emily
july 8, 2017
foreword
There are few people in my life who understand my love for writing, at an incredibly deep and personal level. Emily is one of them. She is a smart and critical thinker, a well-rounded and diligent student, talented in all areas — and she is 5ft of loud, crazy laughter.
I can’t pinpoint the start of our friendship. But I can say that we spent three years of high school English together — most notably, senior year AP English, which was the best class I ever took during my four years in high school. I would venture to say it left a similar impression on Emily, as well. Everything we read, wrote and learned in that class stimulated creativity and valuable discussion. I fell in love with it. And I never would have had the guts to apply for that class if it weren’t for Emily. She is the kind of friend that makes you want to be better, and do more. Of course, many of my friends are sources of motivation. But Emily in particular stirs an equal and beautiful mix of envy and admiration within me. No matter how high her grades were, no matter how numerous her extra-curricular activities, she never resigned herself to satisfaction. That kind of talent, resolve, and hard work is something I continue to admire, as she continues to exemplify it.
She has read my writing — fiction and other — in some of its roughest forms. Writing, to me, is extremely personal, but I know, in my heart, that I can trust Emily with anything because she understands who I am; what goes on in my head behind every character and every sentence.
For my sixteenth or seventeen birthday card, she didn’t just write me a card. She wrote me fan fiction about our future selves. (In the story, I live in a grand, quiet house outside of the city with a few cats. She comes to visit me. I show her the latest draft of my newest story over two glasses of red wine.) I cried when I first read that story. It was so dumb, but the idea that she saw us being friends ten years, or more, into the future touched my heart. We are not usually cheesy people. But writing has a way of being so honest.
For this shoot, we went to visit my best friend, Celine, in Oakville. I shot Emily’s photos mostly by a beautiful lake and dock. A handful of shots were also taken a couple days before, on the small street outside of our friend, Lourdes’, house. I ask Emily questions in small, downtown Oakville, with some melting ice cream cones in hand. We sit on a bench by the street. The traffic is steady around us, and the evening is warm. She talks to me about writing, motivation and nostalgia.
Why do you like writing?
I feel like writing lets me think about what I’m going to say so that I really mean it. Whoever knows me knows I speak a lot, and I speak really fast, so I’m not eloquent most of the time. So if I have to say something that I really mean, genuinely, people often find that I have to stop, slow down, think about it and then say it. But with writing, I get to do just that — so you know that whatever I’m writing is genuine. And also… a lot of people are like, ‘Oh, a picture is worth a thousand words!’… which is true, in a lot of cases! But there’s a lot of stuff that people, especially those who aren’t sensitive to art, won’t understand just by looking at a picture. [But] It’s a lot more clear with writing. And you can go a lot more in depth with it.
What keeps you motivated?
Okay, this one’s kinda deep so I’m just gonna go for it, ready? What keeps me motivated is… making people around me happy. Not in a low self-esteem kind of way, but I think what makes up a happy life are good, wholesome, healthy relationships. So, what keeps me motivated is my relationships with other people. [Basically] other people and their happiness.
Talk about your favourite memory of high school.
It was in grade ten! It’s not my favourite because it was so fun or because I was with great people … well, I was with great people! But that wasn’t it. It was when we went to Celebration Square and it was nighttime and we went to run around in the fountains. If you talk to [our friend] Lourdes, she’ll tell you it’s always been my favourite memory. And I don’t even know, it seems so lame now that I think about it, but at the time, it was nice […] And it was at night, and it was raining but we didn’t care because we were already in a fountain! So we were like, ‘whatever!’ […] We were on the brink of adulthood so [it was like] ‘wow we’re so cool staying out at night!’ And then also, the sky was clear and it was a full moon, and there was nobody there except us, and we just went splashing around in the water — and it was grade ten! It was the best year, there wasn’t a lot of school stress, nobody cared about drama. We just didn’t really have any at the time.
What book has left the biggest impact on you?
I would say Lord of the Flies — and I know this is controversial because I know a lot of people don’t like the book and don’t like what it stands for, and I don’t wanna say that I completely agree with what it stands for. But it’s one of the books that [left] the biggest impression on me, because I never thought that you could describe nature in as detailed of a way […] Like, how the author portrays the setting, and then how he uses that to either represent happy moments, or evil moments, or really sad moments, or really beautiful moments.
Name a celebrity you’d really want to meet and why.
LIGHTS. One, because I feel I’ve liked her since she first started out. So I feel like she’s a childhood friend, almost. Whenever I listen to her music, it makes me think of… either my childhood — or, yeah, like [nostalgia]. Also, she likes a lot of the things that I like. So it feels like she’s my friend. (*laughs*) That sounds so cheesy! [Also] I really enjoyed watching her grow from a teenager to a mom, and it’s nice because she hasn’t really changed that much, and so that’s why it’s even more nostalgic — because [she’s] like a constant in my life. […] She’s been my OG, day one […] And I’d just like to tell her that!