new month new me.mp3

its december now ??

My romance with November is over, and to be honest, I’m sort of relieved. As all romances do, it started with sweet beginnings. But then the winds changed, and a chill filled the air. All the beautiful leaves lost their color and covered the ground with their grey and brown carcasses. I have been retreating to the apartment, and more specifically, my heated bed. It took me a full week of endless cups of tea and baked goods to recover from Whatever The Hell that retrograde was.

It’s taken me almost another week to drag myself back on here again. I enjoyed being gone, but feel determined to keep up with “the practice”.

I suppose that I secretly hoped logging off for a month would transform how I see the world and how the world sees me. I had even entertained the delusion that I might come back to internet virality and new admiring subscribers. Laugh My Ass Off. The truth is, I don’t even remember how I saw the world four weeks ago enough to know if it’s changed. It certainly doesn’t feel all that Different to me. Just a little colder and drearier. I can’t say I’ve noted much change in myself either. Although I did notice today that I stopped hating our living room furniture, something I’ve been trying to do for months. I guess some of the things that felt hard feel easier now, and sometimes that’s all change really is.

It brings me a little shame to report that without a weekly substack post to hold me accountable to my More Ethical Music Listening Journey, I started listening to my playlists on Spotify again… I spent the first half of this year making playlists faster than I could listen to them. In a sort of desperate attempt to preserve the beautiful whirlwind of spring and summer, I stored memories in songs and shoved them into little folders with funny names. I started going through the archives after Ben came over and set up the Best Music Listening System Of All Time. Now that some of my playlists are getting the listening sessions they deserve, I was motivated to transfer them all onto Qobuz - the new music dimension I’ve been exploring.

Here are some albums I was also sure to transfer from my library.

Underdressed at The Symphony - Faye Webster

I latched onto this album as my new comfort album this spring when I first started working at Koke’e Resource Conservation Project. I remember walking the fence line behind Spencer and Jane at Drinking Glass while the sunlight danced a lazy midday dance through the midstory of the rainforest. I knew from the opening track that Faye Webster had created something truly timeless that only gets sweeter with every listen.

Beatopia - Beabadoobea

I have come to love this album in pieces as various songs have found me at different times. When I finally put them all together to appreciate this record, it felt sort of like connecting the dots to different pieces of myself. Ripples is probably my favorite track, but Sunny Day is a close second.

Syreeta - Syreeta Wright

I don’t feel like it would be right for me to continue gatekeeping this one. Syreeta Wright is someone I hope to do an entire post about because she’s that talented as an artist and that interesting of a person. This album is as light as it is soulful. As delightful as it is heavy. When I listen to her music, I like to think we would have been good friends.

From the stars,

MP