If you don’t see a Spotify playlist embedded below, try refreshing your browser window. Failing that, you can also access the playlist here: https://spoti.fi/3wfmbZM
Pulling these resources together wasn’t often an endeavor of good spirits. Between the news of multiple states further legislating the erasure of LGBTQIA2++ people, a Russian invasion of Ukraine, and an ongoing pandemic, it’s been a slog much of the time. At the suggestion of a wise professor, I attempted to keep one eye out for avenues of self-care: in my life, such care often involves music.
An upbeat playlist doesn’t feel sufficient to the times we live in. So instead, as I worked, I kept an ever-growing playlist that veers from despair to optimism and several realms in-between. I would suggest shuffling the list, as it’s not curated in a way that insists on playing the tracks in order. Shuffling keeps the music—and our lives?—full of surprises.
“I once heard farmer, writer, and activist Wes Jackson say Wal-Mart is the main thing keeping Americans from rebelling: so long as we can get our diapers cheap, we’ll stay in line.”