softer tides

Collage Paper Playlist Collaboration

I started this playlist project to accomplish a few things simultaneously. I wanted an excuse to make more collages, to get better at typography, to discover new music, and to make a space where all my interests could live and commingle together. But, even more so, I wanted to make something participatory, something community driven. Something we could build together. Something collaborative. Which is why I’m baffled that it’s taken me 13 playlists to invite a collaborator to make a playlist with me. Today that problem is remedied.

Words in Bloom

has consistently sent me great music to add to the previous playlists. It made perfect sense to ask her to collaborate with me on this one. Hope you like it!

words in bloom

the pull of recollection

"Home” - Blue Octorber

I traipse barefoot 
Across barren terrain, 
Wind in my hair 
Hope between clenched teeth.
My heart,
A compass 
Guides me 
Through 
A reel of still images 
Flickering 
Hues of familiarity 
As I strain
Against the pull
Of recollection. 
Unsteady upon 
Hesitant feet,
I follow the rhythmic 
Directions 
Thrumming 
Within my chest. 
Best foot forward,
In confident strides -
I walk on; 
Determined
To find the arms
That console, 
The lips that 
Whisper a promise
Of happiness, 
Entwined fingers 
Inked in stories
Yet untold;
A place 
I know 
As home.

softer tides

“The Way I Tend To Be” - Frank Turner

I usually have a perfectly sculptured impression of life - where it needs to take me and how I will get there.

Everything neatly aligned.

I can march on merrily, knowing I’ve plotted and perfected a quintessential plan.

But, “The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a-gley", Robert Burns says. Something comes from beyond. Hits you from all sides. Sends you careering into a maelstrom of panic and confusion.

Even after months and years of meticulous planning, despite our intricate ideologies and and calculated intentions, the bottom can still fall out. Things can still go awry.

What can we do besides close our eyes, cross our fingers, and pray that, in time, the turbulence will cease and that calm waters lie ahead of us?

Until then, we hold on with everything we have, and hope that tomorrow will bring softer tides.

duane

for what I’ve lost

“Marisol” - Static Dress

We live our lives in the inevitable aftermath of loss. Gripped by what we once held. By what we once had. In the darkened absence of what used to be.

“Everything that you love, you will eventually lose", Kafka says. It's not a question of if, but when? How soon? How fast? All at once? Or, slowly?

It's a difficult fact to face. One even harder to accept, if we can ever truly accept it at all. The fact that, as

Susan Cain

says, "You will never find again the specific places or people or dreams that you’ve lost."

Every loss is a breach. And every breach is an opening. A space for something to get out. To get in. A space for something else. Something other. A space for something to grow, where, Kafka says, "love will return in a different form."

**Special thanks to

Daniel Barber

for recommending this song.

it takes time

“What a Shame” - Telltale

There is a moment that defies chronology. That rejects linearity. Something richer than we can measure. Something broader than all our calculating.

And yet, it "is not another time beyond and above the 'normal' historical time", Slavoj Zizek says, "but a kind of inner loop within this time." Not a branching out. Not a stretching across vast distances. But a depth of inward reaching.

It starts with one breath after another. Each more present than the other. Each one more attentive than the one before.

It starts with less and ends with more. Less clamor. Less noise. More peace. More understanding. More love. More joy.

It's not easy, of course. Few things worth anything are. It takes time, like everything. But it starts with patience. With listening. With noticing.

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That’s it for this playlist. Hope you liked the collaboration as much as I did. If there’s anything you’d like to recommend or request for a future playlist, feel free to leave a comment.

Take care.

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