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Entries We Love: Wallace Tallman, 'You Are (Cecilia June)'

Hometown: Chicago, Ill.

Pairs well with: Looking at old family photo albums

"There's nothing in this whole world that you can't do / You're so much stronger than anything life throws you / So even when the storm won't seem to pass through, just sing this tune." Though I don't know for sure who or what they're about, I hear these words and imagine a father's love letter to a newborn daughter, a mantra of affirmations she can return to someday to be reminded who she is. Wallace Tallman's whispery crooning is transportive and cathartic, and when he sings the refrain — "Remember that you are Cecilia June" — for the final time, the feeling is like a satisfied painter reveling in the glory of a completed canvas. It's a muted, lullaby-like performance, just a few simple guitar chords played to a blurry camera lens, but it brought me to tears.

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Taylor Jennings-Brown
Taylor Jennings-Brown is a 2021-2022 Kroc Fellow. She is a thoughtful writer from Durham, North Carolina and is a spring 2021 graduate from the University of South Carolina, where she received her bachelor's degree in mass communications and anthropology.