Hello hello,
Happy fall! This weekend, I’ve decided time travel is real. Let me set the stage… Friday evening, cooking lentils and beignets on the outside cooktop, blasting music on the speaker. My kids have a LOT of musical demands so we were cycling through their current favorites. Don’t worry, I don’t tolerate traditional ‘kid music’ so their favorites these days are Lizzo, Michael Jackson (I know…), Bad Bunny, and all things Greatest Showman. This is very tolerable considering the alternative (e.g. Raffe). But, then I was missing my best friends from college, and I wished so badly we were together, preferably starting our night at the Tribunal metro stop, then Melocoton, and then that dance club that we still don’t remember the name of… And that’s when it dawned on me.
I wrestled my phone out of my 2 1/2 year old’s hand….. [just kidding, what kind of parent would give their phone to a kid under 3 after the WHO declared that kids under 3 should have no screen time?!Just kidding again….we all would. All parents.] When I feel disconnected from my people, I transport myself to them through music. So, I searched on Spotify for the Top Hits from my college graduation year and started playing the playlist as loud as the speakers would go. Voila!! I was right back in the dingy basement at Joshua Tree in Allston, MA (albeit this evening there were no vodka redbulls and much shorter dance partners).
I’m sure we’ve all had the experience – you hear a song from high school or college, and it actually takes you to that physical/emotional location in your life. There’s an amazing book about this phenomenon called This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin. It explains the neuroscience behind the outsized impact of music from our teens/early 20s and why we are so emotionally attached to the music from this time period.
So, you might ask, what does this have to do with time travel? Well, I realized that if I could convince (aka force) my young kids to fall in love with the music from my college years, I can experience the best of my present and my past at the same time! And that felt magical.
Starting a new book – Inheritance: An Autobiography of Whiteness by Baynard Woods. The author was on the Codeswitch podcast this week:
Sounds like one of the more authentic explorations of whiteness I’ve come across. Hoping to learn where I can focus next in my own journey!
Talk soon,
Jessica
PS – I graduated college in 2008 …. Don’t Stop the Music – Rihanna, No One – Alicia Keys, Apologize – Timbaland, Chasing Pavements – Adele…and the greatest of all time…. Love in This Club – Usher. Mic drop.