The 2024 Summary, and 2025 Aims

New Year’s Eve (and subsequently, Day) is my favorite holiday, and has been for some time, ever since my close hometown friends and I started a many-years-long tradition of throwing NYE parties. I can’t remember exactly when it started, but in something like 6th or 7th grade, we drank our fill of sparkling grape juice, threw handfuls of confetti all over someone’s carpeted Michigan basement, and that was the beginning of everything.

Aside from the parties with friends and enjoying a good secular holiday, I love celebrating the New Year because I love transitional moments; I love reflecting on the year that has passed, thinking through the long list of surprises, lessons, and achievements, and anticipating more to come in the next year… and there will be so much!

Last year was honestly wild, and I’ll show you what I mean–

In 2024, I:
-Visited 4 Countries: USA, Denmark, Germany, Italy (and flew through 4 more: Iceland, Switzerland, Netherlands, and Ireland). 🧳
-Moved from NYC, NY to Berlin, Germany! 🇩🇪
-Visited my home state, Michigan, twice. 🍒
-Got a bilateral salpingectomy. 🎉
-Designed and shot my short film, Venus Retrospectives (currently in the editing process). 🎬
-Debuted my short play, “Black Market Inspiration,” at AMT Theater off-broadway, as part of their New Works Development Program. 🎭
-Completed 2 German courses with the Goethe Institut, and started a third (which will complete my A2 level learning). ✅
-Worked on 15 different productions/shows/events with Chelsea Factory NYC, usually as the Venue Coordinator. 📋
-Worked as the Assistant Production Manager for SUMO, with Ma-Yi Theatre Company (to be performed at The Public in March 2025)! 📅
-Saw a TON of plays, musicals, operas, dance pieces, concerts, and performances of all varieties! 🎵
-Visited a bunch of museums, and sketched at le Gallerie degli Uffizi and la Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence, Italy! 🎨
-Read several books, including physical copies, kindle editions, and good old library books. 📚
-Turned 30!!! 🥳
-Celebrated 1 year of marriage, and 9 of togetherness, with Tom (and we got new ear piercings to mark the occasion)! 💕

… And that’s just about all that I have the patience to tally up right now.

For the new year, I of course have equally ambitious aims (though I would prefer to avoid moving again for a while). I usually don’t share my goals, instead choosing to conceal any failures I might experience along the way… but this year, I want to be seen trying, whether I reach my aims or not. (Aside–did anyone else get called a “try-hard” in high school, as an insult? Can we unpack that together?)

So, here are the 2025 Aims!
-Create something every day (take creative action: make something that was not there before, even if it is small, or part of a larger project).
-Do either a sun or moon salutation every day, with a few minutes of meditation.
-Update or work on my professional website (frannykromminga.com) once a month.
-Fully finish Venus Retrospectives!
-Complete B1 level German training (via the Goethe Institut).
-Travel somewhere new!
-Read 25 books.
-Visit 25 museums (different collections on separate visits to the same museum are allowed).
-See 25 live performances (in-person).
-Get 25 rejections from applications/auditions/submissions… then double it to 50 in the second half of the year!
-Make 25 posts on The Franifesto.

Ambitious! But certainly achievable, and many of the goals overlap. For example, this post here is my “create something” for day 5 of the new year, and one of the 25 intended posts. The number 25 also seemed perfect for many of the aims, both because of the reference to the year 2025, and because it means I will need to accomplish one of each of those categories roughly every ~2 weeks. So far, so good: four days in, I am especially loving the creativity goal, because it’s often hard for me to prioritize something that is coded as “frivolous” in our capitalistic western society, even when I know it’s actually deeply important.

I’ll be tracking all of these, attempting to record them all in my little notes app; I plan to mark down what books and shows I experience, list when I write my posts, sketch at all the museums, and even count how many sun-versus-moon salutations I do. So, if you’re curious about how it all shakes out, meet me here next year: same time, same place!

In the meantime–enjoy a video I edited with some of my favorite little clips of 2024~

Happy New Year, and may you have a healthy, joyful, and prosperous 2025!

The Button Factory

They drill the holes at eight in the morning. Loudly, with jackhammers, crushing, pounding, boring. I worked until midnight last night, and now I wake to hear the concrete giving way under heavy machinery. My disoriented dreams are interrupted, and my husband is next to me, already resignedly awake, scrolling. The drilling changes tempo: at times it clangs with the rebound of alarm bells, at others it whirs with implied threat akin to the Dentist’s. I record some audio on my phone; I send it to the gals, “can you believe this?” Somehow, I fall back asleep.

Buttons aren’t made here anymore, not since, if the German wall plaque in our studio apartment is to be believed, the 1990s, after reunification. Cultural adjustments and economic shockwaves ripped through decades of benefic business. (Buttons are good work; even zippers can’t zap them. Velcro is, by comparison, vacuous. And snaps! Unserious.) Alas, the Fall of the Berlin Wall was a stronger connector.

Now, the only button left is a large metal statue: a four-foot, futile ferrous fastening, forever unfulfilled of its purpose. We can’t see it from our balcony, but some folks overlooking the next courtyard down can, and I’m sure it’s very quaint from above. It’s neighbored by a spry little fountain, a bike rack, and some lightly overgrown plants. They must have finished remodeling that courtyard last year.

Ours, by comparison, is a concrete pit, haphazardly layered over with uneven boardwalk. The planked pitfalls change every day, when the construction workers rearrange the path after having freshly rearranged the terrain. “Lift your feet,” I mutter to myself, as the motion-activated light flicks on, about five yards too late into the dark trudge. Stepping with intention, I make it to my door, grocery bags and ankles intact.

I get a hint of commiseration via text throughout the day. I respond, keeping up conversation, connection. Not much is said. Nobody changes the topic. Hours have passed, and I’m safe at home, staring down a blessedly sacred weekend (jackhammers, famously, always have weekends off). And then–

–“[…] it’s not that bad […]” … followed by other gems of helpfully dismissive wisdom.

Of course it’s not that bad. I’m safe, and warm, and fed. I have work that is personally meaningful. I am loved, and I get to see my loved ones regularly. I am healthy. I get to enjoy some of the finest components of our Age. I’m not making buttons, in Berlin or otherwise.

And yet.

Lately, I have been pungently aware that even my casual, conversational complaints are confounded. The positive public veneer is too thick. Instagrammed sunsets and an eye for an angle make the whole world go blind, I suppose. I feel unrelatable, even with those I’ve thought myself dear to for a decade or more.

No, it doesn’t really matter that loud construction woke me up at 8AM. And I’m sorry if I have overused your compassionate ears and eyes lately, sharing some of the inner difficulty that few get to witness. But I am not easily vulnerable, and this year has had massive challenges to match the changes. Overall, yes, I know this is a crumb of an event… but a concrete crumb, and it wormed into my shoe somehow, and yes, I need to pause to shake it out.

Pause with me, or go on ahead–but if you go on, I won’t try to catch up.
I will go at my own pace, regardless.

Black vinyl flooring greets my boots, all specked with city dust
Containing flecks of concrete, stone, dirt, grime, and gritty rust:
But only a little bit of grit sticks upon my shoe,
And I track it through the gridded streets, off to somewhere new.
The soles of my feet carry a record of time and place
That keeps me grounded, so to speak, in this liminal space.

The Liminal

I’ve been learning German lately, and something that I found fun was writing a poem, then immediately translating it to a German version that captures the same form and feeling.

Sometimes, I feel I can do little else,
But I can give my hair to the birds.

I brush out my undyed brown strands
And waft them aloft, above.

I hope they'll be part of
Some hidden, warm nest

Of the birds I
Hear at night,

When I 
Rest.

Manchmal, ich denke nichts kann ich machen,
Aber, mein Haar ist für die Vögel.

Ich bürste meine Haare und
Hebe es in den Himmel.

Ich hoffe sie werden 
Eine kleine Nest

Für die Vögel
Ich höre 

In der
Nacht.

(In my draft, I switched to red ink when I had to look up translating help.)

I’ll definitely be doing this again. It gave me the chance to sort of re-compose and re-examine the poem, giving it more context to be understood, albeit only for those who have access to both languages.

I think more of these will be forthcoming!

“For the Birds/Für die Vögel”

Illuminating Sparkle & Rock-Solid Foundation: The new Allison and Roberto Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC

I love rocks. Anyone who knows me can tell you this. I have loved them since I was a small child, poring over the geology pages of my children’s encyclopedia, lingering over the glossy images of fluorite, quartz, and sapphire. I remember studying field guides for fun, and effortlessly acing my science quizzes on volcanoes and tectonics. As an adult, I have a tiny gem collection of my own, and have become a bit of a connoisseur of gem and mineral displays of both the educational and commercial variety. I have seen the Smithsonian’s dazzling array, looked at every booth at the Denver Gem & Rock Show, combed Oregon beaches for loose agates, devotedly searched for a rare color-change garnet suitable for my engagement ring, and more. I always enjoy a gem & mineral display, but at this point it takes some real oomph to stand out.

The new Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals at the American Museum of Natural History did not disappoint.

I and my partner chose to visit on April 22, 2022, which happened to be Earth Day—a fact we’d forgotten would mean attending the museum with dozens of school field trips and science-minded families. The added crowd turned out to be pleasant, however, as we got to see how people of all ages, particularly impressionable ages, interacted with the new exhibit. I couldn’t help but grin at each child’s reverent ”ooooooh,” uttered upon seeing a spectacular sparkle. Gems, ever fascinating, were very popular on Earth Day.

When you enter the exhibit as it currently stands, you’re immediately greeted by a colossal pair of amethyst geodes, cracked open and glittering deep violet. It’s a charming photo opportunity and serves as a bold welcome, showing visitors what is to be expected ahead.

Entrance sign for The Allison and Roberto Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals.

After the geode entrance display, we turned to the left, and it’s there that my great opinion began to form; the Mignone Halls are the only exhibit I have seen to include the concept of Mineral Evolution, which describes the changes through time from the Big Bang to now that chemically allowed new minerals to form. This provides a fantastic context for understanding what minerals really are and how they came to be, and I haven’t seen it so clearly laid out in any other setting.

The exhibit is also sure to point out the necessity of minerals to the existence of life, and how some minerals only exist because of life. I have rarely seen the vitality of minerals demonstrated so concisely, and of course accompanied by twinkling specimens and memorable anecdotes.

Further, the Halls outline the industrial, historical, and cultural importance of minerals and gems. Rocks and minerals are inseparable from human history, and gems have been objects of desire and fascination since before recorded history. Something I admired was that these displays professed the importance of function and form equally; self-adornment has held just as much value, culturally, as making tools.

Throughout the Halls, we learn enough for a college course in geology; I would know, I took one. This includes but is not limited to: chemical classification of minerals, how to identify different minerals in the field, crystal growth & structure, social & environmental costs of gem mining, erosion & weathering, fluorescence, organic & synthetic gems, light & refraction, minerals local to the NYC area, Moh’s hardness, history of salt and its uses, plate tectonics, etc. This is all delightfully accessorized with enormous specimens, some of which we are even encouraged to touch. Interactive displays help to cement the day’s learning and add a playful element to it, and seemed to be enjoyed by kids and adults alike. Lastly, we are treated to a fully-stocked jewel-box alcove simply clustered with some of the finest gemstones ever found and faceted.

Entrance to the Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals is included with general admission to the museum, and I highly recommend a visit. We wandered the space for about three hours, having fun admiring the specimens and trying to guess what they were before checking their information on the placards below. The whole exhibit is thick with information, some of it easier to absorb if you’ve had prior introduction to scientific concepts, particularly chemistry. A visitor can easily spend hours reading up on rocks, or enjoy a gleaming stroll through the treasure hoard; if gemstones happen to hypnotize you, you’ll be a happy visitor indeed.

Reckless & Unhinged

It’s come to my attention that some of my energy may have been being misused. Or, if not misused, then frustrated. Frustrated by my own self-imposed rules and regulations.

I am a fairly methodical person who enjoys science and statistics, particularly when it comes to organizing my own life. I like to track what I’ve done, when, and how often; I regularly accessorize my journal with little grids peppered with check marks, to track things like my skincare, exercise, Italian language practice, caffeine intake, and more. This year, I set myself the challenge to submit applications/auditions/etc. to 100 opportunities, so naturally I started a tracking system to calculate what works out and what does not.

However, the last three weeks or so, I have been caught up in an unplanned gig which interrupted my meticulous tracking, and forced me to consider the question: is it better to go back and fix my lapse in recording, or to forge onward with submissions without looking back? Is the proof of the effort more important than dedication to the cause?

Simultaneously, I had recently said ”yes” to an opportunity I had a negative feeling about, and of course ended up somewhat regretting it. As someone who is so often a confident consult on friends’ life decisions, I’ve noticed a certain uncertainty about navigating my own, specifically about following my gut/heart/instinct in any given moment (as opposed to bending to outsider opinions or some misguided sense of ”strategy”). I freeze and question my inspirations, constantly needing to ascertain whether or not my idea is “worth” following before making a move… when I could instead simply use that energy to go ahead and find out in reality. Does every move have to be the “best” in order to be worth making?

There comes a time when calculation is just procrastination. Though it goes against my nature and habits, I think I will find my answers by choosing to recklessly pursue my own goals. Moving forward, this looks like not second-guessing when I feel like writing instead of practicing. This looks like saying “no” to opportunities even when, on the surface, there doesn’t seem to be a ”good enough” reason. This looks like releasing prior plans when they no longer suit me. This looks like posting more silly content on social media and here on this blog, regardless of who may or may not see it.

Part of it, too, will look unhinged. A career in the arts already reflects some inconsistency; reckless pursuit adds a new level of observable chaos. This new approach challenges me to take actions without caring what others think of them. In fact, it challenges me to take actions without prematurely judging them myself.

For the foreseeable future, my aim is to release routine, excise expectation, and plunge headlong into every actionable whim. I hope to remove self-set restraints, and retrain my self-trust. I intend to convert every bit of frustrated energy into forward momentum.

I’m so curious to see what will happen next.

”Commit to the bit,” right?

As a child, I was a witch: a Poem

As a child, I was a witch, and I was powerful then;
I brewed potions out of soaps, and wished for my own garden.

I learned to tell the flowers apart, and could untie any knot;
But somewhere along the way, there’s some magic I forgot.

I sang spells at thunderstorms, made lighting crack through the clouds.
I used my voice, unthinking whether or not to be “loud.”

Known not to care, I’d never let someone take up my space,
Nor of myself, dreams, desires, allow anyone erase.

As I grow, I’ve learned to glance backward, at who I was;
She knew more than I do now, and of late, it gives me pause.

To All my Unfinished Projects: a Love Letter

I miss you.

Not enough to visit, though. For me, distance is to love as wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, and enkindles the great.

Please understand why I’ve chosen to stay away all this time… the attraction is too strong. Were we to pick back up where we left off… well… I don’t know if I could put you down again. And I simply cannot balance that with everything else I’ve committed to, at this point. I’m a different person now.

Despite all that, despite everything standing in our way, I can’t help but think about you. I toss and turn in the dark, thoughts of you keeping me awake long after midnight. I keep thinking, “what if?” What could we have made together, if I’d stayed? What could have been different?

I remember our immediate spark, right from the beginning. You fell into my life like fate waving hello, and it all felt so natural, easy. You bent to my fingertips like you had no other wish than to obey my desire. I remember a feverish frenzy, as if each moment wasn’t enough, as if any choice we could make wouldn’t be enough to release our potential. I remember a sleepless hyperfocus, an intensity I couldn’t describe, a flow of energy unlike anything else in the world.

Ultimately it was our potential, our inability to choose one path or the other, that failed us. Passion cannot replace compatibility, and I suppose we always knew we were mismatched. Maybe it was timing… or interests… or maybe it was because I was already promised to another.

Still, you haunt my dreams. I can’t forget the hours I spent with you, cultivating our connection, persuading myself it would work out. After all that has happened, I can’t regret that precious time; I learned so much about you, about myself.

I’m not sure why I chose to write to you today. Perhaps I like to think that you’re still there for me. Perhaps I want your forgiveness for leaving you behind. I won’t apologize for doing what I needed, but I still wish we had more time… time to finish everything we started.

To my Unfinished Projects:
unwritten play drafts,
half-baked businesses,
10-page novels,
one-poem poetry collections,
abandoned fibercrafts,
half-full notebooks and sketchbooks,
dropped classes,
unused craft supplies,
sparse Pinterest collections,
unbuilt websites,
empty social media profiles,
unbudgeted travel plans,
and every lost idea I’ve ever sacrificed to the golden idol named “I don’t need to write it down, I’ll remember,“

I love you still.

Hmm, says she: a Sonnet

Hmm, says she, I’ve been doing some thinking
About the water we have been drinking.
More common than dirt, more precious than gold,
Each and every drop a million years old.
How is it then that we are running out,
Getting scarce in every spigot and spout?
The rain still comes and the rivers still run,
But still it’s not enough… for everyone.
Some people still bathe, and steam, and shower–
Of course, they’re the ones with all the power.
Others go parched, chronic dehydration;
Ah, such “equality” in our nation.
I can’t help but feel we’ve gone all awry,
All because of an oily, greedy lie.