1/100

Hey- it’s been awhile.

And not for nothing, man. It’s been a little wild over here. I know you’re dying to know, so I’ll throw you an update or two.

I live on the beach now.

So that’s neat.

I call it the “beach shack,” when the truth of it is that I live on the edge of suburbia.

But reality’s perception, and I can see the ocean outside of my bedroom window.

So this is my beach shack.

I love when the fog settles over the bay, when the salt hangs for a moment in the air. I love the seagulls and the view of Boston, the yacht clubs and the little seafood pop ups.

I love that one of my closest friends lives only two minutes away. I love that she makes the best hummus from scratch and always has a new song to show me.

There is a lot of love here.

Also I live with a Harvard researcher now. I’m slowly absorbing her knowledge through the close proximity. Watch this blog turn into a dissertation.

Anyways- I’m still kicking. Don’t get too worried.

And I’ve been listening to a lot of Fleetwood Mac again.

Something about “Silver Springs” on an overcast morning by the beach. If you’re near one- I’d give the experience five stars.

The band has a way of sending me back.

I listen to “Tusk,” and I am a senior in high school again. I’m blasting my favorite oldies on the way to my part time thrift store job, where I’ll spend my day finding tacky earrings, browsing through old vinyls, and absentmindedly listening to my coworker explain the plot of her most recent fan fiction.

I’m seventeen. My mind swims with all of the aspirations that haven’t been confronted by reality yet: In a year, I’ll leave this whole state. I’ll move to Africa, I’ll major in environmental science, I’ll make some sort of change.

I play “Go Your Own Way,” and I’m barely a freshman.

I’m going through my first heartbreak. In retrospect it’s little more than a crush. In the moment, my life is absolutely over.

I’m fifteen. I dream of going to art school. My portfolio’s been approved by the Chicago Art Institute. Everything is beginning to take shape.

Today, “Rhiannon” sounds as I do my makeup and mentally prepare to sell chips in a neighborhood grocery store.

I play it too loudly and wake up my Harvard researcher roommate.

It’s so interesting to me that one band can revive snapshots of who I used to be so viscerally.

So I’ve been thinking on it, and I’m beginning to formulate my most recent thesis:

I’m calling it the 1/100 theory.

The theory assumes that I live to be one hundred years old. Maybe a little presumptuous.

Anyway, in the 1/100 theory, each year is assigned a different version of me.

I’m twenty three, and I am one hundredth.

And while yes, I am simultaneously the wisest I’ve been and the most naive I’ll ever be again, I am still only one out of one hundred.

Seventeen Amanda, Fifteen Amanda, Amanda fresh into the world- all equally one out of one hundred.

I’m finding that in viewing it this way, each chapter of who I am remains identical in value. It keeps me from undermining who I was or doubting myself in present day. Each fraction of the one hundred is necessary to make up the whole. Each experience is critical to achieving the final artwork.

In my head, each version of Amanda stands on a timeline. It’s the job of Amanda of 2024 to take the baton she received from the past year, to better it, and then to pass it forward to the Amanda of 2025.

They’re all on the same team.

Side tangent- I think there’s value in expanding this to humanity as a whole. That’s really all we’re trying to do, right? Take the knowledge we were given, and hope that we pass on a more informed reality to who’s to come in the future?

I digress.

I love that Fleetwood Mac has extended through so many of my hundredths. I love the kind of artwork that chooses to stick around through the different chapters. 

I love that people tend to do that, too. That different versions of my loved ones’ hundredths chose mine all the same throughout the mutual metamorphoses. 

This chapter is an interesting one.

As I live it, I can’t help but think about where this baton will be passed to next. 

I wonder about the ghosts of prior hundredths' aspirations and daydreams- Africa, art school. I wonder if the baton will circle back.

I consider what the next Amanda will want. I think about what the final hundredth will wish I’d done.

Ultimately, it’s the baton that drives me forward. It yanks me toward what needs to be fulfilled next.

The baton begins to turn up the volume- marching on and leading me to places that I’m excited for and terrified of.

I’ve heard this little voice be called manifestation, universe, god-

My conclusion is that mine is the voice of that final hundredth.

I believe that’s why I’m here right now, in the beach shack in Massachusetts. 

I believe that’s why I have this blog, why I keep my “Corks” journals, why I replay my old favorite songs and relive a slideshow of who I’ve been.

Always moving around, always documenting the life I’m living and the love I’ve experienced.

I want the final hundredth to be proud.

I want her to remember.

I hope that when she hears “Go Your Own Way,” she’ll agree that I did.