In 2012, I took on one of my favourite projects ever: filming my life, piecing it together and putting it to music. The videos are often shaky, sometimes blurry, and as my mom always liked to point out to me, probably only interesting to myself and my friends. Despite all that, those videos are so incredibly special to me. They take me back to a wonderful time in my life, make me feel both happy and nostalgic, and will forever preserve the feelings of that year. For someone who loves documenting her life, they are imperfectly perfect.
Right after I got to Korea, I was talking to my friend Dylan about how wonderful 2012 was for me. After our conversation, as I was trying to think about what had made that year so great, I realized that the very act of documenting it had probably made all the difference. My life in Montreal was totally wonderful all 4 years I lived there, and the summers were always filled with the kind of wonderful magic that I captured on film in 2012. But filming it meant I was always looking for that magic and appreciating it as it was happening. Editing the videos always made me laugh and feel grateful for all those moments all over again.
So in light of that realization, I decided to do it again for my year in Korea.
Inevitably, I’ll miss moments and won’t be able to capture it all. Inevitably, the videos will be shaky and blurry and probably only interesting to myself and my friends. But also inevitably: they’ll make me laugh, they’ll remind me of the beauty and love I’m always surrounded by, and they’ll be my favourite kind of time capsule.
Here’s the Springtime of my year in Korea, early March to late May. I’m sharing it here just in case you’re curious about what my time here so far has looked like. If you don’t feel like watching it, I can summarize it by saying: I’ve made some awesome friends here, the cherry blossoms were beautiful, I went to Tokyo and Seoul, we ate good food, and we went to the beach a lot. I feel nothing but grateful.
