Nine Years Later: Reflections on Dinner with Taylor Swift & Growing Up

On this weekend 9 years ago, I was sitting on the floor of Taylor Swift’s Nashville home having an out-of-body experience listening to #1989, a month before the album would be released and go on to spend 11 weeks atop the Billboard 100, launch Taylor’s first stadium world tour, and eventually win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year.

At the time, I was in my final semester at the World’s Largest Christian University™️, after trading the conservative Georgia suburb I grew up in for a somehow-even-more-red Virginia town on the banks of the James River. I was a church attending YoungLife leader with a part time job selling guns at Dick’s Sporting Goods in a strip mall with more fast food and fried chicken chains than should be legally allowed to share a ZIP code. I also was slowly coming to terms with the fact my “struggle with same sex attraction” (as queerness is often one-dimensionally defined in conservative circles) was perhaps more than “the phase” the ~spiritual life director~ in my residence hall assured me that it was.

I’d slowly began the arduous journey of coming out by opening up to close friends, and keeping up an angsty Tumblr blog (~inconsolable longings~) filled with vulnerable poetry and #honestcaptions, where I tried to make sense of depression, Jesus, and my sexuality… writing online became an outlet and vessel to process and contain the dark night unfolding in my soul.

Taylor (and a box of Franzia) kept me company as I penned a lot of those #latenightthoughts. I’ve been a #Swiftie since before it was a hashtag and have long admired Taylor’s ability to share her story in a way that’s so raw, authentic, and deeply human that people couldn’t argue with it; moreover, her writing transcends her personal experience in such a way that it invites others to see themselves inside it.

I wanted to be like that.

One early Fall day, I was sitting at Bible study in a Virginia coffee shop and received a call from an unrecognized 615 number. I answered and received a cryptic invitation to come to Nashville for an event a couple of week’s later that I “wouldn’t want to miss.” I was given a date and time, the address of a public park, a “password” (“Bake Sugar Castles”, if you’re curious) along with a warning that my invitation could be rescinded if I posted online or I told anyone aside from my immediate family why I was headed south to Tennessee. (To this day I don’t know how Taylor’s team got my phone number. 😝)

I showed up to the parking lot, gave the password, relinquished my phone, wallet, and keys, and crawled into the back of a limo with other fans, content creators, and at least one Rolling Stone journalist. We were either about to meet our idol or be immortalized forever on a true crime podcast for falling victim to a very elaborate kidnapping.

We drove for 20 minutes or 2 hours; I’d lost all meaningful sense of time as soon as we lumbered up the driveway to Taylor’s family home outside Nashville.

The entire experience feels like a bit like a psilocybin fever dream.

After bites by the pool, and a lovely long exchange with Taylor’s Mom about how at first she thought Taylor was a little nuts for inviting strangers from the Internet into their family home (fair, tbh), we moved inside, crowding into a living room filled with Grammy Awards and family photos to sit on pillows, blankets, and mismatched chairs (a Taylor design staple).

When Taylor entered the room you would have thought Christ himself had returned.

She knew everyone by name, where we were from, and—in my case—had even found her way to my angsty and melodramatic corner of the Internet to read some of the things I’d written.

After introductions, Taylor pulled out a very beat-up iPhone, queued up the first track on #1989, and the synthesizer-filled beat of “Welcome to New York” filled the room.

Everybody here was someone else before

And you can want who you want

Boys and boys and girls and girls

I started to cry.

I didn’t realize it then, but what I felt in that moment was belonging; the feeling of seeing myself in a story I’d never heard before.

The 1989 album was Taylor’s first foray into a totally new sound and aesthetic—leaving country behind and transforming into a full-blown pop star. After hearing the stories behind each song, talking about the creative process, and passing around cookies she’d made that afternoon (seriously, who is Taylor Swift?), we all had a chance to spend with her 1:1.

I told her I wanted to move to New York, she shared her favorite brunch spots (Bubby’s in Tribeca), and we bonded over recent breakups, hers was Harry Styles and mine was a closeted missionary kid who refused to tell me his last name (we’re feeling the same things, right now!). We talked about our mutual love of writing and—in a moment that would give me courage for years to come—she complimented mine.

As I look back on the photos and the note I scrawled in the bathroom and left in her hand as we said goodbye, I can’t help but be proud of how much has changed and how far we’ve come. I have a hunky partner, a house full of @eastforkpottery, framed @davidwhyte poems, queer-coded @jonodry art, and get to call the best little mountain town in North Carolina my home. (In the same time, Taylor’s released 7, nearly 8, more albums, won 5 more Grammys, and had 3 world tours, but comparing us isn’t the point. 😂)

The point is, as I get older, heal my nervous system from PTSD, spiritual trauma, and feel more at home in my body, I’m realizing we don’t always know how to wrap language around life’s highs and lows until long after we experience them.

As I reflect on the experience nearly a decade later, I’m realizing the importance of representation; of telling—and truly listening—to the kinds of stories that reflect the lived experiences of the humans around us.

There’s also so much power in giving yourself permission to grow, evolve, and transform—even if it means people will say you’re too different or too much or that you've changed. And that's okay because they haven't been through the same things as you. And just because they can't understand it now doesn't mean that you should stay the same or be less you. It just means that maybe one day they'll realize that you were more important than whatever idea of you they wanted to keep instead.

Taylor taught me that. 💙

Be My Valentine?

Friends,

Happy New Year? I’m writing to you mere days before Saint Valentine’s Day, that awkward time of year when the last, discount remnants of Christmas-recent-past are replaced seemingly overnight by boxes of chocolate hearts at your local Target.

Last time I wrote to all of you, it was January 2021, my apartment lease in Manhattan had ended and I was splitting my time between the Conklin Family Ranch outside Atlanta and Airbnbs out West while living out of a beat-up Away suitcase covered in national park stickers. 

Last year, I was too burnt out to even think about writing a holiday card, let alone sending one. As for this year, I hope this greeting gets to you by Saint Patrick’s Day.

Even on the cusp of age 31, I still often feel as if I’m back in elementary school, the last one coming back from lunch or recess, tripping over my shoelaces, always racing to catch up with everyone else who beat me to the front of the line. 

If only I had more time. 

Some of you may remember that seven years ago I had double jaw replacement surgery. During the six weeks when my jaw was wired shut, I binged a lot of television, including an old ABC show called Scandal—a gonzo hybrid of conspiracy thriller and high-stakes soap opera that paired perfectly with Percocet protein shakes and pureed legume soup. In an Emmy-nominated crescendo, the show’s main character, Olivia Pope, a D.C. crisis manager and her paramour, the soon-to-be President of the United States, find themselves in a hallway in the White House; the world seems to be burning down around them, and she asks for “just one minute.”

One minute for the world to pause, for job titles and responsibilities to disappear, to just be present and forget about anything else but one another. I’m not sure if it was the name brand painkillers, the dramatic soundtrack, or simply Shonda Rhimes’s exquisite writing, but I’ve thought about that scene a lot lately.

If only I could have one minute.

One minute without a completely bananas work e-mail.

One minute without a bat-shit crazy New York Times headline.

One minute without all the competing voices in my head.

But the older I become, the more I realize it’s okay to not respond right away.

It’s okay to not read the news or log into social media for a while.

It’s okay to let my inner child rant for a bit, then quietly reassure them that they’re going to be alright.

To that end, I’ve finally found one minute to look at a few pictures from 2022—and I’m excited to share a few of my favorite memories from one of the busiest and most meaningful years of my life.

I bought a Subaru Outback and a 1980s two-bedroom condo on the side of a mountain in Asheville, NC. I learned to SCUBA dive with my Dad in Biscayne Bay and skied for the first time wearing an N95 in Park City. I hiked into a meteor crater in Arizona with astronauts and spent an evening talking about depression with Selena Gomez. I made out with my boyfriend at the Grand Canyon and drove across Colorado alone in an Escalade with Harry’s House on repeat. I made awkward small talk with Monica Lewinsky at the TED Conference in Vancouver where I finally caught COVID and got stuck quarantined in Canada for 10 days. I became stepdad to a dog almost as anxious as me and am raising more plants than I know what to do with. 

I fell in love with a man as handsome as he is kind, and now we share the same North Carolina address.

I also nearly changed careers more times than I can count, gained more weight than I care to admit, and struggled to juggle a remote job, a serious relationship, and my mental health.

If only I could have one minute.

One of my resolutions this year is to remember that my minutes are mine to give myself, not receive from others. 

I hope this year instead of waiting for someone else to “give you a minute,” you remember to claim those moments for yourself.

I hope this year you learn to trust your gut, your intuition, and inner teacher, and you find healthy boundaries in work, love, and life. 

I hope you realize life is not a zero-sum game and there’s always enough to go around—enough time, enough money, enough love.

But more than anything else, I hope you remember to be gentle with yourself; if the last few years have taught me anything, it’s that the most difficult moments for many of us are the ones we create for ourselves.

I can’t wait for you to meet my sweet man and our neurotic little spaniel—know that you always have a second home in Asheville. Wishing you so much light, love, and all the minutes your heart desires in 2023. 

Xoxo,

JohnMark

Happy New Year?

Friends— 

Happy New Year? As I'm writing this, CNN is covering an attempted coup d’état in our nation’s Capital—a televised insurrection turning a hopeful holiday greeting into a question of reality instead of an optimistic exclamation.

This is my fifth year sending an independent holiday card, and I've started, stopped, and torn up this draft since Thanksgiving. In part, there are more pressing concerns in our world right now, and partially, I simply haven't known where to begin. I believe the most painful thing a writer can experience is an inability to find the words, and 2020 left me agonizingly speechless.

Like many of you, I started last year optimistic; it was the beginning of a new decade, and for me, after a couple of years, New York was finally starting to feel like home. For as long as I remember, at the end of each December, I choose a word for the following year, and I'd chosen "grounded"—an intention to truly feel the Earth beneath my feet, to reinvigorate my creativity and put down roots—to be wholly present in the city that never sleeps. I walked into the year with intention, starting last January with a street photography class, new LinkedIn and Hinge profiles and a cozy new sofa for my roommates and me to bond over terrible reality television in our shoebox Manhattan apartment.

But March came too quickly last year, and a weekend trip home to Georgia for my birthday turned into a months-long stay. Despite some days feeling like the only people in the South taking coronavirus seriously, we made the most of quarantine. I watched "Lost" for the first time and then built an island named "Dharma" in Animal Crossing. We planted a garden, and I grew five watermelons and accidentally killed just as many pumpkins. We finally left the house in June to go to a BLM protest as a family; it would be one of the many times this year I'd cry.

The summer heat brought the end of my lease in New York and a new Taylor Swift album. In July, I trucked all my possessions to a storage unit in Queens and listened to "Folklore" on the farm until August slipped away like a bottle of wine.

When the leaves started changing, my best friend and I went on a camping trip in Utah. Laying outside one night, I saw the Milky Way from horizon-to-horizon… and, with it, felt a flicker of hope for the first time all year. I ended up spending most of autumn out West, where the trees, fresh air, and the rocky landscape became a source of sanity and hope. I celebrated the holidays with my family on Mask Road—a fitting address to end 2020 and nearly 1,000 miles from the now vacant Hell's Kitchen apartment where the year began.

In the end, my intention for the year—to ground—was more about finding a home in myself when the world was on fire than settling down in a ZIP code. As I look at the road ahead, I have more questions than answers, but I do know this—we are more resilient than we ever thought possible, and change is coming. And that gives me hope.

 My word for this year is simply "rest." One of my favorite poets, David Whyte, writes this about rest: 

"Rested, we are ready for the world but not held hostage by it, rested we care again for the right things and the right people in the right way. In rest, we reestablish the goals that make us more generous, more courageous, more of an invitation, someone we want to remember, and someone others would want to remember too."

I hope, whatever the last twelve months have brought for you and whatever happens the next twelve—that you find rest too. We're stronger than we think we are, 2020 taught us that.

Soft Front, Strong Back, Wild Heart,

~ JM

Reflections on "Home"

I’ve often said the most painful thing a writer can experience is an inability to find the words… and I’ve never been as tongue-tied as I’ve been these last few months. I returned to Georgia to celebrate my birthday in March, and well, the leaves are changing colors and I’m still here.

My birthday seven months ago also marked two full years of life in New York City. The date proves time truly is a construct because those years feel like yesterday, a decade, and lifetime of rent all rolled into one. In some ways I miss it and in others I’m grateful to finally fall sleep and spend time away from the city that never does.

Since COVID upended all of our lives earlier this year, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about home and whether it, like time, is a construct too.

Thinking about “home” is a bit of a classic melancholic introvert pastime. Somewhat embarrassingly, my first blog was called “inconsolable longing” and—rooted in Tolkien’s lore and Lewis’s words—was largely about how humans are destined to be hopeless wanderers until called into an eternal home.

Fortunately, I’ve had several therapists since then and subsequently left the sad Tumblr blog of a worldview and early 2000’s angst behind. The older I’ve gotten the more I’ve realized that home is, as James Baldwin found, not a geographical location but rather an “irrevocable condition.” Home is both within and without us—something deeply connected to who we are and yet simultaneously a longing we all carry with us.

“Home” for me, was never the noisy, overpriced three bedroom I shared above Pam Thai at the corner of 49th & 9th, nor the Bushwick apartment misleadingly far from the JMZ, and definitely not the bedroom with two twin beds I shared in East Flatbush on the way to Canarsie.

If New York City was ever “home” it was home because of the buskers in McCarren Park that seemed to play just for me; listening to the Central Park horses make their way home late at night; the warm familiar glow of Tuesday nights at the Grey Dog in Chelsea. It was walking in the snow and feeling more at home in the freckled constellation on the face of the tattooed boy from Queens than the part of Brooklyn where they don’t plow the streets.

Merriam Webster might not agree but I think “home” and “meaning” are synonymous. Because, when we find home, we discover—if only for that moment—our lives have meaning too. In that sense, I suppose, home isn’t our return address, but the totality of authentic experiences where we feel known.

A light left on, always generous, warm, and sincere, we find home somewhere between hurting and healing.

And maybe that’s why we’re here. To lead one another home.