2016 was bleak for lots of reasons: a giant Cheeto dumb dumb managed to ass-chat his way into the Oval Office, some other jockstraps decided to kill a bunch of innocent people in Florida and Nice, and the Zika virus stuck two fingers up to modern medicine. But its also the year during which I finally chased down, and jumped, my dream. Three years ago, after a whole lot of soul-searching and desperately trying to convince myself I loved living in London and getting shit-faced six days a week, I realized what I really wanted was a simple life. To return to the countryside, to the woods, with my beloved. So we worked and we planned, and in December 2015, we left our jobs and friends and families in the UK, and moved—cat, tortoises, and all—to the Hudson Valley, just a few hours north of New York City. People will remember this year for all its faults, but for me its the year my sister, also an NY resident, gave birth to my niece. Its the year my true love and I bought our first home, a 100-year-old wreck of a farmhouse on 12 acres of organic farmland which were in the middle of gutting and renovating with our own four hands. Its the year I started making more money writing than I do editing. It’s the year I made space for myself. The year I summoned enough courage to leap.And perhaps suitably reflective of the year itself, my soundtrack to 2016 is far stranger than expected. We did a lot of driving before we got our own place, and I listened to the radio a lot. Which meant that I was forced to listen to new(ish) mainstream music, rather than get stuck in my comfortable rabbit holes of whatever artist I was obsessed with at the time. Sure, it took me about 10 months to realize my pickup stereo has a CD player, but for the first half of the year, I ended up listening to a lot of Justin Bieber and Kiiara. A darling friend from home gifted me a Vinyl Me Please subscription as a leaving present, and so Weezer, The Books, and Fugees resurfaced unexpectedly in my life. Sometimes Im homesick, missing my mum terribly, and I turn to things that remind me of her. Nina Simone, Sade, Joan Armatrading. Sometimes Im so blissed out by the peace and quiet that all I want to do is roll up a stonking blunt, close my eyes and fall into some Tirzah, Young Thug, and Bjork. And sometimes I cant believe I moved to this country the year the Cheeto dumb dumb had the misfortune to be “elected”. Then I need Solange and Rihanna. But, odd as this mix is, it captures, in its beautiful weirdness, just how glorious this year has been.
