What Song Would You Choose?

For the past two years, I've been working on this playlist I'm calling "Anthems From the Collective." It's a playlist filled with songs that other people (the collective) can't let go or keep coming back to in some way because they're meaningful or powerful on a level you can't always explain.

I got the idea after a summer camp, when at a circle ceremony a youth sang along to Carolina Liar's "Beautiful World" playing through an iPod. And the way he moved, you could tell the song resonated with him.


So far as I know this was a first time anyone had done anything quite like that in a Heart Circle ceremony. Usually people just sing a song or have the group sing for them.

Well this got me thinking, as unusual events are wont to do, about my own music. What songs resonate with me in that way?

I actually came up with two for very different reasons: "Mr. Tinman" by a local college band, Lamppost Revival, and "Sunrise" by Norah Jones. The first called to me even before I new anything about it. I had an English class with the lead singer and we became Facebook friends, and one day he posted a link  to a music video:



I knew I was hooked. To me this song is feeling lost and inbetween, but still going forward. It shook me and for reasons I can't explain in words became an instant favorite.

"Sunrise" has always been my morning song, my rainy day song, my you need something to calm yourself down song. It's the song that I subconsciously start singing when I'm having a day that feels particularly deep.

So I collected these three songs, and started a playlist. I started asking other people the same question I'm asking you now: What songs resonate with you?

Dai Stiho Friend

So I've been following Diane Duane on tumblr ever since I realized she had a tumblr account. (You should go follow her here, she posts some pretty amazing things.)

Someone else had reblogged something and that made me search the Young Wizards tag and it's like I was that unabashedly awkward teenager again, the one who was not ashamed (and to be very honest still isn't, but lacks time) to devour entire series of books in a matter of days. And I thought to myself, how could I ever forget this?

But the thing is, I hadn't forgotten, not really. I'd just absorbed it, incorporated it into my everyday life so that it was like a tattoo imprinted on my mind and never looked at. I realized this as I was out for a jog and as I passed a cat I said "Dai Stiho Friend." I've been doing this for years, long before I even knew what tumblr was.

For those of you who haven't read the books, cat-wizards work as gatekeepers in the books, they run the wizarding equivalent to Grand Central Station on earth (if I recall, in Grand Central Station) between worlds. "Dai Stiho" is a form of greeting in the wizarding language.

So let's call this a Diane Duane appreciation post. You've helped create something that has, for many of us as young readers, become part of who we are. Thank you.

[edit]

Post, OVER. Author read and liked it!

A Short, Informal Treatise on the Keratin Sprouting from my Scalp

I know I've shared this video before. If not on this blog, then through other social media. It's fairly well known as a viral video. A cute little girl standing on a bathroom sink affirming all the things she loves about herself and her life. I've watched it enough times that I've memorized it and trust me, if I could, I would stand on my bathroom sink and proclaim the same.

I'm not a four year-old though and my current housing situation doesn't really have counter space in the bathroom. So I'll blog something I love about myself instead: I love my hair! I love my haircuts!

Seriously.

I love my hair.

I don't think I put that much effort into my hair. Half the time I'm rocking the day-old-gel look (except I don't use gel, I use this or this), but it looks good on me and fits my personality.

I've been cutting my own hair for almost three years now, five if you count having my friends in the dorms cut it for me, and given the versatility of my 'do, I think I do a pretty good job.

I can put it up:

Or I can fold it over:

I've even shaved it a few times:

It feels like I've both come a long way and come full circle from the days when my mom would drive all the way up to Seattle to have Grandma Sy cut my hair at her salon for free. Please don't turn over in your urn, obaa-chan, but I think I do a better job, even if I am forced to trimming an entire side of my head blind since no matter where I place the mirrors I still can't see the back of my head.

I'm also a little proud of the fact that I'm graying at 23. Not in distinct patches the way a lot of people do, but kind of mottled all over. It started around the 6th grade and has continued ever since. People occasionally ask me if it's stress when they first notice, but I'm pretty sure it's just genetic. I don't ever plan on dying my hair. I don't need to.

Hair is a fairly superficial thing to be proud of, but my body is my temple and sometimes the roof needs new shingles to stay in proper working order.

If you were to pull a line from Jessica's Daily Affirmation, what would you be proud of?