Hello again,
I write to you today approximately 24 hours after I had pure dopamine pulsing through my veins. Today, I am crashing. I am absolutely exhausted. My legs have bruises all over them, my arms and neck are sore, and I feel like I’m one minor inconvenience away from unlocking the Pandora’s Box behind my eyes and just letting out every emotion that has built up over the last 36 hours. I am heavily caffeinated, even now at 9:34 pm, sitting in the living room of a family for which I babysit, wondering if I’ll ever be the one who hires a babysitter to come and watch my children in a gorgeous 4000 square foot house while I go out with my husband. It all seems so far away— so far that it seems impossible to reach in my lifetime.
Then again, do I even want that?
Do I even want that?
I’ve asked myself this question after every consideration I’ve made up to this point in my life. I got a job at a gym. Do I even want that? I was accepted to one of the country’s top art schools. Do I even want that? I was offered a marketing internship at a local government-run program center. Do I even want that? My application to my first-ever apartment was accepted. Do I even want that? I got into a competitive program at one of the country’s best schools. Do I even want that?
I second guess and doubt myself every time there’s an opportunity to do so. I bend and twist until I almost break to accommodate for other people’s needs. I am notoriously a people-pleaser, and no matter how many times my therapist points out that tendency as the root of a problem, I continue to make the same mistakes.
But in the past month, something changed.
I feel a little silly saying this now, but for the purpose of really giving you an idea of where I’m coming from, I’ll be completely honest. One of the main reasons I decided to apply to UW-Madison in the first place was because I became familiar with EMMIE Magazine, a student-run music journalism publication funded through the Wisconsin Union Directorate. When I first found out about the magazine, I instantly became obsessed, seeing the incredible photos and stories written by people in my shoes. I was a student at Edgewood College at the time and I had been considering transferring to UW, but this magazine solidified my decision to make it happen. I had to write for EMMIE.
In my first semester at UW, I missed the spring kick-off meeting for EMMIE and gave up. I knew no one, I was so intimidated and awestruck by all the students who knew what they were doing with the magazine, and I simply could not bring myself to gather the courage to go to the second meeting. In my mind, I’d missed my opportunity. I pushed this crushed dream, yes, I saw it that way, to the back of my mind.
Then COVID happened, then summer happened, then the fully online fall 2020 semester happened, and I had another shot. An introductory meeting over Zoom was a lot less intimidating than sitting in a room full of people and having to do an icebreaker and say that I was a 21-year-old who didn’t know their class standing and likely wouldn’t graduate until a year and a half after her original expected graduation date. I simply kept my camera off and didn’t say much, didn’t really get involved and didn’t really assert myself. I allowed opportunity to approach me as I sat and waited for something to happen. This is not my proudest confession.
I am timid until I’m familiar with something. As soon as I know how it works, if I want in, I will make any project my bitch. (Sorry grandma, I know you don’t like me swearing, but for lack of a better phrase… forgive me.) And that is what I did.
This semester, I am the Editor of Photography for not only EMMIE Magazine but also for The Dish, another WUD Publications-funded, student-run magazine out of UW. I hadn’t planned for either of these positions but here we are.
The slow-moving start of EMMIE this year was not my speed. (Beyond the control of EMMIE staff, may I add… the sponsors didn’t quite have all the kinks figured out by the time the semester started.) So, I did it on my own.
Brainstorm. Mood board. Email inquiry draft. Edited. Sent. Waited. A reply overnight? Perfect. Date in the books. Pitch to features editor. Roadblock. Editor-in-chief overruled in my favor. Thank god, because that wouldn’t have been fun to back out of. Research. Album on repeat. Research. Planning. Research. Anxiety. Research. Draft questions. Cry. Sleep? Rinse. Repeat. Holy shit, it’s tomorrow?
And today, it was yesterday. One of the (and I can not stress this enough) best days of my life.
Yesterday, I had the incredible opportunity and honor of conducting an up close and personal photoshoot and subsequent interview with the rising 70s-funk-reminiscent artist, Neal Francis. Not only that, but I checked off a near three-year item on my to-do list: shoot a concert at Madison’s premier music and event venue, The Sylvee. And not only that, but I shot photos of the four times Grammy-nominated R&B/soul band, Black Pumas.
Neal Francis backstage at The Sylvee. 10.15.2021
I will now address myself:
Perri, let me get real with you. What you did last night is not an opportunity that just presents itself to people. That kind of thing isn’t done by the girl who sits in on a Zoom call in silence with her camera turned off. That is what happens when you are bold, kind, direct, and prepared. That is what happens when you work hard. That is what happens when you step, no, leap outside of your comfort zone. Don’t forget that.
Now back to the story:
All of this positive self-talk may lead you to believe that I was very confident going into yesterday. That was simply not the case. I was, however, as prepared as I possibly could have been, eliminating any possibility of error that I could foresee. But I was truly all nerves. So much so that on my way to the interview, I noticed my hands shaking as I downed my last sip of coffee and realized I hadn’t eaten since nearly 9 a.m. (And if you know me, you know that this doesn’t happen— I write for a fucking food magazine for goodness’ sake.)
Eric Burton of Black Pumas performing at The Sylvee. 10.15.21
I think the first 15 minutes or so were the hardest— introductions and small talk are every introvert’s nightmare— but once I got the camera in my hands, every last milliliter of cortisol drained from my body and I truly felt like I was right where I was meant to be, doing exactly what I was meant to do.
There were moments that my confidence wavered, no doubt. When the 40-something-year-old “professional” photographers joined me in the pit to shoot the show. My mind told me that they were irritated with my presence, and to stay out of their way, because this was their real job. I’m just a college student doing this on a volunteer basis. Or when my brain started telling me to stop texting questions to Neal’s tour manager because I was being annoying. That it wasn’t his job to worry about me.
Sometimes, all it takes is for one kind thing to be said to realize how skewed my thinking is.
Upon expressing my gratitude to Neal for the sacrifice of his time and openness, I was given the same amount of gratitude for my time and interest in doing a story like this. Upon reaching out to Brendan O’Connell, Neal’s manager who organized this all, for a hug at the end of the evening, I was embraced with the same warmth that I was feeling inside. And upon every smile I gave to another person, a smile was given back to me.
Today, I am so glad for the self-awareness I have of my own tendency to talk myself down when I feel like I’m getting in the way, and I am so glad for people like those that I had the chance to work with yesterday. If it weren’t for these two factors that came together to create a perfect, harmonious experience… things could have looked a lot different.
Ok, not everything was perfect: I clumsily carried a vintage dusty pink velvet chair down Livingston Street (resulting in 13 dime-sized bruises on my thighs). I nearly got backed over by another photographer in the photo pit. I held my tank of a camera up at eye level for so long that today my biceps and upper pecs ache when I lift my arms. I slept no more than five hours before going to work a six-hour shift and then go babysit for another seven. (Thank god these kids go to sleep at 8.)
But all-in-all, yesterday afternoon went damn near as smoothly as it possibly could have with the exception of one defective Polaroid i-Type film pack. (The one thing for which I didn’t pack a back-up… that shit is expensive.) But all things considered, I don’t know how much better things could have gone. And not by coincidence, but by hard work.
I don’t think I ever felt so proud of myself, so grateful for my opportunities and privilege, or so simply happy. I could have died last night and been completely content with my life.
I sat at my kitchen table in my apartment last night and looked at the photos I had captured over the previous nine hours with tears streaming down my face. My heart felt like it had swelled up and was about to explode out of my chest. My parents had told me how proud they were of me. My partner told me the same, and that he was sure I’d do this well. And most importantly, I believed them. Not that I don’t usually believe that they mean it when they tell me this, but it’s hard to believe that someone could be proud of you when you feel like you could be doing so much more. But last night, I really believed them, and still do. I am so grateful for that feeling.
The dusty-pink chair in question. I promise it’s more pink in real life.
Today, I am exhausted. I toyed with the idea of allowing the looming existential crisis take over. Luckily, my boyfriend and I had just a few minutes to speak on the phone during our mutually hectic weekends; he told me, “The easy part is over, now onto the hard part,” — making it all into something that matters. So, back to work.
Pick up copies of EMMIE Magazine and The Dish in December 2021 at either location of The Wisconsin Union or read our digital copies in December at https://www.emmiemusic.com/ and https://thedishwisconsin.com/.
And thank you, thank you, thank you for taking the time to read this letter I wrote to you. Your time means more to me than you know.
Love,
Perri