November's Mini-Mixtape: grit can look awfully like bone shards
When I sit down to write about the mixtape I have been crafting through the first half of the month, I don’t always know what the theme is. I don’t always know what I’m titling the damn until I sit down. Sometimes I do. I suppose it’s not that surprising given that I started this series on a whim.
But I do promise you that I don’t always set out to be melodramatic as sin when I making my faux cover art and corresponding title. But sometimes it happens. And I think it’ll make sense.
1) “But I won’t pull my punches / I’ll use my words and knock your teeth out…”
I primarily listen to music while driving local, doing groceries, and the odd chore around the house. If I am working-working, I prefer the backdrop of bad television. If I am taking a road trip, I prefer podcasts. Which is a long paragraph to say that I use YouTube Music while driving and I often pick a song and let the algorithm introduce me to things.
It introduced to the Flat Stanleys this unit of time. As far as I can tell, the band is defunct. As far as I can tell, I’m not sure there are any other songs in their discography that speak to me as much as this particular one.
Earlier this month, I parsed my inner archetypes. The Artificer, the Archivist, and the Adversary. I think it was important for me to acknowledge that there is a part that wants and is willing to fight. There is a part of me that is determined and grits their teeth and bunkers down. And I think this song helped reconnect with that part.
2) “How content are the ones with simple demands.”
This is a song about wistfulness and also maybe delusion. It’s a song about a relationship that ended poorly and the conjuring of narrative to cope with that. My inner Archivist appreciates it.
3) “And welcome to this world / have as much fun as you like / while helping others have as much fun as you’re having.”
Ever since the lyrics “I’m so sorry that you have to had a body”, I have been a fan of AJJ so it actively surprised me that I hadn’t actually included one of their songs within a mini-mixtape. We’re fixing that today.
I describe the Artificer as the “ethical” part of my ethos. The one who like solving problems also likes rules and fairness. And these things matter. And I know I say this in a dozen different ways a dozen times, but it’s so easy not to be a good person, but it’s also worth being a good person.
And part of being a good person is doing good even when it’s difficult. And now that I have finally gotten past the “I’m not intrinsically good” phase of my life and transitioned to “I keep choosing this so it has to mean something.”
4) “Shattering anything that has reflections of you.”
I’ve never actually broken a bone.
The title of this particular mixtape came from looking at the tracks I selected and noting that the theme was grit/determination and the recognition that it maybe was never meant to be and the reconciliation that things aren’t the same.
I’ve had my heart broken before.
It’s easy to put people up on pedestals. To fall in love with shadows. And part of the recurring process of continual self improvement is acknowledging that we faltered and that we can get better.
We have to believe that we can get better.
5) “‘Cause I’m happy here.”
I entered a “Your Story on Stage”… contest? I’m not sure contest is the right word. It’s a program that the County Library was running where some number of selected stories would get reenacted by The Repertory Theater (I was one of six selected out of thirty).
The theme was “changing your narrative” and I wrote about the biggest change of my narrative, my return to St. Louis.
I wrote a version, had my trusted editors Ren and Carrie review the version, rewrote it, and settled on the opening line “I’d never thought I’d fight so hard for a boring life.”
It was novel enough that I wrote an off schedule post for it.
But either way, this ballad is an apt way to end this playlist.
We can know something deeply. We can recognize that that knowing may be off. And we can learn from it.
So we’ll learn from it.