the first memory

The inauguration of a project always feels particularly momentous. It sets the tone for the rest of the project, like a name could.

What kind of memory do you preserve first?

Like my relationship to these memories, a project can grow and change… but for now, I’ll let my memories guide me first. It's been two months since I've dreamt up this project, in a hazy daydream on a bumpy car ride…and I still don't know what I want to lead with.

I gravitate towards memories of school and the act of making friends. Sometimes I lean towards memories of former friends and lovers, and how they shaped me. Sometimes, I reflect on when I was alone, exploring the depths of my own musings… Much like now.

How could anyone ever know?

I cycle through so many memories in a day, in different categories for different events. They guide my decisions at work and in conversations. They're the cement of my foundation—flexible, durable, but decidedly more fickle. They'll hold stable when I falter, and fall apart when I do not.

I guess all this to say I don't know what to pick, and what moods will strike, or how I'll choose. This is not a meticulous memoir by any means, but a collection of oddities. Not everything has to be profound.

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So today, I will talk about the first memory I lost. I had a friend named Sarah, and we had known each other since kindergarten. We spent a lot of time together at school and out of school, and at one conversation… She brought up how in third grade, I used to like eating rice with ketchup, and nothing else.

I was stunned, “Just ketchup? Really?”

"Yes," she said, "You ate it all the time."

When this was brought to my attention, I couldn't believe it. It sounded disgusting then and certainly does now. I don't remember this at all, and I cannot recall ever doing this but I believe her. Someone who has eaten with me across countless meals would know.

More shocking was that I couldn’t remember. It was the first time I realized my memory is fallible. I would learn that many more times in my life…

I'm just glad my taste has improved since.

Museum of Memories

I’ve read many books about the decay and preservation of memory. We experience it in the loss of cultural practices and stories. We see it in our daily lives, from small lapses like forgetting what we did yesterday to a cherished memory with an old friend.

During the half-sleep of a bumpy car ride in Vietnam, I dreamt up a new project: a museum of memories. I’ve deposited little pieces of myself across the internet and the people I’ve known. There are versions of myself only certain people know. There are quirks that I need to be reminded of. I know each of these pieces will be forgotten one day.

But what I can do now, is carefully arrange them in this little place on the internet I call my own. Maybe one day, when I am closer to dust and I’ve strayed from myself, I can return to a version of me in these reflections.

And maybe, I’ll remember myself again.

Life of a mirrorball: Bright lights and shiny people

On the heels of a new era for our favorite, shiny, showgirl, I want to analyze a motif Taylor has often used in her music: bright lights and shiny people.

Early in her career 

Taylor has always loved stars, guiding lights in the darkest nights. Even as she faced difficulties in her adolescence, she believed in the goodness and integrity of people. She would refer to people as shiny, pillars of kindness during hard times. Shiny people are people who bring joy into your life. She even recognizes that there is light in people, despite the hurt they’ve caused her. Her relationship to lights is innocent and kind, a reflection of her youthful optimism.

• Debut | Invisible: She can't see the way your eyes, light up when you smile

• Debut | Mary's Song: I looked at you like the stars that shine

• Fearless | Hey Stephen:  I've seen it all, so I thought that I'd never seen nobody shine the way you do

• Fearless | Jump Then Fall: And every time you shine, I'll shine for you

• Fearless | You're Not Sorry: You used to shine so bright, but I watched all of it fade

• Speak Now | Dear John: I'm shining like fireworks, over your sad empty town

• Speak Now | Innocent: Your string of lights is still bright to me

• Speak Now | Ours: People throw rocks at things that shine

Clashing with flashing lights

As her fame increased, these bright lights also became weapons. Lights grew to represent the intrusion of celebrity culture, the exposure of her most private life. She dares her critics to set her on fire because of all the wrongs they believe she has done. Even with these evolutions, light still represents the warmth of other people and what she values.

• Red | The Lucky One: Another name goes up in lights, you wonder if you'll make it out alive

• Red | Nothing New: And someone else lights up the room? …The kind of radiance you only have at 17

• Red | Bet You Think About Me: You grew up in a silver-spoon gated community, Glamorous, shiny, bright Beverly Hills

• 1989 | Welcome to New York: The lights and noise are blinding

• 1989 | I Know Places: Lights flash and we'll run for the fences

• 1989 | This Love: Lantern, burning, flickered in the night for only you

• reputation | Don't Blame Me: They're burning all the witches even if you aren't one, so light me up, light me up (Light me up, light me up)

• Lover | Daylight: Everyone looked worse in the light

In folklore, she refers to herself as a mirrorball (disco ball) known for its fractured light reflecting back on an ever attentive audience. She recognizes losing friends to the false shine of celebrity in dorothea, but is drawn to the inner warmth and glow of a lover in ivy. Even evermore has moments of light flickering in the seas of melancholy.

• folklore | mirrorball: I'm a mirrorball…Shimmering beautiful

• evermore | dorothea: The stars in your eyes shined brighter in Tupelo and if you're ever tired of being known for who you know

• evermore | dorothea: You got shiny friends since you left town…

• evermore | evermore: and when I was shipwrecked, I thought of you, in the cracks of light I dreamed of you

The Midnights album contains several songs where Taylor directly acknowledges the complexity of being a bright, shiny, person. In Anti-Hero, she sings about confronting the brightest sun and her inability to look at herself in the mirror. In Dear Reader, she implores people to finding another guiding light, a shining beacon in a sea of darkness. It’s too much for her, someone who is lonely and alone. Despite that, she can’t help being the most dazzling person in the room.

• Midnights | Anti-Hero: I'll stare directly in the sun, but never in the mirror

• Midnights | Dear Reader: You should find another guiding light…But I shine so bright

• Midngihts | Bejeweled: Best believe I'm still bejeweled…I can still make the whole place shimmer

• Midnights | Karma: Ask me why so many fade but I'm still here

The Tortured Poets Department brings forth another round of lights. They’re still intrusive representations of fame and celebrity. They still represent the warmth of other people, even when she is in the depths of her own heartbreak. Perhaps most telling, she is still the brightest, shiniest mirrorball on stage, even as some assert her own girlish glow is fading.

• TTPD | loml: I felt aglow like this, never before and never since

• TTPD | I Can Do It With a Broken Heart: Lights, camera, bitch, smile even when you wanna die

• TTPD | I Can Do It With a Broken Heart: There in her glittering prime, The lights refract sequin stars off her silhouette every night

• TTPD | Fresh out the Slammer: Camera flashes, welcome bashes, get the matches

• TTPD | Clara Bow: No one in my small town thought I'd see the lights of Manhattan

• TTPD | Clara Bow: Only when your girlish glow flickers just so, do they let you know

What does this mean for our favorite showgirl?

Maybe nothing? Maybe something? Thematically, Taylor has gathered all these meanings of light in her life as a show girl. In the new album cover, she’s dressed in a dazzling, bejeweled dress. Each jewel twinkles, like each shard of a mirrorball. She is aglow and illuminated in each of these album covers. In the New Heights podcast, she shared that this album is effervescent and joyful. She's embraced her light, in its fractured and furious mess.

She’s here to tell us a diamond is going to shine, and she is going to be the brightest one out there. Vibrant, vivacious, luminous, and in love.

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