The Speak Up: [Greatest Hits] "Dividing a life into befores and afters — into eras"
Sharing a few of my favorite newsletters from our past platform, so that you wonderful Substackers can get the goods.
A version of this newsletter was originally published in October 2023 on The Speak Up’s previous platform.
In this newsletter:
- The Eras Tour (of your life)
Friends,
“Are you a Swiftie?” the AMC theater employee asked me as he scanned my ticket.
“Yes?” I said, questioning my own response.
He handed me my 8 x 10 Eras Tour poster, I took it, and he sent me to Theater 8.
Up until that Saturday afternoon solo excursion to see the Eras Tour film, I made several attempts to become a Swiftie. I listened to her albums — both old and Taylor’s Version.
I followed her media coverage, her boyfriend sagas, and took in all of her brilliant stand-up-for-what-is-right business decisions.
I was in awe of her vision for her career and all that she had accomplished. I loved the codes that her fans got to crack. But beyond the 10-minute version of “All to Well”, not much else clicked with me musically.
While I was never going to wait in a virtual Ticketmaster queue for a concert ticket, I was thrilled for the chance to see the film version because of the concept and the execution. Performing a careerspanning song catalog during a three-hour-plus concert was a physical, mental, and spiritual feat and I needed to be a witness to it all and be a part of the cultural moment.
Tiny poster and pretzel bites in hand, I started to sob as soon as the opening shot filled the screen.
I had full body chills through Lover, evermore, Red… every moment.
There were only about twenty-five people in the theater when I saw it, all adults, most very quiet, absorbing the experience rather than expressing it outwardly.
We all went inward. My perfect audience.
While taking in the full concert experience, filled with overwhelm and awe, I went on an inner journey:
What if my own life was in Eras? What would they be?
I could catalog my stories, brainstorm new narratives, and understand how I am who I am in a whole new way!
I held on to this thought through to the end of the film and for the days that followed. And then I drafted a list of my Eras.
- Millicent Wimbleberry: The Early Years
- Veruca Salt + Tiny Tim
- Bizarre Ink
- Brooklyn + the Boys and Girls Club
- Iwamizawa
- Crush Comedy
- Tell Me A Story vol. 1
- Rashomon
- Tell Me A Story vol. 2
- now… While this list might not mean anything to you, it makes a world of sense to me and gets me excited to share my life, my art, and my work in this framework.
Shortly after having this idea and coming up with my initial list, I was reading one of my favorite weekly newsletters from Abby Gardner and she linked to Taffy Brodesser-Ackner’s NY Times piece entitled “My Delirious Trip to the Heart of Swiftiedom”
And there it was… pull-quote after pull-quote mirroring my thoughts about life as Eras. This wasn't just my own weird a-ha. Other people were having it too!
Perhaps Taylor Swift’s bigger purpose for the Eras Tour was to help each of us see who we are — both in the context of her own music and lyrics, but also in the framework of moments from a life.
Taffy writes:
“You could watch this concert — you could watch this entire phenomenon — through the eyes of the idea that Taylor Swift frees women to celebrate their girlhood, to understand that their womanhood is made up of these microchapters of change, that we’re not different people than we were then, that we shouldn’t disavow the earlier versions of ourselves, our earlier eras.”
“What an interesting postmodern experiment the whole enterprise is — Eras as proof of concept, a woman looking back on her youth to remember what she is made of, not with shame but with curiosity and even delight. It had never occurred to me to look back on even my most carefree and innocuous eras with anything but shame.”
The latter quote moved me to tears like it was the opening shot of the Eras film.
It’s like my whole body of work and philosophy on storytelling that has been called “radical” “cute” and “huh?” among other (more positive) descriptors — all of it was hiding under those billowing rainbow-washed parachutes waving in the breeze created by the collective breath of a stadium of Swifties. And as the parachute cloth fell away, I saw a new realm of possibility. For Taylor. For myself. And for all of us.
When I work with my clients in their Crafting Your Narrative: Solo Retreats, the brainstorming work is all about looking back on your life without shame. Bring on the curiosity! Bring on the delight! And then bring on the new narrative that you can share far and wide.
Both Taylor and Taffy have helped me to see myself, my narratives, and what I believe is possible for others and their narratives through a much clearer and deeper lens. I've never felt more excited about my work and who I get to work with.
Taffy Brodesser-Ackner’s piece is an experience. If you have 20-ish minutes, I encourage you to read the whole thing — even if you could care less about Taylor. The writing swirls between standard journalistic reporting, deeply personal exploration, and fantastical humor. And it’s also the story of a writer coming to terms with the changing landscape of storytelling for people in the public eye.
Through writing about Taylor in this new way, Taffy questions whether or not the celebrity profile medium that she became known for would even be relevant for much longer.
She says:
“I don’t know if I could tell a story about Taylor Swift that’s better than the story she tells about herself, through every song, every dance, every video, every social transmission. She is a master not just at the revelation of information but the analysis of each revelation, the scrutiny of that analysis, the contextualization of it all.”
Thank you for another mission statement, T B-A!
Not only do I want you to experience your own Eras free of shame and find your own unique way of sharing the stories contained within each one, but I want you to tell your own stories better than anyone else possibly could.
If I were to return to the AMC to see the Eras Tour film again, and the usher asked me if I was a Swiftie, I would say, “I’m in my Swiftie Era, but there are many other Eras that make me who I am too. I'll tell you about them sometime.”
Speak now,