halcyon-digest

[halcyon-digest]

I haven’t updated the survey in a while for two reasons.

A. While I had three submissions pending for inclusion, one of those people messaged me & asked me to not actually publish their responses; it wasn’t self-evident which respondent they were, & when I asked they never replied to me. This meant I wasn’t “safe” adding any of the three pending responses. This hindered me in adding anything, which potentiated the second reason:

B. By accruing an initial batch of results to publish, my experience of the project was concentrated into the initial gratification of setting up the blog & publishing that batch; the project became defined in my head as “a moment;” this then gave way to the less gratifying routine of keeping it up to date which was now necessary. I was infinitely more inclined to procrastinate on this. I find it unfortunate but also very unsurprising that I have been inclined to relate to the project this way. I feel I am a personal generally addicted to novelty & this feels like one example of that trait.

All that said, I’ve really appreciated & enjoyed reading many of the responses that I’ve actually made the time to work through.

Will update if I can wrangle my attention.

[halcyon-digest]

This blog features responses to a survey, conducted recreationally, consisting of 28 long-answer questions prompting the respondent to describe the memory that they most readily associate with each year of their life starting from 2024 & working back through 1997, or however far back they can recall.

The survey is still accepting responses & can be found here.

​

Responses on this blog are up-to-date as of October 5th, 2024, 12:52 PM CST (featuring 16 respondents).

[halcyon-digest]

Respondents

1. Art Klaudt, age 24 --- [Neocities] 2. Anonymous 1, age 24 3. ava, age 24 4. kate, age 31 --- [Tumblr] 5. Anonymous 2, age 24 6. Lucas, age 20 7. Anonymous 3, b. 1991 8. Anonymous 4, age 21 9. (replies redacted at request) 10. superswag, age 14 11. v0w0v, violet's dad, pierisrapae, etc, age 24 12. Anonymous 6, age 21 13. Anonymous 7, age 22 14. binnie, age 24 15. Anonymous 8, age 25 16. April M. Mildew, age 21 17. L-chan, age 24 18. Anonymous 9, age 23 19. Samanta, age 21

See here for individual timelines. (This is not the “primary” way I am sharing the responses. See the posts below.)

​

A very selective timeline of what exactly is going on on planet earth:

[halcyon-digest]

1997

Art Klaudt:

Anonymous 1:

ava:

kate:

Anonymous 2:

Lucas: Na

Anonymous 3: Princess Diana's death, the news reports interrupted the cartoon I wanted to watch (Inspector Gadget)

Anonymous 4: Wasn't alive this year, don't recall.

superswag: N/a

v0w0v: The Blissful Ether

Anonymous 6: n.a

Anonymous 7: n/a (not alive)

binnie: N/A

Anonymous 8: Not born

April M. Mildew: Not yet alive.

[halcyon-digest]

1998

Art Klaudt: n/a

Anonymous 1: not alive

ava: i wasn’t alive yet

kate: It's a pity this doesn't go back a year earlier or I'd say the birth of my sister. I was 5 years old in 1998 and if I can summon up a single memory from that time, I think it's that I either started Tae Kwon Do or quit it after having done it for a year. I remember being a year too young, so probably the former, 4 seems way too young to be starting Tae Kwon Do. So yes, this is the year I started. I was so excited for it but I think I remember there had been a fire on the same street as the studio (maybe in the studio itself?) the day I was supposed to start, so it was delayed. I remember having a dream about it, that was like an aerial view of the streets we'd take to drive there, and the smoke billowing up from an unseen fire. Either on the day I started, or some other day when my mom was dropping me off, we found a little figurine on the ground in the parking spaces out front: a dog made of straw wound around sticks and colored with little black polka dots. I still have it and it's one of my most prized possessions. I always wonder who made it.

Anonymous 2: N/A

Lucas: Na

Anonymous 3: I was 6 and 7 in this year so I don't know if the memories I have pertain to the year exactly. I think the memory I have of looking out of the window of our attic conversion room and seeing sparrow families flying inbetween the bushes in ours and the neighbours' backgardens might be from this year.

Anonymous 4: Wasn't alive this year, don't recall.

superswag: N/a

v0w0v: The Blissful Ether

Anonymous 6: n.a

Anonymous 7: n/a (not alive)

binnie: N/A

Anonymous 8: Not born

April M. Mildew: Not yet alive.

[halcyon-digest]

1999

Art Klaudt: n/a

Anonymous 1: not alive

ava: i wasn’t alive yet

kate: Obligatorily, I want to say staying up to watch the y2k fireworks on New Year's Eve. But honestly it's probably everyone I knew at school getting hyped up about the new Backstreet Boys album Millenium. They would sing Larger Than Life at lunch and I'd be like WHAT ARE Y'ALL SINGING and they'd tell me I wasn't allowed to know or sing it unless I had the album. Ok now the brief Backstreet Boys obsession is starting to make sense to me, maybe it was a social status thing. But also Larger Than Life was a good song, I think it holds up but maybe that's just nostalgia speaking. They played it a lot at the roller rink I remember.

Anonymous 2: N/A

Lucas: Na

Anonymous 3: I was 7 and 8 in this year so I don't know if the memories I have pertain to the year exactly. Perhaps it was the year in which I became so overwrought about my feelings towards my self and life that I felt I didn't deserve a bed, and took myself to sleep on the floor. We had a thick dirty white carpet and I felt so dreadful.

Anonymous 4: Wasn't alive this year, don't recall.

superswag: N/a

v0w0v: I was alive for three days in 1999, all of which were spent in the hospital with a probe in my soft spot cos I was born with a fever.

Anonymous 6: n.a

Anonymous 7: n/a (not alive)

binnie: N/A

Anonymous 8: Too young

April M. Mildew: Not yet alive. I like this year number.

[halcyon-digest]

2000

Art Klaudt: n/a

Anonymous 1: unknown

ava: i was born (i don’t actually remember that)

kate: The first thing that comes to mind is getting the new Backstreet Boys album, Black and Blue, in my Christmas stocking. I don't know why I loved them so much, my music taste has changed drastically since then but I was obsessed to the point of arguing with my cousin over whether Backstreet Boys or NSYNC was the better boy band. I don't remember if I was mildly disappointed with Black and Blue as compared to Millenium, or if it was just the name/cover that disappointed me. I think the latter, because I recall thinking the actual songs were slightly better.

Anonymous 2: too young

Lucas: Na

Anonymous 3: I was 8 and 9 in this year so I don't know if the memories I have pertain to the year exactly. Around this time we used to go out to eat at a particular pizza restaurant. My mother and I would order a salad and garlic bread to share and then I'd get a lasagne. The lasagne was served with parmesan and came in an oven hot dish. The beautiful waitress would warn me that the dish was hot and I would feel confused about the fact they were women and I found them beautiful but I was a child. The garlic bread came with a sprig of parsley which I would eat. The restaurant had marble tables of a particular quality that I sometimes encounter elsewhere in time. The lasagne was so delicious, I remember the texture of the pasta sheets and the way the sauce bubbled and burnt on the sides of the dish. I remember the red pepper grinders and a Picasso dove drawing on the wall. We would go on a coolish summer evening, I was so excited by the glamour of being out at a restaurant in the evening.

Anonymous 4: Wasn't alive this year, don't recall.

superswag: N/a

v0w0v: Spiders in the unfinished basement.

Anonymous 6: n.a

Anonymous 7: n/a (not alive)

binnie: Being born

Anonymous 8: Too young

April M. Mildew: Not yet alive.

[halcyon-digest]

2001

Art Klaudt: Confusing a toy phone with a real phone in the playroom of a hospital while my brother was being born

Anonymous 1: unknown

ava: i don’t remember

kate: I mean, 9/11 I guess. We were at recess and they brought us in and sent us home, and the rumor was that someone had robbed the bank across the street again since that was the reason we got pulled in from recess once before. But also, I think this was the year my dad made us a family website. He put some artistic flair into it and had it so the main page was a picture of our front door that you clicked to go inside. One page was a picture of him with his head turned upside down so his beard was his hair and his bald head was his chin. One was a picture of the bricks on the side of our house and he wanted to make it so you could click each one and they'd fly away. I found it on the wayback machine once and only one picture still survives, of my mom and sister and I standing in the kitchen all wearing the same old navy shirt with an American flag on it. I think that's why I think it must have been 2001.

Anonymous 2: too young

Lucas: Na

Anonymous 3: The only association I have with 2001 is the 9/11 attacks. I did watch some of the footage on TV, and that memory is cleaved to a memory of walking home from school down the big hill in the september heat.

Anonymous 4: Wasn't alive this year, don't recall.

superswag: N/a

v0w0v: Pretending to be a spider in the unfinished basement.

Anonymous 6: n.a

Anonymous 7: being conceived.

binnie: N/A

Anonymous 8: Too young

April M. Mildew: Not yet alive.

[halcyon-digest]

2002

Art Klaudt: The most vague shapes and visions and synaesthesia; the song that provoked the vision of the woman in the yellow kitchen (probably by Moby or Lemon Jelly or Groove Armada)

Anonymous 1: unknown

ava: fridge magnets of elvis and my fixation on his greatest hits CD and the home video of me “breakdancing” to “crazy little thing called love” by queen in my blue’s clues footie pajamas

kate: This would've been 3rd grade. I was old enough to enter the spelling bee alongside the 4th and 5th graders and managed to win 2nd place. The word I lost on was "barracks", which I had never encountered before, and the announcer's accent made it sound like "berx" to me. I still have the trophy, it's shaped like a bee holding a banner that says "spelling". When anyone asks me what achievement I'm most proud of I'm always tempted to say this.

Anonymous 2: playing with toy cars in a public park

Lucas: Na

Anonymous 3: Being on holiday in France and listening to the album "Blink 182" on the CD walkman over and over again. I had to share the walkman with my sister and we only had the one CD. The songs made me feel intense emotions as I sat by the side of the pool. Every emotional response I've had to music in the intervening years kind of pales into nothing compared to the searing extremity that I remember feeling.

Anonymous 4: Wasn't alive this year, don't recall.

superswag: N/a

v0w0v: A plasma ball in the unfinished basement, and watching a nature documentary on the little tv about lions, they were killing and eating a zebra.

Anonymous 6: birth

Anonymous 7: getting meningococcal and nearly dying.

binnie: N/A

Anonymous 8: Too young

April M. Mildew: Not yet alive.

[halcyon-digest]

2003

Art Klaudt: 4th birthday party, receiving a flipbook about maths, learning the concepts of addition and subtraction for the first time

Anonymous 1: unknown

ava: now that i think about it the emperor’s new groove thing might’ve been this year. or was this year my elvis year

kate: In 4th grade they got rid of the GT program at my school and the GT teacher became one of the regular 4th grade teachers. I had been in GT and loved her but I wasn't in her class, and I was jealous of the people that were. I felt like I "hadn't made the cut" somehow. Anyways my actual singular strongest memory from this time is a day when we had swapped classrooms so I was finally in her class and I was trying to see how far I could lean back in my chair without falling. I managed to get my entire legs cross-legged up on the desk before I started to fall. I do not remember what we were learning, I think it was grammar stuff I already knew.

Anonymous 2: walking down the street towards our house after we moved back from overseas

Lucas: Na

Anonymous 3: I was 12 in 2003. I think this was the year in which I remember wanting to play an imaginary game with my twin sister with our toys but she didn't want to anymore, she had grown out of it, and my shame and confusion. There was a big blue and green IKea blanket on the floor of her room. I think I tried to play half-heartedly on it by myself, with hard plastic horse toys.

Anonymous 4: Was born this year, don't recall.

superswag: N/a

v0w0v: Following my cats around and pretending to be a cat. I remember eating cat food, and getting caught eating cat food. I found a copy of a "Life in Hell" anthology my dad had, which had a wordless comic strip that showed a character finding a dead lizard and taking it to the hospital.

Anonymous 6: How soft and shiny the blue ribbon on my yellow bear toy was

Anonymous 7: sitting atop our plastic slide with my sister, looking over the backyard of our old home into the neighbours.

binnie: [I dont quite remember them but, head injuries]

Anonymous 8: Too young

April M. Mildew: I am told I was born here. I do not remember this.

[halcyon-digest]

2004

Art Klaudt: Bragging to my aunt about attending school for 8 hours per week

Anonymous 1: dog died

ava: being obsessed with the movie “the emperor’s new groove” and receiving a copy of it on VHS and being so ecstatically happy

kate: Bush/Gore. Again I was like compulsory Republican as an 11 year old so I was all for Bush getting re-elected and couldn't have articulated why. It was everywhere, I remember seeing the news reporting on stupid internet animations people had made making fun of the candidates. I had one friend whose parents were Democrats who would disagree with me and made me think even just the slightest bit about why I believed what I believed. She was also an atheist, and I remember thinking "that's craaaazy I didn't even know that was an option" and thinking she was wrong but also incredibly brave for having the guts to go against the grain.

Anonymous 2: having to share a bedroom in the finished garage with my baby sister because we didnt have enough bedrooms for all the kids

Lucas: Don't remember anything, this was the year I was born

Anonymous 3: I was 13 in 2004. I think this was the year that I first had an o*****. It was in the morning, I was under my duvet with sunlight filtering through it. I think I was thinking about a particular p*********** drawing I had seen on the internet. I can remember exactly what the image was and sort of re-experience the way it made me feel, if I try, and the memory is more precisely of re-conjuring the image in my head repeatedly to get the effect of it, and the weird repetitive process of doing that, than the physical feeling itself.

Anonymous 4: Was 1 at the time, don't recall.

superswag: N/a

v0w0v: My best friend from preschool. We would play power rangers together and I was always the yellow ranger. We went to a christian preschool and on easter they gave us all eggs with biblical figures in them. I got a sheep and the girl next to me got jesus. One day we were allowed to bring toys to school and someone asked if the button on the bottom of my care bear did anything. I said it didn't do anything and remember a distinct feeling of superiority and disdain for knowing this thing that this other kid didn't know. One day we were shown germs under a blacklight and it was beautiful to me.

Anonymous 6: Dropping 15 library board books in a fishtank

Anonymous 7: seeing gorillaz on the family crt.

binnie: Very fuzzy...Kicked out of preschools. Possibly learning to spell ... distaste for how the word "you" is spelled given the placement of the letter "U"

Anonymous 8: My first family trip overseas

April M. Mildew: I cannot attach a memory to this year.

[halcyon-digest]

2005

Art Klaudt: Massive storm that destroyed many houses

Anonymous 1: moved house

ava: my sister being born, and maybe my love for the show kim possible

kate: This would've been 6th grade so probably sitting in the computer labs waiting for my mom to get off work (secretary for the science department) and drive me home. This is where I would absorb internet culture. I learned of weebls-stuff via the popularity of badgerbadgerbadger.com and would watch a lot of those videos, I watched the Numa Numa kid for the first time here, the Emo song, the Llama song, and there was this geography game everyone in my social studies class had become obsessed with that also had a chatroom feature. I would go on there and pretend to be a girl from Ireland for some reason. The same usernames would be there often and I would be different people each time and collect information about them for fun. It turned out one person went to a nearby highschool and one day I DM'd her with everything I'd collected and she said "what the hell" to which I responded by telling her I had pretended to be all these people and finished by saying "be careful what you say on the internet" or something and then never logged onto that site again. I felt edgy and hackery at the time but in retrospect it was all really silly superficial info so maybe her response was less one of shock and horror and more like "wtf yeah and? why are you telling me this"

Anonymous 2: getting mad at a kid for shutting me down when i tried to play pretend & going to tell the teacher

Lucas: None

Anonymous 3: I was 14 in 2005. I think this was the year I injured, perhaps broke my coccyx, from hitting it on a tap in the bath, which I think is the worst physical pain I can remember. It was perhaps my first experience of pain in a way that was more like an adult experiences it (with attendant anxiety about not being able to complete future tasks, instead of existing in the moment of the pain).

Anonymous 4: Birth of my sister

superswag: N/a

v0w0v: My older neighbor took me next to her garage and showed me a dead squirrel. I thought she was very cool and mature because she told me she watched "Child's Play" and wasn't even scared. In the kiddie pool underwater looking at bugs struggle against surface tension while the other neighbor kids played.

Anonymous 6: Stealing an angel statue from my local church and being struck for it.

Anonymous 7: false memories of an easter spent down in albany.

binnie: Kirby Air Ride

Anonymous 8: Moving to a new house and a better area for me and my family. Going into first grade.

April M. Mildew: I cannot attach a memory to this year.

[halcyon-digest]

2006

Art Klaudt: Visiting North Connell and listening to Massive Attack's "Collected"

Anonymous 2: unknown

ava: my certainty of time is getting fuzzy but maybe reading nancy drew books on the balcony of the hotel room overlooking the beach, eating chocolate chip pancakes and fighting the breeze to turn pages. or was that the next summer

kate: This year sucked. Being 13 sucks the most, of all ages. I was a star student and my grades were dipping and I could tell my dad was disappointed. He was also embarrassing me by doing things like emailing my science teacher to say I found the classes understimulating, something I had never said, and certainly didn't want my science teacher to think I had said. I got an 81 on a report card and was crying in the car about it and my mom told me, I forget what spurred it, that my dad had said (about me) "maybe she's not as smart as I thought she was." I was really mad at him for years for that and kind of still am. But I'm also mad at her for telling me.

Anonymous 2: being brought by a friend's parents to see a concert they had box seats to. i dont remember much of the concert itself because when it started up a bunch of his dad's adult friends showed up and being surrounded by unfamiliar adults while loud music played overwhelmed me quite a bit and i hid behind the couch for most of it. i do remember there being free food though

Lucas: None

Anonymous 3: I was 15 in 2006. I have a memory of being in my schoolroom and looking at the people I hung out with who I named "my friends" and feeling how profoundly I didn't care about them. The tables were arranged in a square horseshoe. The carpet was blue and so was the upholstery of the chairs. I can remember a great number of the other people in my class who were in the room at the time, the spatial arrangements of the windows, door, whiteboard, teacher's desk, fire escape, and recall the colour of the trees outside (summer green). I remember feeling my life was stalled in that moment and I was somehow trapped for all eternity in that place with those people.

Anonymous 4: Splitting open my chin and getting stitches, and it looked like I had a mini beard for a week

superswag: N/a

v0w0v: I moved during my first year of kindergarten and got to have two halloweens because of this. My first day at the new school was the day that all of the kindergarteners put on their costumes and paraded around. It made me feel special.

Anonymous 6: My first Hanukkah

Anonymous 7: pretending that my stomach was rumbling in my grandparents very antipodean backyard (limestone brick walls, corrugated fence, one of those stained glass tables, etc.) i'm not sure why i did that; i think it was a sort of early development social signalling. or whatever.

binnie: Parents divorce, my dad moves out.

Anonymous 8: Don't remember

April M. Mildew: My ancient memory of being dressed up as a dragon for Halloween must be from this year. Is that a memory or a photo I saw? Maybe this is also the year where I sat in an inflatable chair, black with a flame pattern, at my new dad's house.

[halcyon-digest]

2007

Art Klaudt: Hearing the 12" mix of Blondie - Call Me at my parents' housewarming party

Anonymous 1: unknown

ava: the general vibe of elementary school, my teacher playing us jonathan sprout songs, the ramps and the courtyard, laminated cartoon pencils and apples on the corkboards on the walls, checking out every children’s novel involving ghosts that the library had to offer . and piano lessons

kate: I had a really close friend group at this time, and my internal life revolved around Kingdom Hearts, Eragon, and the Neopets RP boards. My best friend was a girl named Lori. Between me, her, and our friend Nicole, we had all these silly schemes and plans and inside jokes and fictions. My mom worked in the front office, and one day when I had been home sick she brought me back a big piece of sketchbook paper in a ziploc bag, and it was a get well soon card they had drawn for me and had everyone we usually sat with at lunch sign, with things like my favorite characters telling me to eat soup but not with a fork. She said they had really missed me that day. I still have it. Between 8th and 9th grade Lori's dad kicked her mom and siblings out. They came and picked her up from a sleepover we were having at Nicole's house and I never saw her again.

Anonymous 2: my sister and i had friends that were a pair of siblings the same age apart as us and i remember going over to their house a lot. i remember distinctly thinking that it was strange/novel that their mom worked and their dad stayed at home. we spent a lot of time on their computer looking over each others shoulders doing a whole lot of nothing

Lucas: None

Anonymous 3: London terrorist attack bombings meaning I couldn't get the underground home from school. I see the school buildings and everyone running around with rumour flying and the kids all working themselves up into being afraid.

Anonymous 4: Eating snacks at the table in preschool

superswag: i was molecules in my dad's balls

v0w0v: My friends from kindergarten suddenly conceptualize that I am a girl and somehow fundamentally different from them, I remember the change in behavior in my peers and myself as everyone's primitive concept of gender and belonging and cool and uncool was formed.

Anonymous 6: Getting into a fight with a boy who told me I looked and sounded like a girl

Anonymous 7: watching stop motions on GOOGLE VIDEOS.

binnie: A blur

Anonymous 8: Don’t remember

April M. Mildew: I cannot attach a memory to this year. Possibly the year I was standing in a snowy parking clearing. Is that memory firsthand or a memory of watching it on videocassette?

[halcyon-digest]

2008

Art Klaudt: Playing in the dirt/gravel behind my neighbours' house

Anonymous 1: unknown

ava: the things i did with the few friends i had — a lot of inside jokes about pie and llamas and our attempts to write a play featuring our webkinz

kate: Either seeing The Dark Knight in theaters and the ensuing cultural obsession, or the Romney/Obama election. I was unfortunately a Republican-by-virtue-of-my-parents at that time and distinctly remember sitting with my friend (same one who took the Facebook picture actually) on the bus home and her trying to convince me Obama was a better choice. And she started chanting "O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!" and I chanted "Mitt Rom-ney! Mitt Rom-ney!" back. Extreme cringe. That entire year was cringe for me tbh.

Anonymous 2: going to my dad's friends house to use their pool, i remember them having a frankly ridiculous amount of pets. i was told it was upwards of 20 cats. they had 3 dogs, some lizards, birds, chinchillas, & probably some other shit i cant remember. it smelled absolutely awful inside their house

Lucas: I remember a specific time going to the movies with my mom as a kid, pretty sure it was 2008

Anonymous 3: The time the girl I had a crush on decided to sit next to me in US Politics class and she stretched her arms and I saw her bellybutton piercing. I think the only time just looking at someone's body ever actively made me feel s**** a******

Anonymous 4: Naptime in kindergarten or the birth of my brother

superswag: Winning sperm race 😎😎😎😎😎

v0w0v: "Drawing Club" at recess. I got recruited by a girl because she saw me drawing a dog and thought I was good. It was three girls, myself included, which was lead by one girl who was particularly headstrong. There was an attendance policy and homework, we had to copy out of a "How to Draw Anime" book she had. If you didn't make a drawing that was "passable" for homework, you'd get kicked out. They kept assigning me hard drawings in an attempt to get rid of me but I completed every one and showed up every day. I stuck around long enough to eventually befriend them, and I still know one of them to this day.

Anonymous 6: Falling down a mountain on a family hike and being scared I was going to die.

Anonymous 7: hearing about china and the one-child policy in primary school, and for some reason imagining china as something out of an old japanese print (think blokes in robes sitting around a tea room in some large garden of stones and those flat oriental trees) rather than a physical place like my school or home.

binnie: Parents taking me to look for a school for neurodivergent kids and eventually settling on one.

Anonymous 8: My cousin coming from overseas, a close older brother figure I needed.

April M. Mildew: Obama is the first president of my memory. I saw him on the television at the gas station. I am realizing now I have, deep in my heart, some sort of positive nostalgic attachment to gas stations and the companies who own them, some of the most demonic entities in this world, due to their presence in my childhood.

[halcyon-digest]

2009

Art Klaudt: Going to Dundee for dental surgery and buying the September 2009 edition of Top Gear Magazine

Anonymous 1: unknown

ava: my childhood best friend and everything that we did together. playing wii games. making silly powerpoints. writing our “novels” thinking we were gonna be the world’s youngest published authors. going down to the creek in his backyard and inventing secret schemes where we intended to harness the power of lucid dreaming to make scientific breakthroughs that would save humanity from itself. playing “truth or truth” in the dark of his bedroom as i laid on the air mattress on the glowstick-scattered floor and he laid up in his bed. i think all of this happened over the course of many more years than just 2009 but 2009 feels like the nexus

kate: In 2009 I was 16 and caved to the pressure to make a Facebook account. I remember being at a friend's house and her showing me everyone's posts and that you could poke people and make a status and "become a fan" of things. I didn't like pictures of myself, so I think my profile pic was just a random abstract picture or a character or something for a while until one of my friends took a random picture of me on the bus from a high enough angle with lighting that made my skin look bone white that I deemed artistic enough to be acceptable.

Anonymous 2: sitting with my childhood dog while waiting for my mom to get ready to take her to get put down. older sister came up with a camera and took a picture of both of us. i do not know why

Lucas: Don't have any

Anonymous 3: Eating an entire carton of cream of mushroom soup and sharting volcanically onto my computer chair.

Anonymous 4: Silent reading time, some students doing work, I noticed a kid named Luke was left-handed

superswag: I was 0

v0w0v: Getting into a fancy audition-based children's choir. We did a lot of competitions and the girls' uniform was a velvet dress. I hated wearing it because the texture was bad on my arms, and it was too tight. The practices were pretty intense. One time during rehearsal I lost a baby tooth while singing then held it in my mouth until we finished our set.

Anonymous 6: Being dangled over an animatronic crocodile at a rainforest cafe by my uncle and being so scared I cried.

Anonymous 7: drawing really awful comics. one of them was about an anthropomorphic cigarette that said 'crap' at the end which i thought was a big deal, so i showed a girl before class who was impressed.

binnie: Playing the MMOSG Boom Bang to utterly horrendous impact on my mood and making my parents spend money on it for no damn good reason

Anonymous 8: Don't remember

April M. Mildew: I am in the sun room of my grandmother's house. It is a 70s/80s kind of house and it is on hilly terrain. Michael Jackson was on the television. I thought he was a woman because he had long hair. I believe it was the ending of the music video for "Leave Me Alone".

[halcyon-digest]

2010

Art Klaudt: Driving across the Cairngorms due to a car crash on the A9, listening to Wish You Were Here

Anonymous 1: unknown

ava: the thing that comes to mind is just my 5th grade teacher’s face and voice, and the knowledge that this was the year my dad left (he came back a few years later) but that moment feels separate from the timeline of my life

kate: Pokemon Black and White were released and all of my friends were going to buy it and play together since there was a feature where you could visit a town in someone else's game. It was the first Pokemon game I had bought since Crystal. We played it in the orchestra room before school and I have a picture somewhere of everyone lined up on their gameboys on the band bleachers.

Anonymous 2: in an old church while on vacation, seeing tombs made me suddenly realize that i was going to die one day and i broke down crying

Lucas: I remember my best friend DeAndre from kindergarten, I also remember the layout of the classroom

Anonymous 3: Sitting on the grass in my parents' back garden with a feeling of total dread and despair because I didn't know what to do with the time in front of me, just in that one day, it was summer and the sun felt hostile, I had no idea what to do, no creative urge, nothing, I felt worthless and so shocked by my lack of volition. I wanted so badly to do something but had absolutely no idea at all what it could possibly be. Then I wrote about it in my diary.

Anonymous 4: My teacher giving me 12/12 on a spelling test because I was sick the day of but always got perfect scores, or the birth of my sister

superswag: I was 1

v0w0v: My best friend. We would write stories together- she was so good at writing, she was good at a lot of things. We were 10 and she was studying mathematics that most college students struggle with while writing novellas that could have been written by an adult. I admired her so much. We were in quiz bowl together and she got us third place in nationals.

Anonymous 6: Accidentally spending 50$ on an online webstore by repeatedly clicking a button and having to sit outside for the night.

Anonymous 7: being exposed to and developing my interest in history. up to that point my concept of reality was what i could experience in my immediate surroundings (peripheral perth, western australia) and i didn't even grasp that there were other places in a material sense, let alone a past. i didn't know about wars, or that all the music i heard on the radio wasn't current/domestically produced.

binnie: Enjoying the companionship I had at the school for mentally disabled kids.

Anonymous 8: Don't remember

April M. Mildew: If I was seven, this must be the year of my mother's first seizure. It was in the basement bathroom. My sister and I were there. We were brushing our teeth and then she was on the floor. I think we called 911.