Seven Songs Playlist: October 2016

chapter ten.

I tend to write a lot of long, wandering musings about the ways in which things change. My natural inclination as an ultra-feel-y human being is to dwell upon the shedding of skins and the ache of forward momentum; to marinate in memories; to stumble through life drunk on nostalgia, taking mental note of all the beautiful things around me so I don't, god forbid, forget any of the wonders I've witnessed.

And that's all good and fine. To an extent, being hyper-aware of time's fleeting passage (or, more accurately, my fleeting visit to this cool little planet called Earth) pushes me to do more and love more and laugh more—all good things. But that said, this hyper-awareness also has a sneaky habit of romancing me into spending more time looking in the rearview mirror than at the road ahead.

Realizing this, my gut reaction is to swing to the opposite side of the pendulum; to buckle down and map out a most exciting future for myself; to live my life like a kid curled cross-legged on the floor on December 24th, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he stares at the door, waiting for Santa to creep in. But spending life waiting for magic to happen, staring at a blank sky because a firework might eventually appear, also doesn't win me the Wisest Life Plan award. So what's an anxious human being to do?

Learn some non-passive patience, that's what.

It's October, which yes, means it's Halloween, but it also means it's harvest season. For the sake of argument, let's forget about the pitfalls of modern agriculture and instead throw it back to good old agrarian society. Let's say we know a farmer named Marcus. It's October, so Marcus heads out into his fields to pick hefty butternut squashes and plump legumes off their vines. He plucks sun-caramelized figs from the trees; he fills baskets to their heavy brims with sweet potatoes.

This food has undoubtedly taken time to grow. So much time, in fact, that Marcus planted the seeds months ago... and he's just now reaping the benefits.

"Well, duh," you say. "Produce takes time to grow. It takes patience."

Right. Marcus has been patient. But I bet you five million dollars that he didn't plant the seeds, pat himself on the back for a job well done, and proceed to sit and stare at the ground for eight months, waiting for the seeds to sprout and blossom and bloom and ripen. Instead, he probably went home and did other things, like raising chickens and taking his wife dancing and writing the next great American novel. He was patient, but that doesn't mean he was passive. He didn't just stare at the ground, waiting for some sign of life to poke its head up from the brown earth. Because doing that would have been silly.

And yet: I stare at the (metaphorical) ground all the time. When I let myself think only of two things—the beautiful past and the mystical future, one leading directly to the other within nothing in-between—I end up staring at the ground, which makes me miss out on the meantime. And what a shame that is, because the meantime is where so many gloriously good things, like laughter and spontaneous adventures and opportunities to plant new seeds, happen.

Instead of staring at the ground, I need to trust that the seeds I've planted (given the occasional necessary doses of water and love) will, indeed, sprout. It doesn't take me staring at the ground to make that happen. It takes me planting the seeds, nurturing them when it's needed, and moving on to do other things in the meantime. That's it. That's the end of the story. Because the fact of the matter is: plants grow naturally. They know how to climb their way through the dark to the light. By the same logic: the future is going to unfold whether or not I have stayed up too late like a kid on Christmas Eve curled cross-legged on the floor waiting for it walk through the door. How prideful of me to think that my staring at the ground, my incessantly passive patience, might make a natural process happen any differently or more effectively than it was already going to.

And hey: maybe once I shed the passivity and stop staring at the ground waiting for something—anything—to happen, I'll pay more attention to the wondrous stuff cropping up along the way. Like, for example, new tunes that add just a little more jazz and kick to the adventures at hand.

On that note, here are some of late 2016's best new musical releases to make your ears smile and your body groove as you move along the path to whatever's next.

1. Worth It | Moses Sumney

thefader.com

2. Fountain of Youth | Local Natives

npr.org

3. May I Have This Dance | Francis and the Lights

pancakesandwhiskey.com

4. Don't Wish Me Well | Solange

rap-up.com

5. In The Morning | NAO

theguardian.com

6. 00000 Million | Bon Iver

rollingstone.com

7. New Year | Regina Spektor

pinterest.com

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