Sidewalk Days

Lately I have been spending a lot of time alone, an inhibiting trend that tends to occur in this paradoxical world where many people exist while no random conversations do (unless it's asking for money or handouts, of course). The time spent alone has manifested itself primarily in the form of long walks, which rightfully occur more as the temperatures rise. I find my emotional state to be driven by apparent paradoxes as well: I've been doing a lot of thinking about how events shape our mental states, and whether it is possible to feel nostalgic about a place and time that has never been programmed into our psyches.

This song has been the flint for my ears to strike upon to spark this strange feeling. I don't know Japanese, and that's okay because I think this song might not be the same for me if I did. All I know is that it is perfect for those sidewalk days – the days that are so heavy you feel like you might sink beneath the pavement; where people don't shine quite as brightly as the trees do, so you take comfort in knowing that there's always a conversation partner underneath your feet, reminding you to slow down the world. But, as the :47 second mark also reminds me, nothing can last indefinitely – at some point or another, that sad string will work its way in to interrupt the sought-after content feeling, but it's what we do with that unexpected interruption that truly matters.

Baibaba Bimba, Tenniscoats

Grass

Spring is gaining momentum and that means some kind of weight lifts from our shoulders, like an invisible machine attaches itself to the dead feeling long winters drape over us and pulls it away. And socks are becoming less and less important, which is a good thing because the holes are eating up my feet anyway. I think my musical preferences are becoming less and less about the dumps of a blanketed world and more about the recovery of the grass as it learns to open up its tiny collapsed lungs and breathe again. That is: less Bon Iver and more Kite Flying Society and Page France, because they are bright, but not too bright. They have songs about dazzling things, about grass, about the liberating fresh air; but they also have songs about things being too dazzling, and the pollution that overtakes the grass. It is a time of recovery, true, but it is hesitant. It's confusing. And that's what I mean to say: for the first time in my life, I am seeing spring sprout around me in a slightly different environment. An environment that threatens cold, but a snowless cold. But the wonderful thing about spring is the visual evidence that it exists: watching snow piles fall away, finding alternate pathways around muddy areas, remembering the patterns in the cracks of the sidewalks previously piled too full with invasive snow. And I can't help focusing on that absence.