Megan Falley's Blog, page 97
January 2, 2013
AUGUST 2012
Because I am a Leo, in all previous years on this...
AUGUST 2012
Because I am a Leo, in all previous years on this “retrospective introspective,” the picture I choose to represent August usually came from some elaborate birthday party I threw for myself. This year I kept it low-key (is that depression? or is that growing up?) with a few friends, vegetarian bbq and some sangria at home. With my impending 100 day tour, it was difficult to tear me away form my family, my room, my puppies—but i DID go to the National Poetry Slam with the beautiful humans in this picture, we made it to semi-finals, and had a dashing time. So this month I turned 24, and also celebrated a one year anniversary in a tremendously healthy and loving relationship (HALLELUJAH!) I was often freaking out about how close I was to leaving home, and life was a balance of remembering how brave and adventurous I used to be (i.e. living in New Zealand for 6 months), organizing every facet of my trip down to the dental floss I chose, and soaking up my last minutes in New York before leaving.
(Next year though, big fucking birthday. Cus fuck-a-depression and FUCK growing up.)
(in this photo: Mega, Catalina Ferro, Corinna Bain, Jamaal May. If you don’t already know their poetry, you have homework.)
July 2012 (TW DEPRESSION)
Given how marvelous, full, and blessed...
July 2012 (TW DEPRESSION)
Given how marvelous, full, and blessed all previous months were, it alarms me to write this: When I sat down to remember what happened in July, I recalled a crater-sized depression that I fell into back then. From the outside now I see how much I had to look forward to, how full my hands were with lucky stars, but that doesn’t make it less real. And you know what, sometimes depression is just that. It’s not someone being blind to the good around them, or being lazy, or not trying hard enough. It’s a time of slag and saddness. Sometimes inexplicable. And I felt it was important for me to share that with you. I could have written about missing my dad, or hating my day job, or my slam team experience, or fun times in brooklyn, or the month or two i decided to go no-poo (stop using shampoo) but all of it was swallowed up by the random and crippling sadness I felt. And feeling those feelings are okay too. All of which is to say? I am so glad I stuck around and am here to tell you about the rest of 2012. It’s only up from here.
June 2012 Honorable Mention: Being on a competing team at...
June 2012 Honorable Mention: Being on a competing team at Rustbelt in Ohio with Marty McConnell, Rachel McKibbens, and Emily Rose, placing 2nd! and making it onto the final round of the individual portion of the competition too.
June 2012
I am not sure why I cut my hair. Maybe it was because...
June 2012
I am not sure why I cut my hair. Maybe it was because Ana was buried in a wig other women cut their hair to make and I wanted to make the same donation because what else could I do? Maybe it was because I told myself that overweight people should not have short hair and I held off this cute haircut until I was thinner, and I never got thinner, so fuck it. Maybe it was because I told myself I needed my long hair to be beautiful and I wanted to either prove myself wrong, or right. Maybe I just needed something ceremonious to mark all this change: my father moved to Florida, I was in the midst of planning a major book tour, trying to pave a way to make a living as an artist, having my boyfriend just move to my city while making all the preparations to live alone on the road for three months, I don’t know why. But I cut it. And I changed. I shed something.
January 1, 2013
May 2012
This year was likely the best of my life. As the months...
May 2012
This year was likely the best of my life. As the months go on it becomes increasingly harder to select a single photograph or event to encapsulate it all. A lot of delicious things happened in May:
I visited Minneapolis for a week and watched Miles graduate from college.
After grueling preliminary and semi-final bouts, I earned myself a spot on the highly selective LouderArts poetry slam team, setting me up for a summer of working with brilliant and nuanced writers and performers.
After 9 months of long distance dating, my boyfriend moved across the country to be with me in Brooklyn.
I threw my book release party which was one of the most special days in my adult life (you can watch videos of most of it here).
So the photo I chose isn’t of one specific event, but just my face during this month, with a huge smile on it, because that’s what all the goodness of May produced. This crazy mug.
April 2012
Fittingly so, April is National Poetry Month, and...
April 2012
Fittingly so, April is National Poetry Month, and during it I received 200 copies of the book that I’d be writing, editing, perfecting, deleting, blooming, scrutinizing, loving, and nurturing for years ON MY DOORSTEP. I have always respected Write Bloody Publishing and the books and poets they put forth, and it was beyond a wild dream to have them publish my first full-length collection of poems, After the Witch Hunt. Receiving my own book in the mail was the closest I’ve come to having a child. But cuter. I also participated in a 30/30 (writing 30 poems in 30 days and posting them on the interwebz) and was inspired by my poetic cohorts and excited about my new work as I dismantled that invisible finish line. There is no stopping. Run through.
March 2012
was a big month for poetry and community. I
featured...
March 2012
was a big month for poetry and community. I
featured at LouderArts in NYC for the first time (hello, foreshadow!)
the Wade-Lewis Poetry Slam Invitational that I co-founded a couple years back went well despite my huge step-back in leadership that year.
but most importantly for the first time ever I attended (and competed in) the Woman of the World Poetry Slam. I did well for myself competitively, heard the best poetry I’d ever heard at a slam before (cus hello, ladies rock it), but most importantly I saw my community step up to the plate to support and protect me and other victim/survivors of abuse. I had some good fucking witches in my corner. (Featured here: Mindy Nettifee, Rachel McKibbens, Gypsee Yo and myself.) Mysteriously, the pamphlet “How to Identify a Predator at Your High Tea” was distributed and it was the mark of a big, necessary new wave in the poetry slam community. I felt loved, validated, and supported—-but mostly I felt ready to help and fight and rabble-rouse against the bullshit, to Red Rover arm-link with these strong, incredible women.
February 2012
When I sat down in the chair across from my...
February 2012
When I sat down in the chair across from my therapist for the first time, I told her how I had been in an abusive relationship for a year and a half, and it was a year and a half later and I was frustrated with myself for still carrying so much hurt and anger. She looked me dead in the eye and said “So it’s almost like you’ve been in a relationship with this person for three years now. I don’t want you to be sitting across from another therapist with the same anger, saying it’s been ten years time.” Everything changed.
February marked one year since I needed to get a restraining order against a former partner and I was chased out of an artistic family I thought had my back. But a mere year after thinking it was all over, surrounding me were incredible, strong friendships, a community forming together to take care of me, a sweet love who flew out to New York to be my Valentine, and my own book being published.
I’m glad I stuck around to have it all.
January 2012
The New Year was welcomed in surrounded by friends,...
January 2012
The New Year was welcomed in surrounded by friends, champagne, and confetti-laughter. At the end of the countdown, I got to kiss my sweetheart because he flew in from Minnesota to see me. The rest of the month was spent mostly at a coffee shop finishing my first book, After the Witch Hunt, in a writer’s delirium.I also did a mini teaser-tour of the North East reading poems and leading workshops. 2012 was a big year for love, fun, writing, and touring, and January served sort of as a microcosm for what was to come.
(photo pictured: me at a coffee shop, sipping dirty soy chais, writing my book.)
New Year’s Eve 2011
New Year’s Eve 2011
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