Inhale Exhale

In the Beforetimes pre-COVID, I was a master of mixtapes. As a little kid, my head wobbled under the weight of my father’s headphones as we crafted family dinner party playlists and high speed dubbed a copy for the guest to take home. As I grew, I found that my father wasn’t always the easiest person to ask for help. His moods seemed to shift with winds I could not detect. Asking for twenty bucks or for an extra hour past curfew was dicey business. But I learned I could always ask for a blank cassette and be met with warmth and curiosity. He’d slide a box from beneath his desk, lift the lid and hold it out to me. I’d choose one of the ones in the glossy red and white wrapper, scrape up the pull tab and unwind it in one smooth move, ready to record.

It used to be so easy. I’d whip up mixtapes for any and all occasions. Friends going off to university. Road trips. Crushes, love affairs, and breakups. Cassettes gave way to CDs and  I had entire volumes dedicated to getting dressed for a night on the town. And before long it simply became streamed playlists.

At the beginning of the pandemic I used to make playlists every day. Anything to buoy my spirits and to refresh my days from the looping sameness of lockdown. A playlist for cleaning. A playlist for walking. I even made a playlist for doomscrolling so I wouldn’t have to hear the news; only read it.

These long scarf-bound days, my body has come to accept rest. Welcome it, even. Sure, I miss dance floors — which always felt like home to me — but right now it’s not the dancing I need. It’s just breath. Slowly inhaling and exhaling as I summon myself, getting ready for a new world for all of us… whenever and whatever it will be.

SIDE A:

1. White Winter Hymnal – Fleet Foxes
2. Stay High – Brittany Howard
3. Born Again – DIANA
4. Bad Bad News – Leon Bridges
5. Time Moves Slow – BADBADNOTGOOD, Sam Herring
6. 10,000 Emerald Pools – BØRNS
7. High – Little Dragon

SIDE B:

8. Feels Like We Only Go Backwards – Tame Impala
9. Breathe and Stop – Q-Tip
10. Missing – DRAMA
11. Music Sounds Better With You – Stardust
12. Dog Days Are Over – Florence and the Machine
13. Scale It Back – DJ Shadow, Little Dragon
14. Les Fleurs – Minnie Riperton