Favorite Things: Candice Wilmore and her video camera

Candice Wilmore, 73, spent the worst days of the pandemic living in isolation at the Friendship Manor senior living apartment complex near the Frandor Shopping Center. Throughout the pandemic’s peak, and to this day, her favorite thing is her video camera. Wilmore used the camera to record her thoughts on life, and now she uploads the videos to her personal YouTube channel.

I bought a video camera last September. It’s just a cheap video camera I got for $100 off the internet. I knew it wasn’t going to be a big investment. I’ve been a still photographer for many years, and my Nikon takes video, but I wanted something higher quality.

I feel so strongly about the way the pandemic has affected people. I don’t think we’ve given ourselves enough credit for waking up every day and dealing with it. I feel such empathy for other people.

I started my YouTube channel five months ago. My goal was to practice speaking from my heart, about what I've discovered in my 73 years of life. There are so many ways to say the same thing, and what I say won't be anything new. Perhaps, a reminder for us all, but especially to myself, to pay attention to what I've learned, what is the most important, while I'm still alive and breathing. Words are tricky. We can make things so complicated. I hope I don't add to all that. 

To sit in front of a camera with no audience and try to speak without any notes — to sit there and feel like I have anything valuable to say — has been very challenging and interesting. Every time I do it, I have a slightly different experience. There’s real loss of connection and humanity, there’s an incredible sadness I feel for humanity in having to live through this very difficult time. 

Rather than come together, it seems to have divided people in a way that is so unnecessary. We could’ve risen to this occasion as human beings, and to see how much it has divided people and how much people have had to suffer — the isolation, sadness and depression — we could’ve done a better job maintaining our humanity through all of this.

When you try to share with people that you’ve discovered something about yourself that’s profound and beautiful, it can come across boasting that you’re somehow “enlightened.” It’s often not taken in by other people in a way that you would expect. I’ve seen how many times you must be careful about saying you’ve discovered something beautiful inside. People can take it as preaching or trying to promote something. It can be very tricky.

Staring into a camera, talking to an audience that may never find me or be interested, it took a lot of courage. I had no idea how people would perceive it. “Crone” is a mythological term — it usually means an old witch or hag; It’s in a lot of old fairy tales.

These are not my words, but the true definition of a crone, in a more positive way and the one that I embrace, is: “An older woman who is not afraid to tell the truth about her life.” That’s where I’m at. I finally feel like I’m not afraid to tell the truth. 

Interview edited and condensed by Skyler Ashley. If you have a suggestion for Favorite Things, please email Skyler@lansingcitypulse.com