Sixties

It’s a lazy day at home. I live in my parents’ house. But that doesn’t mean anything here in the Philippines.

I have nothing too spectacular in mind now. Plans or whatever, I’ve nothing. All I care about now is how comfortable my bed is.

To describe my here-and-now, I am lying on one side as usual. Bentilador on 1, my glass door that leads to my terrace is slightly open allowing some air to make my curtains dance a bit. Joni Mitchell on very low volume, lots of birds chirping (the other end of my room is facing a forest), a few barks from dogs every now and then. About the very low volume, I love doing that all the time. To anything that I’m listening to. Amy Winehouse gives a different, brilliant effect too when I put her on very low volume. Cinematic and respectful of space. You know that feeling? The lack of intrusion but it is there. Right? Like indistinct chatter while seated alone in a café or a musician playing on stage when you just got in the bar. It’s just there.

I am currently reading The White Album by Joan Didion. She mostly wrote about the troubled times of the sixties. I love learning about the sixties. The glamour, the grime, the just-figuring-things-out. Coincidentally, the Joni that I am listening to right now is the 1969 record. I also just watched Chris Mccandless’ (ALEXANDER SUPERTRAMP) story and Slab City just gave me an impression of the era as if giving me a flashback of a memory that I did not personally witness, a second hand memory.

Maybe my affinity for the sixties is a second hand memory. I like the sound of that. I am amused by the fact that in the attempt of making sense of my here-and-now, I took myself to a time that my heart simply knows it loves. The human mind, how expansive and transcendent. The heart, too.

As I’ve said, I have nothing too spectacular in mind now. I guess I do have something spectacular in mind now. And in my heart, too.

Unpacking

Here. Slouching towards the white light and trying to make sense of these thoughts in my head post-5pm cappuccino. It’s midnight. Consider my brain being left of center and the farthest left being dead deep asleep.

So. Today as I was trying to do the second part of my unpacking, I put on some music and French Navy came up. I didn’t quite know how because I put on Best Coast. But I was glad that tiny glitch happened because French Navy was my jam for such a long time. In college, I had a phase where I always wore Breton with a red lip. I cut my hair blunt short and I just listened to French Navy almost all the time on my pink iPod that I named Rico. (Now my hair is blunt short again and found myself listening to French Navy again so I guess it wasn’t a phase?) (Also yes, I liked Your Universe a lot.)

That song just made me unpack some more. Less of my clothes, more of my history. Books Written for Girls was also very good so I gave it a listen after what seemed like light years. It was still so good today. How do I measure a song’s goodness? When it still reminds me of how I thought of myself before and when that thought is still relevant to me today. It is good if it shows me who I am. Then there was Lloyd, I’m Ready to Be Heartbroken. Then some songs that I vaguely listened to like The Sweetest Thing and Let’s Get Out of this Country. Afterwards, I looked Camera Obscura up to see how the band is doing. To know if they stuck to their sound despite the mad demands of this world. I learnt that Carey Lander died in 2015. I cried.

I always thought of the band with a soft-focus because that’s how they made me feel – gentle, innocent, and honest. Thanks Carey. Play mad riffs in heaven for me.

I kind of automatically looked up songs that I really liked as if trying to search for pieces of myself. I’m glad I remembered them. I guess that also means that I never forget who I am. Music gives a good grip for every wild adventurer. We can all stray however we want for how long we want to but at the end of the day we come back home and put on some music. We come home to music to come home to ourselves.

Here’s me revealing myself through songs that I genuinely love – old and new.

• Books Written for Girls – Camera Obscura
• So Good – The Cranberries
• Longing For – Ourselves the Elves
• Storms – Fleetwood Mac
• Winter Spring Summer Fall – The Postmarks
• Cherry-coloured Funk – Cocteau Twins
• A Case of You – Joni Mitchell

 

Afterthought:

I’ve read in one of Adrian Tomine’s interviews that he would like to write with more empathy and less narcissism. I don’t know, man. The only way I can empathize is through examining myself first. Writing my mind is always my first draft. I only do first drafts.