I’ve always liked driving alone. It gets me time to think about life. To mutter to myself like a crazy person or call someone I haven’t talked to in too long.
I’m terrible at making playlists. Been trying and failing at making then listening to for a decade. Yet I always end up just never revisiting them. But there’s one I’ve been able to make and consistently listen to, and it’s called “melancholy travel”. And it’s provided the backdrop to aimless and quiet drives for years now.
For one I drive to get my head around the fact that the world changes. That people from your life will become ghosts and stories. And there’s songs on the playlist for that.
“So I sat in the backseat, it didn’t bother me
But after five weeks of sitting in silence behind her
While you talked of movies I’ve never seen
I realized that’s how we used to be
But now my best friend is the driver
And I’m the backseat rider”
– Sara Kays
There’s saved songs about the uncertainty of being a young adult. In any generation it’s messy and im certainly no exception.
“Everybody feels like this at twenty-three
I know I’m not unique
But I’m a drama queen
I don’t why I’m surprised
It’s just a quarter-life crisis”
– Taylor Bickett
Some are about how fast everything can change. How only a matter of minutes can warp the perspective of a day, a week, or longer.
“It’s been 7 minutes now since I lost my way
It doesn’t seem like long, but my whole world has changed”
– Dean Lewis
But not all are depressing. Some are about the fun of there being few hard and fast limits to life. And the memories from these times when I made irrational decisions because I could.
“It was Friday nights, it was video gold
Oh, it was shining lights, it was rock ‘n’ roll
It was the band and I on a 12 bed bus
And it was making and messing it up”
– Maisie Peters
And some are about the idea that while taking a leap and ending up hurt is bad. It’s far better then never trying.
“It’s better to feel pain, than nothing at all
The opposite of love’s indifference”
– The Lumineers
This is the only playlist I’ve kept updated and listen to regularly, but it’s provided the backdrop from fog filled nights of driving in Berkeley and the forests of Northern Arizona. And while listening to this I often rethink of the moments that have gone wrong for me in life. And the small changes I could’ve made that might have led to a different outcome.
I would expect thinking about these to make me embarrassed or annoyed. And that’s true when I’m in the shower or bed. But not when driving with these songs in the background. For while I wish many of my worst moments hadn’t happened, it makes life feel vibrant.
For best i can tell, loneliness, rejection, love, wanderlust: are what make life worth it all for me.
Next up: Back to our regularly scheduled international writeups, we’re going on both a throwback and to Asia!
Dead Man Travelling 