November Playlist

                November is a tough month for me, historically. It gets colder, the days get shorter, we are approaching the end of the semester with all the work it entails and I can feel my seasonal depression start to grow. Still, there’s something eerily romantic and contemplative about the dim, chilly days, the way the frost coating the grass in the morning vanishes under the lightest touch of sunlight and how the dried grasses look just fuzzy enough to be dreamlike from the corner of your eye. October is the autumn of harvest, certainly, but I think November is the true mystique of the season.

                I’ve been spending the little free time I have lately buried under my pile of blankets with a little sleeping cat on my head. Still, I try to make an effort to go outside every once in a while, as long as the sun is out. Last week, I found myself driving down my favorite forest road. It’s a self-soothing practice. Well, at the very top of the mountain the forest breaks just enough to make way for miles of telephone wires, beneath which lie fields for cattle and a riot of staghorn sumac. It’s always an arresting sight, and a large reason why I make this drive so often.

                On this particular day, the sun was hidden behind a heavy blanket of grey clouds, and a slow but steady trickle of fog was climbing through the trees on the far side of the little valley made between the mountains. I was enjoying a cigarette and the view perched on the hood of my car, stewing under my own cloud cover of stress and artificial grouch, when from my little speaker a familiar sounding song began to play: Lesotho’s “flicker”, a post-metal instrumental track from a band I hadn’t heard since I saw them live in Boston, fronting for Bloodywood. At the venue, the drums and guitar chords felt like they were ripping through my body- rearranging my neurons from the inside, or maybe it was just the alcohol talking.

                Here, in this little island of peace, the thick and melting sounds only enriched the low breeze and rumbles of an approaching storm. It’s not exactly a relaxing track, but I found myself breathing a little easier nonetheless. Like relaxing a muscle I hadn’t even known I was keeping clenched.

                I guess there’s not really a point to this story. I’m still stressed, still fairly grouchy (and will probably only get worse the further into winter we get- sorry, everyone who deals with me offline), but I think for a little bit there, I was close to forgetting how important it is to make your own oasis when you can feel your walls starting to crumble. It doesn’t have to be a happy one, really. Just a place you can lose yourself in, even for just a few minutes a week.

                I might try to update this website’s playlist every month or so, just as a personal project. I don’t really expect anyone to listen to it, or really, I don’t expect anyone to read any of this. But working on it was good for me, I think.  I’d like to make a habit of sitting with music for my future quiet spaces. Play it at the bottom of this site, and see the full playlist by clicking the three little lines in the corner.

                That’s me for today. I’m sitting in the library and would like very much to go home and sleep off the day now. We will talk again soon.