These Are a Few of My Favorite Things
Hi. I’m Camilla, and I love tons of things.
I love them all in different ways, too. I don’t love movies the way I love songs, and I don’t love songs the way I love books. However, they all fill me up with a glow and warmth that I can’t describe in any way other than love. So today I want to share with you the things I love. Hopefully you’ll come to love if not appreciate them as I do.
MOVIES
Since 2017, watching movies has been an intense hobby of mine, and through this hobby I have fallen in love with the art of cinema. Liking a movie is different than absolutely adoring it. I know I adore a movie when it’s all I think about after watching it. The film takes up my brainspace. When I love a movie, I look up the screenplay and read the words I heard on screen. I Google and research the actors and directors so I can add their filmographies to my watchlist. I search up my favorite scenes on YouTube to rewatch the artistic choices I appreciate so much. All I listen to for a while is the soundtrack or score so I can feel like I’m in my very own movie. Then, finally, I watch the work again and appreciate it all the more. Here are some movies I’ve done this with. Some of are old, movies that I’ve watched countless times that feel comfortable to me—like my favorite pair of shoes. Others are movies I’ve watched recently; they’re fresh in my mind, and I’m in the middle of the process I’ve detailed above.
Girls Just Want To Have Fun (1985)
2. Little Women (2019)
3. Dazed and Confused (1993)
4. Empire Records (1997)
5. Parasite (2019)
6. Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
7. Jojo Rabbit (2019)
8. Ocean’s Eleven (2001)
9. The Edge of Seventeen (2016)
10. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Books
Books are something that I’ve loved for as long as I can remember. My mom often talks about the time that I first read a book. I was three-years-old. I picked up Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss in my doctor’s office and the words just flew off the page and onto my tongue. I think since then I’ve had a special, personal connection with books. When I love a book, I feel a heavy weight in my chest after I finish reading it. I’m met with the bittersweet feeling of being happy because I’ve finished, but I’m also feeling sad that I can’t read it again for the first time. After this emotion settles, I flip through the pages and reread my favorite scenes. Then I write down the pages of my favorite scenes, so I can revisit them when I need to. Lately, I’ve started to take quotes I find interesting or important from the books I read. So here I want to share with you five of my favorite quotes from books I love so much.
“It gets better, but then it doesn’t, and then it does again. That’s the thing that’s not so interesting about living: it’s just living. That’s the story, and it’s not actually so bad.”
—Who Put This Song On?, Morgan Parker
“Life had its seasons, and the season of letting go would always come, but there was something very beautiful in that, in the letting go. Leaves were always graceful as they floated away from the tree.”
—The Inexplicable Logic of My Life, Benjamin Alire Saenz
“Real winning was having the most to lose, even if it meant you might lose it all. Even though it meant you would lose it all, sooner or later”
—We All Looked Up, Tommy Wallach
“There could be power in acceptance. In knowing life was unfair and trying anyway”
—The Best Lies, Sarah Lyu
“Whether we are gods, people, or slovering ghouls in vulture-feather loincloths, we enjoy others knowing who we are, speaking our names, appreciating that we exist”
—The Tyrant's Tomb, Rick Riordan
Songs
Songs are the most interesting thing for me to love. When you love a song, you have to find the balance between listening to it enough so you can learn the lyrics and analyze them while still making sure not to listen to it too much (so you don’t get tired of it too fast). I make sure to listen to songs on my way to school so it’s the first thing I truly hear in the morning, and then I listen to them on my way home after practice. Then I listen to them one more time before I go to sleep. During the day, I think about the lyrics and maybe even Genius them during class (when I’m supposed to be learning). I know I love a song when I find myself screaming or belting out the lyrics in the car. Or having one part of the song stuck in my head and not being annoyed because I like to hear it without even having to listen to it. The songs I love make me feel a range of emotions and can fit whichever mood I’m in. Below, I’ll link songs that I love a whole bunch. I’ll try to cover the majority of genre bases so that you can find something you would love, too.
Thank you for letting me share some of things I love with you. I hope you are surrounded by all the things you love.
Love,
Camilla