winter (hope)

Seasons. They're such a beautiful process. The scenery changes, as does the weather, the customs. As far as favorites go, winter's not mine, but I am glad for it all the same.

Admittedly, I've been working on this compilation since mid-September. More than three months of intermittent thought, many of those days marked with struggle. One day I remember waking up for class, wondering where Hope had gone. I remembered from two years back, 'Blue Skies' by Noah & the Whale.

I needed hope when there was none; I like to think winter trees do too. Barren and cold, tirelessly waiting for spring's green, knowing the months of absence makes the green greener.

So, winter's chosen sound: hope's transition from without to with. Soft, sometimes sad, with staccato bits of magic.

I hope it's cold enough to enjoy!

-L

 

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colors, cascades

Autumn's a celebration of another year under our belts; hardships, triumphs, and all. It's a time to drop our baggage in exchange for vibrant color. It's a time to make time: to take a detour on the Blue Ridge Parkway, to tell a friend you love them, to drink more hot chocolate, to dance anyway.

This playlist is for exactly that. To instigate those moments, to play on the long mountainy drives, to fill the silence when voices are hoarse from cheering on your team.

Just as the leaves let themselves be changed this season, let's allow ourselves to be changed, too.

"...the sunlight is a canvas of 16 mm film, faded with nostalgia and diminished in its cycle. Somewhere, high-schoolers are slamming into each other in oversized shoulder pads. Somewhere, someone is falling in love."

                                                                                    - Noah Gundersen

the going

In light of all the miles traveled last February, I created a playlist for the going away and the coming home, one of my little curated creations I am the most proud of, that still rings out of my speakers from time to time. 

With that, this idea's been brewing for weeks: another selection of songs for the avid traveler. In a sense, that's what we all are: car, train, boat, plane, or one foot in front of the other, all of us are heading somewhere: to take the third dreaded test this week, back to the grocery store because you forgot one thing on your list, to surprise your family for dinner, to the airport for that long-awaited trip. And I/we can get so caught up in the place of arrival.  But the time we spend in between should not be time wasted- it is valuable! The traffic may be bumper to bumper, and you may have six errands left to go, but shouldn't there be joy in the midst of the going? 

These songs are to instigate the joy, to replace hurry and worry with contentment and gratitude, and to encourage more hours of aimless driving. Yes, this playlist is absolutely for road trips toward adventure, but more so, it is for the ordinary 30 minute commute, the mile long evening bike-ride, and to fill fleeting moments to the brim with meaning.

This playlist is divided in two:

Section One: Tracks 1-41

Section Two: Tracks 42-79 (+ 'The Best Is yet to Come' - Us & Our Daughters)

I'd planned on listing out specific scenarios, weather, feelings for when you should listen to each section, but I just couldn't. I couldn't because these songs won't be for you what they are to me. I hope they will be something though.

Here's what I do know: these songs are for sunshine and grey clouds, for interstates and stoplights, for stand-still traffic. They are for excitement and fear, for grief and lightheartedness. They are for the moments you want to freeze and replay again and again. They are for the mundane minutes spent in transit from A to B, and they are for making sure your moments matter.

May these sounds pull you to be present even in the smallest flashes of time. 

Listen, enjoy, and share!

-L

summer sounds

This is summer. Upbeat and a little boisterous, slow and humid days seemingly frozen in time, the backdrops and the forefronts of every moment this season's got to offer. It took awhile to make this; I didn't think the sounds were colliding right. They weren't supposed to- and that's the coolest part. Summer has no collective sound, but a whole melting pot of them. Hope you'll watch the list grow as summer ensues and listen a time or twenty :).

 

Summer sounds like the whir of windows rolling down as bare feet rest on the floorboards and sweat sticks legs to leather seats, like whistling wind in sails and splashes of lifejackets hitting the blue.

Summer sounds like the buzz of fireflies lighting the way on dusky neighborhood walks, the clap of hopeful hands over mason jars to ensnare those flickering bugs, the snap of stems as dirty fingers pluck crimson clovers near the roadside.

Summer sounds like strums blaring through tinny laptop speakers as jewelry clanks and eyelashes flutter at the touch of mascara, like the creak of pier planks beneath feet dancing in moonlit unison.

Summer sounds like ripply waves crashing and thunder rolling, porch's screen door clattering, the repetitive flip of dusty book pages, the gathering of droplets around an icy glass of late-night lemonade. 

Summer sounds like voices blending whilst content in idleness, like the inevitable swish of dollar bills being exchanged for cones topped with colored sprinkles, like life spilling onto life from sheer nearness.

Summer sounds like these songs on a loop, the soundtrack of the scenes depicted (and more), lips locked or mimicking every word, and I hope with all I've got that summer sounds like this for you too.

to spring

F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that "life starts over when it gets crisp in the fall." It's March: the warmth and the green are taking back what's theirs and it makes me think Fitzgerald was mistaken.

Autumn is more like the final farewell bash. All the colors show up and show out before their winter getaway. But spring: spring is when it all begins again. It's when we dance because life is so, so full. 

This playlist began weeks ago as a jumbled, eclectic mess. Actually, I think it still is. It's a mess that embodies the redemptive renewal of spring and the last shreds of winter, revival and dancing. It's for blades of grass underneath bare feet and open sunroofs and singing loud- so turn up the volume and roll down yo windows!

p.s. special shout out to friends who listen to good music, that both knowingly [and unknowingly] contributed to this- y'all tha real MVPs.