What Do You Crave?
Music instantly transports me. I can correlate listening streaks with different moods of varying time periods. When I want to conjure up a feeling, nothing moves me more than the sounds of a familiar song. As an entity, music is entirely mystical to me. I tried to learn to play the piano as a kid through osmosis. My older sister’s professional piano lessons served as the vehicle for this ambition. I hoped music would subsequently flow through my own fingertips, but the extent of my mastery began and ended at playing a very simple tune through the play-by-numbers method, correlating keys with colorful circles. I can’t read music. The infinite melodic possibilities also blows my mind — the fact that there are new songs developed constantly, each one almost entirely unique to itself, is marvel worthy.
Throughout these past few weeks of self-quarantine, I have been listening to some of my classic favorite songs that I may have neglected for a chunk of years. Death Cab for Cutie’s albums like Plans and Transatlanticism instantly shuttle my soul back to middle school melancholy. My soul has always been a little aged, kind of like a fine wine, but more aptly, like a hunk of asiago cheese.
It comes as no surprise to me, then, in reflecting upon my aptitude for alternative hits, that as a twelve-year-old I felt unearthed by the lyrics and tones of songs like “Soul Meets Body” and “I Will Possess Your Heart” among others. I have to credit the similarly moody TV show, The O.C., for introducing me to many bands alongside Seth Cohen’s sensitive boy-next-door disposition.
Middle school mentality usually harkens back to the typical tropes of awkwardness, braces, acne, but during those years, I was really chill with myself. I spent a lot of time with my friends, being a twerp and laughing at nothing.
It was a time of more introspective longing. I had the desire to have a deep, lasting connection with someone like a boyfriend in the Seth-Cohen-dating-Summer-Roberts kind of way, but I was too young to actually obtain any of it. I would talk with guys over AIM, even occasionally hanging out in person, but immaturity barred any semblances of commitment from manifesting.
I was in touch with my truest self, as corny as that sounds. I embraced my oddities without judgement. At times, though, conforming was a necessary means of survival during junctures of adolescence and young adulthood.
During the start of self-isolation, I began my time searching screens, scrolling through them as I normally would, but probably with even more fervor, to the extent that I sort of hit my “rock bottom” of social media addiction. I’ve had to put up some guardrails and allow myself more breathing room for the activities that I actually derive enjoyment from.
At first, my brain withdrew, craving the insanity of instant gratification — but then, there was vacancy. I began to crave the sounds of my past.
I once read in Brené Brown’s book, The Gifts of Imperfection, about a therapist and her client. The client was forcing herself to exercise in a gym but was feeling unmotivated, and a general low-grade depression. Per the recommendation from her therapist, she took an extended break from exercising, and then eventually realized that what she really wanted to do for physical activity was walk outside amongst nature and all of its glorious abundance of greenery.
Find what you crave. Sometimes this means making space. It may feel like there is no excess physical room to spare these days, and that space cannot even be created between yourself and your refrigerator. But making space is as much of a non-physical of a process as it can get. Keep a kernel of individuality alive and provide an incubator for it to be the one source of truth. In doing this, I feel a certain sense of calm, finally.
