally shared the link to the film on my Facebook page all those years ago, I wrote this caption to accompany it:

“Making the six year old version of your thing can be scary and embarrassing and make you feel like you're a wobbly kid again, but the only way to get through your first time making something is to go ahead and make it. Life is short, embarrassment won't actually kill you, and we owe ourselves the chance to see what we might do with the time and talent we have.”

I still stand by this. I still ask myself these questions whenever I feel resistance to a new idea I’d love to make into reality.

What have I been wanting to make?

What is stopping me from making the million dollar version? The ten dollar, six year old version?

What is one small step I can take today to try and make this actually happen so that I’m not still thinking about it in ten years?

I have dreams of making more films and maybe even trying to take one of them to a film festival someday, but in the meanwhile, I am content with pausing to feel grateful for my past self being willing to feel silly chasing a dream and to celebrate actually having done it.

Cartoonist and illustrator Gary Panter shared this recently on Instagram, and it resonated with me so much.

It’s vulnerable to be a beginner and at the end of my life, I would prefer to see the jumbled pile of imperfect things I brought into being (be they poems, plays, or a pies) and know that messy as they might be, they got made. As Liz Gilbert says, “Done is better than good.”

Despite my complicated relationship with making and sharing videos of myself reading my work, I’ve been delighted to hear how much you have enjoyed recordings of me sharing my poetry aloud or taking my daily walks, so today, I’m doing just that.

In the video below, I’m sharing Untitled Thames, one of the brand new, never-shared-on-Substack-before poems that appears in the new collection, Take Me to the Thin Places. Before I read the poem, I couldn’t resist sharing the origin story for the inspiration of this poem, which involves finally raising the window shade after eating breakfast on a transatlantic flight from Boston to London on the fourth of July in 2022.