It’s a hot day in the middle of winter, but the sun went down and now there’s bumps on your skin and hair that stands up. In the car, you feel safe. The heater kicks in: hotter than you expected, warmer than your bones. The windows slide down three inches. The air confuses your body… are we hot or cold? Your mind hums too loud, construction in process. Your car speakers are about to blow out, but you turn the music up louder. That damn construction. The sky gets darker, the lights get brighter, volume goes up. Too loud. So loud it leaks into the world you slide past. So loud the construction sounds faded. You hear your voice singing, and louder the volume goes. Finally you’re here. In the nowhere, the realm of silence that only ear shattering music can bring. And finally; you breathe.
Music brings me to this undefinable place. Deeper than anything I’ve ever felt, music tugs at my ligaments and reaches through my flesh to harness my bones; it fills my body up with sounds rather than fluids and anatomy. When I’m in a slump, my songs slump with me. They sulk in the shadows, the same shadows I’m sulking in, and they glare at the world by my side. When I need to escape from my shadows, my music gently carries me out for a stroll until I’m ready to crawl back, and it never judges me for any of it. When I feel destructive, Tyler the Creator’s album Goblin allows me to live out all my angry angsty aggression and when I hit a wall, FKA Twigs’ Magdalene lets me break. the. fuck. down. and just die for a minute. Kanye gives my demons a home and teaches me how to befriend them instead of fear them. After it all, when I just can’t, Mac Miller’s soft grooves rub my back and give me the space I need, like a best friend who knows what you’re feeling and isn’t trying to fix you, but instead just sits there with you until you’re ready to heal. Finally, when I am ready to let everything I know go out the window, my music flies with me.
There’s a reason people would die for music. There’s a reason artists leave everything they love behind to chase their dreams, why every rockstar you know is probably the loneliest person you will meet– there is a reason for the sacrifice. If you have never experienced the passion of art, you won’t grasp the concept of it all. But if you have, you are one of the lucky ones. You are also one of the cursed. Either way, we have each other: the romantics, the ones who endlessly search for beauty, the ones who find themselves alone, who befriend the beauty they can find. Music connects me to you even if I don’t know you exist; we share the art of searching for a skipped heartbeat and a forgotten worry. If you find me, I hope our souls connect. To the people who know what I describe, I hope you feel the connection.
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