I grow in the dark

accidental grief companion (plus one bonus running playlist)

This playlist is magical because I needed it today, but I made it last week. I didn’t know why I was making it, but it asked to be made. I had actually already made my September playlist to write about (I’ll put it at the end of this, it’s a lot of gentle autumnal bangers mostly about love and then one about the end of the world which I guess you could argue are the same thing but they’re all good for easy running or broody walking). But this one asked to be made and now I know why, and it’s magic.

I thought I made it to use as a cheeky metaphor for the darkest season in the year, to use it as a vehicle to convince you (and me) that we can often do our best growth when we can hoard all our energy and direct it to our deepest work. Winter is, after all, when we can keep it all to ourselves, insulated under sweaters and hats and behind doors and deadbolts.

But I guess not. I made it because I would need it.

I’m not trying to be opaque when I say that this morning I collected bad news like some people collect Funko Pops. I just don’t feel comfortable sharing specifics, and I don’t know if they’re all that relevant. It’s all classic human tragedy that you know the words to—loved ones getting bad diagnoses, family issues, and the #1 greatest chart-topper, heartache.

A hundred fat tabby cats sat on my chest and I couldn’t breathe and my beautiful house soaked in light, warm and lovely and smelling of spices and coffee, felt airless. So I ran. I went out my front door into the rain and ran and walked and cried and sat on mossy wood that got my ass all wet and saw two otters and a thousand ducks and talked on the phone and listened to this playlist which ended up returning my breath like god had a bellows and sang me back into my body.

I swear to you, this playlist will bring you back. Wherever it is you need to be brought.

It’s a palette more than a playlist. It’s painted with broad swaths of gray and blue (“October Sky”, “Blue Pt. 2”, “Early Morning Blues”, “I’ll Play You Out”), streaks of dark sienna and midnight black lurking in corners and casting long shadows (“Drinking Song”, “Anticipatory Grief”, “Lately”, “talk soon”), the unexpected flares of yellows and oranges that hint at the sun (“Friends on the Internet”, “I Can See Your Tracks”, “Recommendation”), faint lines of forest green, calm and brave and resigned (“Freak Accident”, “Mama, You Been On My Mind”, “Somebody Else’s Song”).

Big moments of grief feel like autumn anyway. They’re colored the same for me, mostly dark with flashes of light. In many ways they’re a season, they pass. They’re dark and trippingly downhill and all kinetic energy even as they soak and weight you. They can drive you indoors and away from your people. They’re essential. Everyone lives in them, everyone knows them, or will know them. They feel cold and isolating but are where we come to care for each other the most, where warmth is most needed, where we feel like we are going to crack and then we do and it’s not ok but the pieces act like cupped hands reaching for communion and we fill each others’ as best we can with things that smell like warm spices, with moments and songs and coincidences that feel cosmic in their perfect connection.

They’re clarifying. Autumn is always the season when I clean, not spring. It’s when I simplify and purge. Grief lets us do the same thing, just by showing us what’s important, just by stripping us back to the basics — life is finite, real love shows up and makes time, we don’t have time to fuck around.

I think it’s lovely that I made myself something to keep me company today. That I literally chose a song called “Anticipatory Grief”. That my mom and dad are staying with me right now, and we can sit in silence and read and write together and that is its own familiar song. That maybe I can grow in the dark.

Yes, I run to such tragic shit that it kind of eats its own tail and becomes very silly, like even Hamlet would be all “whoa pick it up a little bit babe”, but this is my truth and I’m living it.