I’m chai, and I might be the luckiest girl in the world.
A beautifully wise friend of mine told me the other day that while he was traveling this past summer, he’d introduce himself to everybody he met by saying: “I’m ____, and I’m a lover. I love you and I love me; I love loving you and I love loving me.”
I love him, and I love that, so I’m going to follow that river: for the month of love and candy hearts, I’ve started working on a playlist called “DO IT, WITH HEART.”
Now, I’ve never been a fan of Valentine’s Day, but I think I’ve come around to it this year. There is a lot of love around me. There are small joys as far as the eye can see, so at what point do those small joys become the fabric of experience itself?
At this point, would be my guess.
I started making the playlist last Friday after a particularly beautiful dance / ceremony I got to be a part of. It took place in this big hall in a church, lit by dimmed lanterns hung at different heights from the ceiling.
There were hearts and stars and sparkles projected on the walls; there were baskets of flower petals that would end up thrown in the air like confetti, and on the floor arranged into shapes; there were cups of cacao thickened by coconut oil and almond butter held in the hands of each friend there; there was a kind woman telling me to listen to the heart—asking me why I was still stuck in my head.
It was something out of a dream.
Making this playlist has been a curious little process because the inspiration is so diffuse, but I tend to want to keep things cohesive. I’ve been trying only to add songs that really make me feel that warm dreamscape joy, either ones that have made me feel that way before, or new ones that share the same tenderness.
It’s a tiny personal anthology of songs for moments; for people; for sights and other sounds, so I’ve had to suspend my urge to add filler or obscurity to smooth the whole thing out.
The first song I added to the playlist is one I heard last Friday, a live mixing of “Temptation” (a New Order cover) and “Star Guitar” by The Chemical Brothers.
The next songs added were “Witches” by Alice Phoebe Lou and “This Night Has Opened My Eyes” by The Smiths. Both smell like heavy hickory smoke and dusk air to me. Both are back-pocket flowers and cuddle puddles in eclectically-decorated houses.
“Mother Nature’s Bitch” by Okay Kaya falls in that camp as well. Very honest and lightly addicting, the lyrics to this one are quite dear to me (“Here I am / Easy to please / Here I am / Okay with it”). I remember being 16 and loving how sage green it sounded—and I remember a few nights ago, noticing that the Spotify banner for “Watch This Liquid Pour Itself” is the same green as my big sister’s eyes.
Truthfully, most of the songs in this playlist are teenage keepsakes I still tote around. “Empire Ants” by Gorillaz and Little Dragon, “Lies in the Eyes of Love” by Part Time, and “Air Supply” by Sweet Trip are all tokens of a real-life first love: they are big blue eyes, bandaged fingers, carefully collected trinkets; clay-stained aprons, wilting wildflowers, plumes of incense smoke slowly spilling out into the six p.m. sun.
“Lil Thing” by Knox Fortune, “Headshots (4r da locals)” by Isaiah Rashad, and “Landline” by binki are caffeine shivers, curls lobbed too short, and the air rollerskating its way from winter into spring.
This morning’s addition is “Butterflies” by TV Girl, George Clanton, and Jordana. This one is for the little love in between little loves, the complete and utter gift it is to reminisce.
I’m not sure how long this playlist will get, given that we’re only a week into February, but I’m excited to see where it goes. I hope you like this patchwork playlist if you take a listen; for those less involved, it’s at the very least songs you’ll probably know… easy listening.
