hannah witton

#DearJune Days 21 – 30

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Part 3 (and the final part) of my #DearJune posts. See Days 1-10 here and Days 11-20 here.

Day 21 – Tea

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🍵 #DearJune Day 21: Tea 🍵 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ While I am a coffee drinker first and foremost, I have come to appreciate the restorative power of tea. I often liken myself to Ramona Flowers when listing off the variety I have in my cupboard and on my shelves, I couldn’t fit them all into one space. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Tea is somewhat of a ritualistic thing in the UK. It is associated with certain times, certain events, certain moods. It literally impacts the power grid. I mostly use tea for comfort. The teas piled up in my flat are all fruity and herbal, I get my caffeine fix from coffee, I get my calm fix from tea. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ My ritual is a cup of chamomile before bed. I put away my phone, I get out a book, and I spend my last half an hour before I drift off to dream world in perfect contentment with some sleepy tea.

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Day 22 – Space

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💫 #DearJune Day 22: Space 🌙 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ My first memories of being obsessed with outer space were at primary school. I had a tendency to enthusiastically latch on to the topics we explored, at one point it was dinosaurs, another obsession was medieval British history, I definitely fancied myself a junior Egyptologist for a while too. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Space is a special thing where the magic doesn’t stop when you grow up. I am just as enchanted, bewildered, and amazed but outer space as I ever was. I know so much more about what stars are, what planets are, what the moon is. But it’s never dulled the intrigue or the beauty of the skies. Even with all the knowledge humans have about the solar system and even beyond, there are many mysteries left to solve. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ It’s a bit scary to think of all that unexplored space, and how much of it we’ll never know about. It’s also a bit exciting.

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Day 23 – Diary

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📔 #DearJune Day 23: Diary 📔 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ These are my two diaries (I couldn’t find one once and now I just have two on the go. Both Moomin themed for reasons). I like to keep a diary for three reasons: Improving my writing, Venting and exploring my emotions, and the hope that in the far future my diaries will all be discovered and become an interesting piece of history and I will be posthumously famous. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Keeping a diary makes you oddly vulnerable. Diaries might hold secrets or just emotional processing that you’re not comfortable putting into words for other people. Using my diary for venting nearly ended a friendship in high school. If someone had read my diary during University it definitely would have outed some of my carefully constructed coping mechanisms and boundaries. It seems almost foolish to me that I let so much of myself be discoverable just by picking up a book I keep by my bed (though good luck reading my handwriting). ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ It is also fun having a diary. I get to write more often, I get to choose the lens I tell my life through, I get to keep a record of all my adventures. I do think keeping a diary has made me a better writer, I think it has helped me to be able to address my experiences more thoughtfully, and most of all it’s just so fun to go back and have a friendly laugh at your younger self over crushes, and short term friend fallouts, and even the strange and silly experiences you’ve had as a fully grown, totally mature, adult – because there will always be times you just want to call someone a butthead.

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Day 24 – Magic

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🧚‍♀️ #DearJune Day 24: Magic 🧚‍♀️ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Magic is hard to define. We have traditional magic: Something supernatural, beyond human and outside the realm of science. But I don’t believe something has to seem impossible to be magical. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Magic can be a feeling. A special moment or a beautiful thing might be magic, even if it is entirely human. Places can be magical. Maybe a breathtaking forest, or a garden lit up with fairy lights at dusk. A shared feeling between friends or partners could feel magical. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Until we find the fairies at the bottom of the garden, the wizards who are just a wand tap on a brick wall away, or Nessy hidden in the depths of her loch, magic might just be the things that bring us joy. Humans are more than just capable of magic; we’re already making it.

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Day 25 – Sunflowers

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🌻 #DearJune Day 25: Sunflowers 🌻 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ People like to say that art must come from suffering. I do believe that it’s becoming a less popular artistic philosophy, but I grew up thinking the best creators were the ones that were unhappy. People like to romanticise sadness, and heartbreak, and pain. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ For me, the writing and poetry I did when I was most unhappy is some of the worst writing I have done in my life. When I’m so deeply completely sad I lean into my pretentious streak more heavily than ever, and while what I create is perhaps cathartic or useful for me as an individual. It’s usually not good art. Some creators have created amazing things born from their hardships: I am not one of them. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I worry that some creators will think their art is more important than their joy and their wellbeing. People say that if Van Gogh had not suffered we wouldn’t have his art today, and perhaps the world would be worse off. But I believe Van Gogh was capable of creating beautiful things regardless. I believe the art created out of joy is just as valid as the art created out of pain. I hope no creator ever feels they have to keep themselves down in order to make something incredible.

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Day 26 – Playing

I like structured fun. I was keen on hide and seek and other playground games long after they were popular. Quite honestly, if someone suggested hide and seek today I might still be down for it.
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The next phase of games in primary school was card games and werewolf. When interest in these tapered off I was pretty bummed. Several years later we got to drinking games and boy was I relieved.
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I don’t get bored of these games the way other people seem to. I’m sure part of it is coming to them later, and I feel like they’re different enough each time. I do know that I find it so much easier to socialise through games. So much of my anxiety in social situations is managed by having like… cards to play with. I used to be quite confused that other people got bored by these games and the fun wore off for them. Having reflected on how I’ve felt about games my whole life, and how I feel when someone suggests a game over just sitting around talking, I think it’s just part of the way I am and the way my brain works. It’s not exactly the only aspect of social interaction that’s taken me a while to wrap my head around throughout my life.
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I am a pretty extroverted person, so I will endure unstructured fun and I can definitely begin to enjoy it. But if you ever want to play board games with me, or cards, even jackbox or role playing games, don’t hesitate for a second to invite me along.

ginger cat sits on a large dollhouse like structure for cats

Day 27 – Citrus

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🍊 #DearJune Day 27: Citrus 🍊 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ To me, citrus says summer. Most fruit does to be fair. Summer has all the best stuff: swimming, sunshine, fruit, Christmas most years of my life so far (dammit UK), beaches, flowers, less bad depression, gin and tonics drunk in parks, the list goes on. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ For a while I thought autumn was my favourite season because I was born in autumn and the colours are stunning. Then I thought maybe winter because I’m a moody little so and so and I do like it an awful lot when it snows. Spring was my favourite when I was younger; I even said my favourite day of the year was the first day of spring. It signified the start of something new, an improvement in the weather, and baby little lambs! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ It turns out I was wrong the whole time. Summer is my favourite. I love the warm and the sunshine. I love beaches and meadows. I love how the vitamin D lifts my mood. The only sad thing is, quite often, I have to work.

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Day 28 – Changing

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🕰 #DearJune Day 28: Changing 🕰 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ My first instinct for today’s prompt was just to write out the entirety of the lyrics to the song changes but I’m bored on a train so here’s more writing. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I used to resist the idea that I don’t like change, because it always seems to be a bad thing. I’m coming to accept that while I’m actually happy with change more broadly, it does make me apprehensive. This is because I’m a planner. I definitely get bored if there’s no switching things up, but I don’t like a quick switch. If I know it’s coming I can prepare myself and maybe throw together some lists and agendas to make the transition more smooth for myself. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Outside of my day to day life I think change can happen frustratingly slow. Earlier this week I attended an event at parliament where an MSP chose to use the word ‘impatient’ when addressing a room full of LGBT activists. I knew what she had meant in context but the word made my heart fall into my stomach. I might not like a quick change, but I’ve been thinking about how I could feel when society is more equal ever since I realised society wasn’t equal. I’m only 23 so there’s many people who have been much more patient than myself waiting for that change. I might be a cautious person, I might like a gradual change and the chance to check in, but there’s some changes we just can not wait any longer to make. ⠀⠀⠀⠀ Anyway, let’s end capitalism.

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Day 29 – Flashes

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💥 #DearJune Day 29: Flashes 💥 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ The green flash is a phenomena that occurs just a moment before sunrise or a moment after sunset (sometimes). This flash has been described as “a green which no artist could ever obtain on his palette, a green of which neither the varied tints of vegetation nor the shades of the most limpid sea could ever produce the like! If there is a green in Paradise, it cannot be but of this shade, which most surely is the true green of hope” ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ It is no surprise that such a thing has inspired myths and superstition though it is, as many unusual phenomena are, entirely explained by science. What delights me is that not a single ounce of its magical quality has been shed due to scientific discovery, at least to me. Ever since I was wee science has never taken away from magic, it has only ever been a different kind of magic. Discovering what causes a mysterious flash that’s not often seen is amazing. It’s incredible to think how things we barely think of create things we build entire myths around. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I hope the green flash does inspire hope, and I hope that somehow it encourages those who see it to make wise decisions. Just because something can be explained by ‘science’, doesn’t mean it isn’t a bit magic too.

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Day 30 – Social

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👫 #DearJune Day 30: Social 👭 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I spend a lot of my time alone. When I’m not alone I’m usually with my partner, or I’m at work. People are often impressed with how comfortable I am going out to dinner, the theatre, or to a movie all by myself. Truly it is a result of convenience with a dash of unyielding fear of being rejected (which I’ll then subconsciously use as evidence that I am secretly widely disliked). It stems more from my lack of confidence in reaching out to people than confidence in myself. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I am terribly lonely. Since high school I’ve completely failed to build friendships that meet my needs. I still have virtually no friends I feel really close to in the UK. Most people I have connected with either turned out to just be kinda shitty friends, live nowhere near me (why must you all be in London?), or were so intrinsically tied with university experiences that I haven’t heard from them since (bar awkward cafe run-ins). ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Being social is incredibly important to me. Despite my hounding self doubt in regards to being liked I am at heart an extrovert; I draw energy from other people and I feel so much joy when I am with good people. People are surprised when I do something like volunteer flat out at Summer in the City for 3 days straight, or travel to London for one weekend just to go to an all night Disney movie marathon which nearly kills me, but it’s these experiences with these people that really keep me going. Otherwise, I am just alone, always.

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#DearJune Days 11 – 20

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Part 2 of my #DearJune posts for the Instagram challenge set by Hannah Witton.

Read Days 1-10 here and Days 21-30 here.

Day 11 – Sea

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🌊 #DearJune Day 11: Sea 🌊 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I didn’t think I loved the sea until I got in the sea when it was warm. I have long adored being in water; I love to swim more than almost any other kind of exercise, and water is so effortlessly calming. I have never been as confident in the sea though. It’s often cold and wild, and you’re never really quite sure when you will step on a crab or brush up against a jellyfish. Perhaps one of the reasons I prefer warm sea is because it’s often also clear sea, and it’s harder for creatures to hide. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ In September I visited the island of Korčula and just let myself float in the clear glittering water trying to shut off my brain. It felt so good to be in the sea. The day before I had made an impulsive decision to visit another beach I happened upon on my way to the ferry. It had been months since I had been in the sea and something inside of me just clicked, the only thing that got me out of the water was knowing I was going on to even quieter beaches. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ On New Year’s 2018 shortly after the clock struck midnight my friends and I wandered down to the beach and dived amongst the waves. I had been so nervous about this new year’s, not being sure how everyone would get along, and if I would feel welcome. Jumping around like an idiot in the sea that night was one of the times in my life I have felt the most content.

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Day 12 – Superheroes

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🦸‍♀️ #DearJune Day 12: Superheroes 🦸‍♀️ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I think I purchased this T-shirt in 2014 and haven’t let it go since even though it now has holes in it. I was a little scared to wear it at first – women in particular are often questioned on their knowledge of whatever logo is on their shirt. I didn’t know a lot about comics, or superheroes, but I knew I liked badass women and I look cute in a crop top. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Since then both comics and films have been edging toward better representation for women, and I’m beginning to pay attention. I genuinely can’t put into words the emotions I felt watching Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel. They sure weren’t perfect but I was actually seeing women superheroes! In big budget films! Fighting bad guys with their ridiculous powers! (Even watching the all-woman ghostbusters I felt awesome). I know it’s cliché but I always leave movies like that with the thought ‘is this what (cis, abled, straight, white) dudes feel like all the time?’ because I do genuinely come out of those movies feeling empowered. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ When I learned about the fat superhero Faith I lived above a comic book store, so I literally walked down the stairs and bought an issue immediately. I had never bought a comic before in my entire life, but I HAD to read about this badass woman superhero who was FAT. That was all it took to get me into a comic store.

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Day 13 – Blood 

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👯‍♀️ #DearJune Day 13: Blood 👯‍♀️ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I miss my sister. Growing up together was never without drama. There was a fair share of screaming and door slamming. There were lots of ‘borrowed’ clothes and books. Sometimes a good dose of quiet time was needed. We might not always have been best friends growing up, but we have always had each other’s backs when it mattered. The older we got the more important I knew she is to me. There is no one in this world that I trust more. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ When you’re the little sister, you always think your older sister is the coolest, and you can’t wait to be like her. This hasn’t changed for me from age 3 to 23. My older sister is still the coolest. I’m so proud of her and amazed at everything she does. I hope I grow up to be more like her.

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Day 14 – Learning

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📝 #DearJune Day 14: Learning 📝 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I love to learn. According to a ‘Via Institute on Character’ test my love of learning is my greatest strength. However, while I love it, I definitely struggle with it. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I did not always find learning difficult, it came very easily to me as a child. At primary school I was exceptional at maths in particular, but never struggled with other subjects. In my first year of high school I became embarrassed by being good at maths. By my fourth year I missed it. I couldn’t process science and maths the way I had been able to before. It was incredibly frustrating. University was a whole different ball game. I worked my ass off for my degree, and I didn’t do badly, but I couldn’t believe how hard I found it all even when I put hours and hours and hours into something. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ While I often didn’t enjoy ‘education’ I still love learning. When I discover amazing facts online, or in museums, or passing conversation, I light up inside. Not only do I enjoy it more, but I actually remember it! I don’t have to pore over books and test myself for hours and hours to drill it in. Something that strikes me is how less than a year ago I could name maybe 10 British birds (don’t tell the people that hired me). Through my job I now know more about Scotland’s wildlife than I could ever do anything with. Someone suggested to me I write a book about birds the other day, like, in a genuine way. I never sat down and forced myself to learn about birds, I’ve just read, and written, and shared such a volume of content at this point that if I didn’t know these things it would be incredibly strange. But the best part is I’ve enjoyed (almost) all of it. Maybe it’s because I’m getting paid instead of paying, maybe it’s because of the variety of ways I’m exposed to information, maybe it’s because the people I learn from are so passionate that they’ve dedicated their entire lives to the subject. It’s just so different to just listening, taking notes, and regurgitating information, and now that I’m learning outside of school, I’m learning to love it again.

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Day 15 – Home 

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🏠 #DearJune Day 15: Home 🏠 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Everyone wants to go to New Zealand. A lot of people joke about relocating there entirely as if it’s some kind of utopia of equality and happiness. On the other hand, most Kiwis I know want to go everywhere else. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ When you grow up in one corner of the world in a country missing from a surprising number of maps, you get a little restless. New Zealand is over 1500km from top to bottom with some of the most dramatic landscapes, beautiful beaches, and drinkable coffee in the world. It’s hard to imagine wanting to leave unless you’re one of the ones who grew up there and discovered that’s exactly what you want to do. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I don’t want to be away from home forever, in fact I miss it very much. I would like to be a part of the change happening at home, while other places seem to be going in the opposite direction*. Home is an amazing place and I am lucky to have ties there. However, just for now, I want to be close to the world, and New Zealand can’t offer me that.

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Day 16 – Icons

I was struggling with the theme of ‘icons’ a lot because I don’t have any specific icons of my own I look up to, and I couldn’t think of anything clever to say about computer icons. I googled icons and read the sentence ‘Pop icons of previous eras include Benjamin Franklin and Mozart’. This seemed kind of wild to me both because those two people are surely still iconic in some way today, and also because the term ‘pop icon’ just doesn’t seem a comfortable fit for them.
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I’ve realised I associate the phrase ‘iconic’ quite strongly with the queer community. Interestingly, there are many, many people with ‘queer icon’ status who aren’t queer. We end up in this weird position of wanting so desperately for both characters and actual real people to come out as queer because they fit this queer icon image. I hope in the near future there will just be more queer queer icons. They are definitely out there. I’m glad there are already some amazing queer icons to look up to, I’m just always starved for more.
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It really struck me at the Spice Girls how many of the attendees were visibly queer. I feel like the Spice Girls are such a weird image of 90s feminism and even though they were going full out with the inclusive messaging, I felt like I could see the split in the audience where there were super straight people and super gay people. Are the spice girls queer icons? Discuss.

dear june icons allie grace

Day 17 – Balloons

This is the first dear June I have failed to source my own picture for, but all I could think of for this prompt was the balloon photograph in the film Funny Face and I am far too sleepy today to think much beyond that.
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The part of the movie where they go out and take all the different photos was one of my absolute favourites, even though the song in that bit is one of the least fun (Give me Think Pink and Clap Yo’ Hands please). Someone please give me pretty dresses and a bunch of balloons and let me run around Paris.
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Also, take more candid photos of me you cowards.

Audrey Hepburn dressed in black dress holding a large number of balloons of different colours with some classic cars in the background

Day 18 – Post-its

You’re really challenging my need to sound pretentious and poetic with this prompt. I don’t really use post-its myself, I like the idea of them but actually they are of very little use and they are never sticky enough.
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The only real uses I can think of for post-its are for sticking the phone number for IT services to your work desktop, and then I suppose I see lots of people put post-its on top of stacks of paper about a thing to remind them what to do with that particular stack of paper.
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I’m not sure that I have ever regularly used post-its, but nowadays they seem particularly outdated. Do you think post-its could become obsolete?

two yellow post it notes stuck to a window. One has the word 'post' on it while the other has the word 'its; with a sketch of a pad of post its

Day 19 – Wishing

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⭐️ #DearJune Day 19: Wishing 🌟 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ For a grown adult I do follow wishing superstition fairly closely. Whether it’s throwing a coin in a fountain, blowing out candles, or saving a ‘fairy’ I tend to steal a quick moment to make a wish. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ These wishes have varied wildly throughout my life from wanting to be rich to wanting to have a British shorthair called Cake (both of these still stand). I went through a period in my teens where I made particularly serious wishes about wanting to be happy, or be able to control my emotions. While at that age I had well and truly accepted that losing an eyelash wouldn’t manifest anything, there was still some comfort in verbalising my hopes when prompted by these bizarre cues. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Nowadays I think I’ve mostly circled back to the more frivolous wishes, but there is still always a tiny part of me that thinks maybe, just maybe, it might happen.

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Day 20 – Skin

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🌌 #DearJune Day 20: Skin 🌌 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ When I was younger I thought it was important for tattoos to be meaningful, because they might be on your skin forever. I made sure I could defend my tattoos if scrutinised. I was more worried about how to respond to what other people thought than about what was important to me. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I regularly forget my tattoos are there now. It’s been more than 4 years since I got a new one (largely thanks to budget constraints) and they’ve become a part of my skin. People have stopped asking what they mean too, which is refreshing. I mean, honestly guys, ‘Battle Born’ isn’t that deep. I don’t give a damn if you can’t read the font – I can’t read it either with my right boob well and truly in the way. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ The stars on my wrist are a little more mystifying to people. No, it’s not the southern cross. No, it’s not ~quite~ the Taurus constellation, though I did model it off that in case I got any questions. Honestly, I got this tattoo because I was sad and angry about something that had happened. I wanted to do something that would put me right and make me feel badass again. The tattoo does have meaning, it has deeply personal meaning and has been an important reminder to me many times in the past years. But that meaning is just for me.

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#DearJune Days 1-10

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During June I took part in an Instagram challenge named #DearJune from superstar and friend Hannah Witton. I surprised myself by managing to write at least a little something every day and also by being brave enough to be so open and to share pieces of writing at all!

I’ve decided to put the pictures I shared and all the pieces of writing up here as well, largely because I’m about to get a bit pretentious about my Instagram ~aesthetic~ and archive some of the posts.

Don’t forget to follow my Instagram @alliegrce and I might share more writing there in the future!

Day 1 – Beginnings

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☀️ #DearJune Day 1: Beginnings ☀️ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I chose these photos because they were taken on New Years; a pretty traditional ‘beginning’. I believe that New Years Resolutions can be unhealthy but I’m fairly sure I still set some. I don’t remember what they were. 🌅⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ The beginning of a new year is easy to pin down, but often it isn’t terribly meaningful. I find it much harder to put a time stamp on the beginning of my achievements, relationships, and growth. But I do find it comforting to have such structured beginnings built in – new day, new month, new year – so that, when something feels like it’s gone quite wrong, you always have the promise of a fresh start.

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Day 2 – Yellow

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🔸 #DearJune Day 2: Yellow 🔸 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Yellow is my favourite colour! It succeeds green, which I know was my favourite colour when I started University, but I don’t know exactly when it was usurped. 💛⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I like yellow for all the totally cliche reasons you would expect. It is bright, it is happy, it is hopeful. I think it’s really easy to feel despairing and helpless at the moment. I feel frustrated and powerless when I hear stories or even statistics from across the world, both about people and our planet. Sometimes, when I feel like this, I will close my eyes and picture myself in Monet’s yellow room (second image). It’s a special place for me, and rooting myself there helps give me a little boost, a bit of a recharge to keep me going. Growing up my family had our own yellow room. Yellow walls, yellow couches. When it fills with sun it is beautiful. I can feel my anxiety ebb just thinking about it. 💛 I hope one day we can all have our own little yellow rooms. Somewhere we can sit in the sun, breathe, and feel inspired to decide what’s next. 💛

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Day 3 – Music

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🎶#DearJune Day 3: Music 🎶 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ It blows my mind how much music can make me feel. There are hundreds of pieces of music out there that I can listen to and see some part of my experience reflected in. When I’m at a gig I’m surrounded by people who also see that little glimpse of themselves in that artists work. For someone who feels lonely a lot, that’s pretty special. 🎵 This pic is from Maisie Peters gig where I cried a little bit. Maisie has a couple of songs that make me think of home, in particular the people there. There aren’t a lot of people I really truly miss, but the people I care about most in the whole world are either in New Zealand or in Australia. When I listen to certain songs I feel a little bit less far away, like maybe another girls night out at Chow isn’t so far off, maybe I’ll hit up Kaffee Eis and the dressing room of Forever New any day now, and one day I’ll get my mystery present from @tessa.lim 🎵

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Day 4 – Forgetting

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💬 #DearJune Day 4: Forgetting 💬 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I do not like to forget things. I have a pretty intense set up of calendars, planners, and notebooks. Despite being a top notch organisation Queen, the actual contents of my notebooks are all over the place. If you think I have a dedicated notebook for lists, one for poetry, one for budgets etc… Unfortunately not. My notebooks are a brain dump of whatever I need the notebook for at the time. I have draft plots for a novel next to notes from a digital marketing workshop. It’s kind of fun to have all the different kinds of things I do and all my varied interests living side by side on the pages of my (many, many) notebooks. I still manage to track down all the important stuff (that’s what stickers and colour coding are for). 📝 I did forget a doctors appointment last week though. First time in my entire life. Let’s not talk about that. 📝

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Day 5 – Lightning

Day 6 – Travelling 

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🚂 #DearJune Day 6: Travelling 🚂 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ My anxiety says I should hate travel. I don’t like planes. I don’t like not being in control. I like to know where I’m going and I like to know where I am. This is made much easier when everything is in English, maybe on a good day I can get by with French or even Spanish. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ In quite the twist of events I actually adore travel. The anxiety doesn’t go away exactly, but the worst of it is always on the plane. Exploring new places, discovering history, lying on golden beaches that aren’t also being rained on… I love it and I live for it. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Since I started earning a full time salary travel is what I treat myself with. It’s what I look forward to most. I find it almost unbearable when I return from a trip not to immediately plan my next. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I hope all the good work I do for the environment helps cancel out the flights at least a little bit. I’m sorry earth, but until there are more supersonic trains across the oceans, I just don’t think I could live without it

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Day 7 – Risks

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🎲 #DearJune Day 7: Risk 🎲 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ This is a photo from the day I graduated university. I think it’s fair to say moving over 18,000km and spending let’s-not-say-how-much-money for university is the biggest risk I’ve ever taken. It didn’t really feel like a risk when I first started, I don’t even remember feeling that scared (though there were some really sad goodbyes). I don’t remember when it hit me that I was so far from home, but I remember a lot of the times it hit me hardest. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I didn’t always think I would make it all the way through my degree at Edinburgh. I got homesick a lot, friendships that were incredibly important to me at the beginning crumbled by second year and weren’t replaced, some academic achievements seemed to be beyond my reach no matter how many hours I put in, my heart was broken at least twice (i think i only broke one heart in the same period), and I went through some of the worst periods of my mental illness that I’ve ever dealt with. I went through a lot of this alone. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ What got me through was 1️⃣ my determination and drive (I am part Slytherin, fight me) 2️⃣ the amount of money my parents had invested in me and 3️⃣ not wanting any of the people that thought I couldn’t do it to have the satisfaction… ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Spite can be a powerful tool sometimes 💁‍♀️

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Day 8 – Connections

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🤝 #DearJune Day 8: Connections 🤝 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Since high school I have really struggled making lasting connections. For the first 18 or so years of your life you are with the people that are your friends a lot of the time, like, all day most days. While sometimes that makes conflict rough and the basis of your friendships kind of arbitrary, it makes being friends and being there for each other much easier. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Now I am grown I find even the friends that I know like me and care for me are very hard to maintain relationships with that support the social and emotional needs of both/all of us. Everyone is so busy and tired, it often costs money to socialise, we’re all so scared of being rejected and ignored. I don’t think it’s just me who feels lonely and disconnected. (maybe I’m wrong and everyone is actually hanging out and sharing love and support all the time; a serious fear I also hold) ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Anyway, invite me to your parties, I’m very cool 😎

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Day 9 – Bodies

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👯‍♀️ #DearJune Day 9: Bodies 👯‍♀️ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I could say A LOT about bodies. Much of it about mine, but I’m not short on commentary on societies perceived ownership and right towards other people’s bodies. The obvious example being reproductive rights, but it doesn’t even come close to stopping there. I’ve decided to talk about fatness. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ As someone who has been fat most of my life, people have often felt entitled to comment on my body. I remember almost every incident when strangers have commented on it in public. I remember people telling me how awesome I looked when I lost weight. I remember all the times even family and friends made me feel guilty for eating while being fat, filled with good intention. I remember people thinking I should be grateful that they wanted to hook up with me. Up until this very day people will assume a lot about my health and not be afraid to tell me about it. Society’s fatphobia has become completely ingrained in me. I am still terrified to show my body. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Yesterday I went to Murrayfield stadium and I didn’t fit through the turnstile. Now, I’m a small fat, so I still have mucho privilege, probably amplified by my mostly hourglass shape, and I STILL have these moments where I don’t fit through spaces, I’m in pain in cinema seats, and I get people giving me angry side eye when I slide into the plane seat next to them. The world is not designed for us. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ There’s a body positivity movement, which has been embraced by people of all sizes. There’s a big emphasis on learning to love yourself, regardless of what society thinks or says. While I understand the value of that; I understand that my journey to loving my body isn’t complete (though I have come very far), it’s not really the problem. What good is loving myself if I’m still less likely to get hired, taken less seriously by medical professionals, and unable to even find clothes to wear. The problem isn’t fat people not loving themselves, I think you’ll find most of us know we’re fucking brilliant. The problem is the rest of society acting like it’s our fault we didn’t love ourselves in the first place.

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Day 10 – Glitter

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✨ #DearJune Day 10: Glitter ✨ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ The first time I remember realising just how persistent glitter was involved a bath bomb. It had just a little sparkle on the outside to lull you into a false sense of security. A couple of seconds after it hit the water it looked like a bath full of glitter glue. I’m not entirely convinced that you couldn’t find specks of glitter from that same bath bomb there now. There were definitely several weeks of emerging from the bath a little more sparkling clean than I was aiming for. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I learned my lesson. I now largely avoid glittering bath bombs. I definitely don’t avoid glitter though. If I could wear sparkling outfits every single day I honestly might. I’m sad that glitter and sparkle is reserved for special occasions, but you can bet I’m looking forward to #pride where I will be lathered in it head to toe, and of course the many weeks afterwards during which I will still be finding inexplicable traces of glitter on clothes I wasn’t even wearing.

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Read days 11-20 here and days 21-30 here.

Summer in the City: Books!

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Obviously the growing overlap of books and YouTube is controversial. I won’t go into that. For me, it was really cool to see how the two different interests of mine overlapped. There were two panels I was really excited about – and luckily managed to get to (I was volunteering at the event so panels were not the top priority). I saw the Booktube panel on the Saturday, and the Women who write panel on the Sunday.

Penguin Platform stall
Penguin had a great stall at Sitc and even gave me free books and a cute ass tote bag

When I tried YouTube when I was younger I had always wanted it to be related to books, and if I ever try again I suspect I will come back to that. The Booktube community was one of my early points of access to the wider YouTube community. The Panel was moderated by Sanne (booksandquills) who I have followed for years and years. Other speakers were Hannah Witton, Ariel Bissett, Lucy Powrie, Genista Tate-Alexander, Olly Thorn (PhilosophyTube), and Imani Shola. I had known of and watched about half of the panelists before, and am really interested in what the other panelists do.

I was particularly interested in Olly Thorn’s work on YouTube. As a soon-to-be Psychology graduate I have often thought about making academia that I am familiar with more accessible by making YouTube content. This is effectively exactly how Olly got his start. I think it’s so important that knowledge is made more accessible to everyone. University is insanely expensive. Textbooks, journals, and even general non-fiction books can really empty out one’s wallet quickly. I was glad to see people are already doing the things I have thought about in approaching education accessibility, and I hope to be a bigger part of it someday.

It was interesting to hear Hannah and Imani speak a little on their own published works. I had already read ‘Doing It’ as a big fan of Hannah and as someone who is very involved in improving sex education. I now have Imani’s poetry book ‘Heart Shards and Lip balm’ sitting on my bed for me to read ASAP. I did not know of Imani before but she was such a highlight of the event. She radiates positivity and thoughtfulness, and I think it was so worthwhile having her voice on panels at the event. I can’t wait to see more of her.

women who write panel
Women who write panel

I would love to write more, so hearing from people who have written is an opportunity I don’t like to pass up. Whether it be poetry, non-fiction, or something else entirely, I love to hear about other people’s processes and experiences with writing (particularly if their writing is out there in the world, on bookstore shelves and in amazon warehouses). This brings me on to the second bookish panel: Women who write. As well as Hannah and Imani making an appearance again, Savannah Brown, Hazel Hayes, Connie Glynn, and Dodie Clark were there to talk about heaps of different kinds of writing.

Each of them were coming at writing in different ways. Hannah, who was moderating, has written her non-fiction book about sex education. Imani and Savannah both have published poetry books, and Savannah is also in the process of writing a novel. Connie (who you may know as Noodlerella) is writing a series of YA books. Hazel is a film-maker, and has written a number of scripts, but also has a background in short story writing. Finally, Dodie is primarily known for being a song-writer, but also has a non-fiction book being released later this year.

It was so interesting hearing all of their different perspectives and experiences with writing. I was really fascinated by what each of them had to say, and was taking notes on my phone about some of their strategies and techniques. I particularly like hearing women speak on it, and it was really interesting to hear about the prominence of women in the book industry (Especially in contrast to the film industry, which Hazel had good insight into).

I’m really glad to have had the opportunities to hear all of these people speak at both panels. My love and passion for writing, books, and publishing, was well supported at the event, which was really exciting for me. I hope to see more insight into this world in the future, and continue to explore how it connects with online media and personalities.

Allie x

P.S. Later this week I will probably write a blog about YouTube culture more broadly, and being a ‘fan’. As I have a lot of thoughts I’d like to write down, and as I’ve learned in the last 24 hours, Twitter is not sufficient for sharing those thoughts…

 

Mentioned in this post:

Sanne Vliegenthart
Hannah Witton
Imani Shola
Lucy Powrie
Ariel Bissett
Genista Tate-Alexander
Olly Thorn
Hazel Hayes
Dodie Clark
Savannah Brown
Connie Glynn