loving the void, loving the bloom

a love mix, but not like that (mostly)

“Tell me every terrible thing you ever did, and let me love you anyway” - Sade Andria Zabala

I approach love and its cousin, heartbreak, differently than I used to. Less teleologically, I guess. 

That is not saying that what we go through in love doesn’t have a purpose. I just feel like when we talk about love, we talk about it based on its why, like we can protect ourselves if we pick it apart and find out where it all fits. Which ends up dividing it from itself — from its first blush, from its comfortable middle, and from its ending, as though it’s not all the same. I mean, what is heartbreak if not just intensely loving the absence of what was, or what could have been? All stages of love and its dissolution are, in their purest states, for their own sake. 

I think it’s why we’re so obsessed with it as people. Very few things are as powerful as something that exists for itself. It’s so hard to just let that be.

I mean, yes, romantic love exists for procreation of course. But what a boring way to approach one of life’s greatest mysteries (think about the children!). 

Surprising no one, I’ve always been obsessed with love songs. And just like the concept of heartbreak and love, I approach love songs differently now, too. When I look at the ones I am drawn to, I ask myself this question:

Are they singing for the chaos or the cosmos?

In spirituality or mythology, chaos is often used as shorthand for the void, the nothingness from which we came. It’s the thing to be feared, but also the thing that begat us. It’s a thing that was supposed to be conquered by the act of becoming, but still shines and crackles around the edges of everything.

The opposite of chaos is the cosmos, the wholeness of creation. It’s the belonging, the order of nature and the endless somethings that make up the universe from the smallest atoms to giant stars collapsing in on themselves, throwing out infinite arcs of dying fire into a teeming and vast system. It’s the purpose, the calling, the endless cogs in a divine machine. 

Love songs that sing for the chaos are not always heartbreak or break up songs. They can be like Anna of the North’s “My Love”, a song that is about loving someone who won’t stick around, about allowing them to still keep that love even though it won’t be returned. It’s generative, and buoyant, but it defies order. It is about finding meaning in the adoration of disappointment, about seeing the pain and diving into it, letting your body temperature adjust until you can swim around. 

It’s “Charm You” by Samia and Blondshell, gently pushing away a potential lover because they are tired of charming people, tired of not feeling seen, tired of putting on a show and losing the audience. It’s funny and self-protective, because the void is scary, and singing from it can remind you that you might not want to go in there if you’re not feeling up for it. 

Singing for the cosmos is “ILYSM” by Wild Pink. It’s paring everything down until something that we complicate so often is back in its primordial form. Just repeating “I love you so much” like a mantra, like a prayer, like a magic word, like a spell. 

Singing for the cosmos is Theo Katzman of Vulfpeck’s “Be the Wheel”, taking into account the entirety of history and wondering how to make something eternal in the whirlpool of implacable change. 

Cosmos songs are the ones about acceptance. Accepting that when you allow yourself to be in love, whether it’s going well or not, you are stepping into a sacred order. 

Both chaos and cosmos songs are brave. Because love is brave. Heartbreak is brave. Singing what you feel is brave. Saying what you feel is brave. Love songs, in my world, are more motivational than Jock Jams. 

I started making this playlist 3 weeks ago and couldn’t tell where I was going with it. I was looking for a feeling in every song I chose. It wasn’t pure happiness, I knew that. It wasn’t despair either. But it wasn’t not happiness, or despair. 

After I finished it, I realized. 

It was hope. Blind, dumb, terrified, permanently naive hope. 

Because that’s what ties the void to the bloom. That’s how we got here, and that’s how we love each other as we keep going.