Another month, another mixtape wrought from whatever my mind has latched onto this particular unit of time.

“Well at least we caught some waves / we spit them back at you.”

This was both the last song I listened to in 2025 and the first song I listened to in 2026. The former is because I had misremembered/heard the lyrics as being “it comes and goes in waves” and began digging through my memory and YouTube search history trying to find the song before eventually realizing that I probably got the lyrics wrong and that I just wanted the song to say it comes and goes in waves. Eventually I did unearth the 2014 track and even though the words weren’t a match, the vibe very much was. The etherealness. The vibratto. The resolution.

“Invisible waves of an energy…”

This song is my anthem for liminality. It is a track I so strongly associate with Cementland, with trespassing with a purpose, with uncertainty, with looking out over the horizon, with with certainty. It’s a song that feels apt from the start of the 2026.

It’s been twenty days, not even three weeks, into this year and it already feels like several life times have happened. The macro world feels indomitible in its pressure, but the micro world feels… happy almost. Hopeful almost. And maybe we are right to steal what moments of joys we can from this world.

“It hits in waves at first, and then all at once.”

Earlier this month, my friend Austin asked me if I wanted to go see Tigers Jaw in June this year. I never having heard of the band before immediately when to YouTube, clicked what was their most recent video and immediately went “yes, this is good.”

I remain a sucker for alt rock, but I specifically remain a sucker for the nostalgic look back at the places we used to haunt. The areas that once sculpted us and now feel both familiar and unfamiliar. An untwisted memory distorted from the unraveling.

“My ghost just tries to keep you warm.”

My other favorite song about ghosts is Wrapped in Piano Strings. This song was courtesy of my buddy Ben, and it may actually be the only Radical Face I have listened to with any sort of regularity if at all.

There’s nothing quite as aurally satisfying as a ramp, as a crescendo, as a declaration that all the things that have held you back are in just things and that you will press on regardless.

“We’re getting off to a rough start.”

This particular song has nothing to do with waves or ghosts, but it is the song that I find myself playing first whenever I’ve been getting into my car this month.

I think it’s the opening lyric. The simple recognition that this shit isn’t easy, but nevertheless we persist.

I stopped sharing my daily draws after the tornado last May. I stopped doing daily draws around Halloween. It stopped serving a purpose. Or maybe I didn’t need the cards to tell me what I already knew.

I did a reading at the start of the year though because I wanted to see what was in store for me.

The Hanged Man continues to find its way into my spreads. The Tower stands menacingly in June, but I think that’s actually because I wanted to get a tattoo of a Lighthouse/Cementland spire than actual upheaval. There are a lot of cups. There will always be a lot of cups.

I don’t know what will happen next, but I don’t think I’m supposed to.

One unit of time at a time right?