La Tendresse: Journal / Playlist
30 AUG 2020
Moon river, wider than a mile
I'm crossing you in style some day
Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker
Wherever you're goin', I'm goin' your way
Two drifters, off to see the world
There's such a lot of world to see
We're after the same rainbow's end, waitin' 'round the bend
My huckleberry friend, moon river, and me
Well hello there! How are we all doing?
If you’re anything like me, you swing from being a little bit fragile, a little bit irritable, thinking you are doing okay after all, and then suddenly getting a little bit misty-eyed at the drop of a hat. Four seasons in a day. An hour. A minute. Battling an invisible enemy will do that to a body. We’re all in a position we’ve never had to be in before, and it’s wild. Quite terrifying at times, frankly. I’ve found for me that it’s exacerbating anything going on “under the hood”, so to speak. It’s an odd thing. Past issues flare up, situations you could normally handle you struggle to, and so on. Negative emotions are not so fun to deal with, and it’s hard just to let yourself accept that you’re feeling a particular way. Like, that you are feeling really, really sad. Anxious. Uncertain. Nervous. Scared. And if you then try and smother those emotions with a pasted-on smile and whichever platitudes come swinging around your way, all the while clinging onto whatever it is that gives you a sense of security with a white-knuckled grip, it can just make the eventual unraveling that much worse.
So. I am beginning to see that sometimes we have to just accept that “something is wrong, that is that” (in the words of This Mortal Coil - Mr Somewhere, which consequently is on this playlist, would-you-look-at-that). We have to sit in the boat that we’re in, not knowing where things will wash up, but trusting that we’ll get through it some way or another. It’s hard! There is no easy way about it. But what I did when I got home from work yesterday was sit on my back doorstep with a glass of wine in hand, and turn my face to the late afternoon sun and let it warm me. Watched the irrepressible weeds that have sprung up between the cobblestones in my courtyard defy anyone’s efforts to contain them, and shake their small green leaves in the gentle breeze. Appreciated the sunlight turning my cat’s fur into fine-spun silver shafts shimmering all over his little body. Listened to the birds singing, because that’s what they do, whatever is happening. Life still goes on. So do we.
Around the theme of all of this, I’ve made a new playlist. Playlisting is one of my top, top things to do in life. I like to clap on a pair of good headphones, lie on the rug in my living room for an evening, and take myself on a musical journey of putting together songs I love along with new-to-me discoveries, and then ordering them. I never know where I’m going to end up, but I find it so therapeutic. Allowing yourself to do nothing other than listen to music is absolute bliss. Recommend.
This particular playlist is called ‘La Tendresse’, so named after a song on it, and it’s a compilation of songs that make me feel. Some songs are ones that have been meaningful to me in different stages in my life, some are new discoveries, and a handful are ones I wrote: some are a little naive, some are weightier, some are gentle, some are melancholic, some are affirming. On the whole, it’s a playlist based around tenderness. It’s cinematic and soundtrack-like, with dashings of classical favourites. Much of it deals with tenderness in a romantic sense, but I think this translates through to love, relationship and security, and the need for these things now more than ever. I’ve been listening to it for the last few days while rearranging the order over and over (but don’t worry: you can play it on shuffle, I will not be mad - Spotify has good shuffle algorithms!), and I’ve found it surprisingly soothing. It’s given me back some peace. A little bit of space to let yourself feel what you’re feeling is a worthwhile pursuit. Keep that box of tissues handy!
Talk to someone if you’re struggling. Don’t lock yourself away alone in it, or think that you’re the only one feeling the way that you do, and that therefore it’s not legitimate for you to feel awful. It totally is. You can send me a “me too, I’m feeling this way too” message if you like. I hear you! If for you, like for me, it’s brought up other issues, you’re not alone in that either. I like to think of it like my shoebox filled with spools of thread: each spool has a loose end, and these (thanks to me not being careful enough when putting them away) are currently ridiculously tangled. Yet I know that all of those tangled threads belong to their own spool, and that there’s order right there beneath the disorder. It’s just a temporary, surface thing. So I’m not too worried. It feels incredibly messy just now, but tangles are untangle-able. It just sometimes takes a minute.
Turn your face to the sun. Literally. We’ll all get through this together, and in the meantime, there is still loveliness in the world, because our world is a beautiful, living thing, just like us. There will always be warmth, somewhere. But it’s okay to feel low too.
Enjoy a little bit of tenderness, from me to you.
x
