Alright, this is cheesy but stick with me:
It’s May of some distant-but-not-too-distant year. You’ve graduated college and moved to the city you’ve always dreamed of living in. Your apartment is small, but you’re just starting out, and it’s cozy and warm, and it’s yours.
It rained earlier but the sky is now a clear blue rapidly hurrying towards warmer hues as the sun starts its trip to meet the horizon. Golden light streams through the kitchen window, illuminating the small space with an ethereal glow.
There’s a woodwick candle that you just lit sitting on the kitchen table. It flickers and crackles and starts to fill the room with a scent that reminds you of home.
Your partner promised to cook your favorite meal tonight. You’re celebrating nothing in particular—the fact that you made it through a long week, finished a task you had been putting off, or some other small thing—truthfully, they never needed an excuse to cook for you.
Since you’ve been forbidden from putting in work on the dinner, you set the table as music plays through a speaker. Before long, you’re completely distracted, waltzing around the kitchen and distracting your partner and laughing as the golden light of the setting sun casts a spotlight on the moment. Everything is okay, and you feel at peace.
This (very much imagined) scene is the mood that I tried to capture with my playlist “letting dinner burn while i dance around the kitchen with the love of my life.”
In my case, however, the description of this playlist on Spotify is a much more real scenario. It reads: “or more accurately, the love of my life saves dinner while i dance around for entertainment and moral support because no one should have trusted me in the kitchen in the first place.”
Either way, in the midst of… *gestures broadly*, I’ve found that I enjoy making playlists as a form of escapism. It also definitely helps that my TikTok For You Page is filled with oddly specific playlists that I can’t help but add to my always-growing collection.
Whether it’s this dreamy domestic scene, a neon night downtown, or even a playlist inspired by my favorite characters (hello, Prince Zuko playlist), I have found comfort in using music to imagine moods and scenarios that might be currently out of reach.
I highly recommend spending some time to search for music that does this for you. If I get into it enough, I could spend an hour or more combing through other people’s playlists and my own saved music on Spotify to compile playlists that just make sense. I like doing this because it’s a relaxing way to pass time when going out is not an option, and it’s more of an active task than scrolling through social media or watching a TV show.
For some inspiration, of course, you can find my “letting dinner burn while i dance around the kitchen with the love of my life” playlist here, as well as below.
Hopefully, going down the Spotify rabbit hole will give you some new tunes to listen to and a fun new playlist to send to your friends (or Tinder matches). Good luck and happy listening!
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