every brilliant thing - january 2025
music, museums, matsukawa
I’m breaking my own rule this month. When I started writing EBT lists in March 2024, I noted the following:
This differs from a traditional gratitude practice in that I’m only adding things as I encounter them in real time. There are no retrospective items—no fond memories from my youth or even from last month. Looking for brilliant things keeps me moving through life with an acute awareness of what’s happening around and within me, rather than just letting myself go through the motions.
But this month is almost exclusively retrospective items.
After a very difficult and painful New Year’s Eve, I fell into dissociation and processing mode, which disrupted my usual ways of interfacing with the world. Things felt bleaker, so I did not recognize as many brilliant things in the moment. I also lost touch of my routines and sense of self, so I fell out of writing down the things I did encounter.
So this list is cobbled together through the lens of today rather than being little snapshots in time. I’ve scrubbed through my travel journal and my pictures to try to jog my memory of what I did, who I saw, and what silver lining could possibly have been laced within my pain. I’ll try get back to writing these down in real time in February, but in the interim, I am having grace with myself. I did a hard thing, navigating a traumatic experience. I’m doing the best I can.
Here’s my January playlist. Notable are 9, 39, and 43, and a special shout out to my friend Chris for releasing a single, which is 60.
So with that,
here’s (i think) every brilliant thing i encountered in january:
Witnessing someone accidentally kick a firecracker into an open passenger window of a car driving by (the thing itself was not brilliant, but the sheer unlikelihood of it was—how viscerally shocked I was, how alive I felt, how wild it was witnessing everyone’s panic)
Going into fight mode when my response is usually to fawn or freeze
A pretty building exterior in Edinburgh, with red stairs and a plethora of differently colored doors1
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Andrew stealing my phone to add music he thought I’d like to my January playlist (he was right. Almost all of the John Martyn was his doing)
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Watching Andrew scrape ice off of his car (I’d never seen that before)
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Having a window seat so I could watch my plane’s propeller spin
A very warm, very kind server at The Pantry in Portlaoise, Ireland
A strange staircase to nowhere at The Pantry, in front of where I was seated2
The Dean Galway, with its boutique gym and hydrotherapy pools that guests had access to
Irish milk chocolate
Mussels & fries at The Quay Street Kitchen (you were right Amy, this was ridiculous)
Watching a street performer in Galway (I was having a particularly dissociative day, and this helped bring me a pocket of joy and aliveness)
A variety of condensation patterns in the sky3
Jamming music with Eli, a refugee from Kyiv who had been on The Voice Ukraine and X Factor Ukraine
Crow on black car, gull on white car4
Playing my kalimba at the Cliffs of Moher
The most rotund little bird that I ever did see5
Getting lost in rural Ireland without service, navigating myself in the right direction
Afternoon tea at the Glasson Lakehouse on Lough Ree
Frosted grass that looks like spaghetti6
The small world situation of meeting a group of people in Galway who were signed up for the same Jameson tour slot as me the next day in Dublin7
Seeing Paloma at the Guinness Storehouse; the first familiar face I had seen in almost a week8
My bit of describing our Jameson tastings as if they were lovers, because I am jack shit otherwise as describing tasting notes (We had “your gentle lover,” “the mistress who has the power to ruin you,” and “the one that got away”)9
Discovering that my hotel rom in Dublin had a guitar I could play
A door decorated like a present10
A delightful walk with Chris Wong, another familiar face I relished11
A small piece of seaside artwork made from fabric12
Stumbling upon a secret book & record store down a sketchy-looking hallway13
A wind-blown seagull in Howth, somehow staying far more upright than I was
The Ruby Sessions, but namely how inspired I felt after to really dig into music (Conor, the founder, said to keep in touch so I can come back to perform 😳 the thought of it left me both terrified and feeling so alive)
Seagulls standing on ice14
Going to the National Gallery of Ireland with Filip, who was so enthusiastic about it15
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Matsukawa Omakase (I wanted to weep at how delicious it was, how at home I felt speaking Japanese with everyone, how tickled I was that the hand-written receipt looked just like my mom’s handwriting)
Rory’s cue cards
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Finally taking advantage of living across the street from the DMV
Anaïs Mitchell’s Q&A at work
Charlie and my cozy, relaxing weekend in Santa Cruz
Finally watching my friend and songwriting collaborator Gavi Silverman perform
Rebecca’s kindness and excitement to help me form a small creative collective for my music
Watching Sanoma (aka nomes) DJ at the charity party for LA Wildfire Relief that she organized
- ’s delight when I gave her the finished Pika rug16
My birthday gathering, where I saw so many people I love interact with all the other people I love
Skateboarding for the first time in the Panhandle, proving to myself that I would not die of embarrassment
Sunset beach picnic with Sanoma, feat. the ultimate girl dinner spread17
Playing piano and singing in the Half Note during lunch, having someone from Disney Research in Zurich who was visiting as if he could sit and listen to me
Our Waymo announcing, “Now headed to SF Oral Surgery,” because Charlie was trying to bury the lead on where he was taking me for my birthday dinner
Starting rehearsals for a performance of a scene from Lungs, my favorite play
FaceTime with Emmy Jo, which is leading me to lock in and commit to making music this year
