March Music

MARCH MUSIC

Hello dear readers, happy Friday! To celebrate this beautiful sunny day (as I write this I'm looking right out at gorgeous realms of baby blue sky and being partially blinded by the ethereal sunlight), and the wonderful month of March, I've put together my monthly playlist full of songs that I have been loving, have just discovered, or downright adore, and I would absolutely love to share it with you. It's always around this time of the month that my freshly sown music harvest reaps a bundle of new gleaming golden goodness, and I listen to my favourite songs so many times that I realise I can't keep this love to myself. I have to share it with the world. So here we are, a swanky new playlist filled to the brim with gorgeous tunes. Favourites of mine include Little Comets (no. 14), Sia (no. 5), Father John Misty (no. 2) and Rex Orange County (no. 17). I hope you enjoy!

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001. BE EASY - MR SANKA

002. REAL LOVE BABY - FATHER JOHN MISTY
003. LIABILITY- LORDE
004. GREEN LIGHT- LORDE
005. HELIUM- SIA
006. DON'T KILL MY VIBE- SIGRID
007. GROWS OLD- THIRDSTORY
008. IN YOUR ARMS- FELIX RIEBL
009. WHERE THE SKIES ARE BLUE- THE LUMINEERS
010. SEND ME ON MY WAY- RUSTED ROOT
011. MIDNIGHT CITY- M83
012. GALWAY GIRL- ED SHEERAN
013. FRIENDS- ELIZA AND THE BEAR
014. LITTLE ITALY- LITTLE COMETS
015. SOMEONE IN THE CROWD- DODIE CLARK
016. TRUTH IS A BEAUTIFUL THING- LONDON GRAMMAR
017. SUNFLOWER- REX ORANGE COUNTY
018. WHEN THE WATER MEETS THE MOUNTAINS- LEWIS WATSON
019. VIVIENNE- SUNDARA KARMA
020. AWAY WITH THE NIGHT- PRIDES
021. IT AIN'T ME- KYGO FT. SELENA GOMEZ
022. PASSIONFRUIT- DRAKE
023. PORK SODA- GLASS ANIMALS
024. THREE WORN WORDS- ALT-J
025. CHARM ASSAULT- RIDE
026. GREEN EYES- COLDPLAY
027. MORE THAN A FEELING- BOSTON

A Love Note To Devon

A LOVE NOTE TO DEVON

When my Dad was 3 years old, he moved to Devon. My Grandma NeNe & Grandpops fancied a change from Wolverhampton, and wanted to live somewhere by the sea (and if you're a fellow land-locked Midlander, I'm sure you can relate to that instinctive pull to go anywhere where there's water). So they swapped the Black Country for the English Riviera, murky grey skies for gorgeous blue ones emblazoned with sunshine, and set up home in the South West of England, settling in a little house on a hill over looking the sea. My Grandpops set up his own butchery in a nearby town, and my Grandma sold ice creams on the seafront of the local park. They bought a boat, they went sailing, they'd spend days at the beach with their friends, they'd drive across the cliffs in my Grandpops' BMW saloon... When my Dad talks about his childhood, or shows me some of the seemingly endless photographs he has from that era, the one thing that always strikes me is how idyllic everything seemed back then. Devon seems like the most beautiful, perfect backdrop to live your life against, and sometimes I wish I too had lived out my childhood years in such a magical place, rich with wanderlust.

As a Midlander myself (Derby represent), I also possess that whimsical fantasy of escaping to somewhere by the sea, and wondering what it must be like to have that vast expanse of natural wonder right there on your doorstep. That being said, I believe I have been so very fortunate in life, because I have been able to experience both worlds: city life (ok so city might be a bit of a generous description of my dear Derby), and beach life, with a bit of countryside thrown in between. Because most of my Dad's memories are of life in Devon, his affinity and adoration for it have become a lifelong pull, yearn and commitment. He can't seem to let it go. It is his home in the truest sense, that one place where you know you will always belong, regardless of where life may take you. And that means Devon was always somewhere that he wanted to share with my Mum, me, my sister. It is a place so dear to my Dad, so treasured, special, precious, that he simply had to make sure we experienced the magic of Devon too. So ever since I was a little baby, my Mum and Dad have taken me there. Every single year without fail. And that means Devon has always been such an important, integral, special part of my life too, and for that I will always be so grateful.

When I think back to my childhood years, it's almost like I lived two lives, two existences, and both of them felt like home. There were always two places, two counties, that I belonged too. Two places I could see on the motorway sign, and instantly feel that tug of belonging in response to. Two places I knew like the back of my hand. Two places that felt comforting, safe, instinctive. Two houses in which to live. Two places that shaped who I am, and who I have become. Two places I have created precious memories of my life within. One place where I did most of my growing and living, and one place which served as an annual reminder of how far I'd come. One that taught me who I am, one that taught me who I want to be, could be. And both these places, my homes, have made me who I am. Both have taught me so many things about me, life, other people, the world. I can walk through streets and parks, drive past seafronts, countryside, cities and towns, pass buildings, shops, restaurants, cafes, people, and I can see all my memories embedded within them, sketched into them, defined by them. And I consider myself so lucky.

And now I too possess that desire and drive to share my beloved Devon with the people I love and care about most. I want them to see the magic too, pass on the gift like an infinite baton. I want to take them to all those little places my Dad showed me. All those places that resonate with my heart and soul. I want to take them on day trips and adventures and go exploring far and wide. I want them to feel that flushed, breathless, sweetly satisfying feeling when we finally make it back home late at night. Sand between our toes, lungs filled with sea air, hair wavy and wild, bodies exhausted but content as we tiptoe down the driveway, illuminated by moonlight, to the sound of waves rolling and crashing on the horizon. I want to take them to all those landmarks and destinations, and then to the myriad of beautiful pit stops that seem to always lead the way.

I want them to know what it's like to stand on the pier and look out across the bay, on a Saturday evening when the sky is streaked with rainbows, the alcoves are studded with hazy lights, and the boats are bobbing on the water. I want them to know what it's like to take the ferry to Dartmouth, sit in the little botanical park, and look out across the water to the hundreds of colourful houses on the crests of the hills. I want them to know what it's like to drive to Totnes, Torquay, Babbacombe, Brixham with the local radio playing all those wonderful, summery, timeless classics, and the sun shining in the sky. I want them to know what it's like when it pours with rain, or the winds roar so magnificently on the coastline, and how it somehow feels homely, ethereal, magical, exciting.

I want them to know what it's like to climb up the cliffs and hills, right up to highest point, and see the endless views that make you feel as if you're on very tip of the world. The cruise ships on the horizon, and the point where the deep blue sea meets the sky. I want them to see the yachts in Salcombe Bay, and eat fish and chips at the little restaurant on the top of Brixham harbour. I want them to know what it's like to play evening frisbee at Broadsands and have cream teas with real Cornish cream and run into the sweeping tides bare feet and care free. I want them to know what it's like to walk on pebbly beaches and collect shells, or that feeling when your bare feet first sink into the plush golden sand. I want to show them Cockinton Village with the little pink shop and acres of nature to explore. I want them to know how it feels to be absorbed by blue skies, golden sun, lush greenery, soothing warmth and happiness. I want to show them Paignton Zoo, the arcades which yearn for every 2p coin in your purse, the pub on the seafront that does the nicest Sunday roasts, that cafe in Torquay that does the best coffee.

I want them to know how it feels to have your soul full from exploration, adventure, simple joys. To know what it's like to have every day be poised with excitement and endless possibility. To see these lands of wonder and beauty, nestled right on the edge of our great nation. To know how it feels to drive through Bristol and Somerset, and see that sign for Devon appear on the sign up ahead. To know how that moment feels, when you finally see the sea after a four hour drive.To know how it feels to miss somewhere so inexplicably and incessantly and constantly. To know how it feels to think of Devon as home. I want to share all of this, with everyone. Absolutely everyone. This place, Devon... sometimes I swear it is paradise on earth, and I don't think I will ever stop loving it, missing it, yearning for it. Sometimes I really do believe I must've left a little piece of my soul there, and it's always waiting for me to come home and find it once more. I love Devon more than words could possibly express, and I truly cannot wait to be reunited with my beloved little paradise once more. 

Little Things

LITTLE THINGS 

I always kind of thought that when you experienced love, you would experience it in that big, bold, life changing way. A part of me always thought that it would be declarative, grand, extravagant. There would be an urgency, a suddenness, a weaving and whirling trail of tell-tale signs. It would be something big, so big that it could only ever be expressed in the most magnificent of actions. It would be booming, brilliant fireworks. It would be streams and scores of shooting stars. It would be gushing electric currents and cataclysmic earthquakes. It would be a waterfall of sound. It would be final, definite, pressing, unrestrained magic and wildness and wonder.

I can't quite find the words to capture the feeling. What I thought it would feel like. These metaphorical explanations are the best I can do. When it comes to love, I've always been looking for the obvious, the big gestures, the certainties. The kind of things that are so... definite. So transparent. So sure. And I'm now starting to realise that yes, love can be expressed through those well known channels. Things like 'I love you', hugs, kisses, sex, holding hands, asking for a number, chatting someone up, telling someone they look beautiful, asking them out on a date. Those expressions we know so well, and automatically associate with love. The way we expect love to be, to look like, to feel like. But I'm now starting to understand, and be amazed by the fact, that love is expressed in a whole wealth of other ways too. 

Even those transition periods that mark a love's progression, from strangers through to partners, I always thought they would be so official and standardised and pointed too. Almost like checking off boxes on a tick list. Everything would be so linear and chronological and expected. Footsteps taken along a pathway cobbled with the same stepping stones. The rules already written. If you want someone to know you love them, do this, do that, then this, and so on. And somehow they will then know. And then you will move onto the next step. And then everything will magically and seamlessly fall into place. And the happy ending will come. But it doesn't really seem to work like that.

Instead, I'm realising that love is something that is gradual and seamless. It is something that slowly burns brighter and brighter until one day, you look around you to find there is nothing but light surrounding you. The darkness has disappeared. Love comes so naturally and easily once you open up your heart to it, and allow those feelings the freedom to exist, to be, to flow and move throughout your body. It also finds its way to you somehow too. To look for love is innate, instinctive, addictive, yet the irony is true. Once you stop your elusive and ambiguous soul searching, and you simply enjoy your life for what it is, focus on loving yourself and those you care about, and realise you are so happy as you are right here, right now, your own individual entity... somehow love finds you. 

It kind of feels like Christmas Eve night when you were a child. When you were worried that Santa wouldn't find you, even though you put out the carrots and the sherry and the 'santa please stop here' sign, and you wrote that lovely letter and made him a Christmas tree out of Hamma beads too. Your parents would reassure you that he'd find his way somehow, but for now you just need to close your eyes and sleep. Dream wonderful, magical dreams. And trust that Santa will come. He will find his way somehow. So you close your eyes. You trust he will come. You stop wondering and analysing and indulging in rational thought. And you innately believe he will find you, you just need to give him time. Then morning comes, you walk tentatively downstairs, push open the door, and there you find everything you ever longed for, dreamed about, wished for. Love arrives a  little bit like that.

I'm also starting to realise that love is expressed on a spectrum, from the most minute to the most magnificent, and everything in between, and that those loving gestures are perhaps the most beautiful, meaningful and pure when in their smallest and simplest forms. Those actions that you would overlook in the blink of an eye. The ones that are so small you often aren't even aware they exist. That they've happened. And that they've happened to you. The subtle changes in the way you feel and act. The expressions you do yourself without even realising. The loving gestures that are masked behind seemingly ordinary actions. To me it is so fascinating, beautiful, humbling, honest. Sometimes I really don't think there could be anything more amazing.

It's that way two people start to find themselves drawn to one another like magnets, or two ends of an invisible piece of thread that never seems to break. It's the way a relationship and connection builds over time, slowly, steadily, gradually, piece by little piece, until one day you realise what you've built between you, and how much it means too. It's the way you jump over obstacles so you can keep running towards the beckoning horizon. It's the way you start to care about somebody, the way you start to appreciate them, the way you start to know them, the way you start to notice all the little wonderful things that make them such a good person, and such a blessing to this world.

It's the way you start to look out for each other, like two guiding lights that will always help you find your way home. It's the way two people start to reach out to one another instinctively, no matter where or when, and transmit all those little actions, signals, words, looks, that all seem to code for the message: I care about you, and I know I don't have to, but I do, and I just wanted you to know that. It's the way you worry that they haven't received the message, and the moment you realised they have. They know. It's the inexplicable affinity, the companionship, the adventure. It's that feeling that you're stood right on the cusp of magic and possibility and meaning and a cosmic galaxy full of twinkling stars, and you're amazed at the world for amazing you in such a subtle yet magnificent way.

It's the little things, all those wonderful, precious, honest, instinctive, sincere little things, that somehow seem to change... everything.

Shifting

SHIFTING

In the last couple of weeks or so, my life has felt like it's changing in these subtle but significant ways. The word I feel best describes it, is shifting, because that subtlety is so small and fragmental, incremental, tentative, and it feels like I keep edging towards something more, something bigger, something substantial. It's almost like I can feel that movement, that nudge, and the pause that follows before another nudge happens and moves me forwards yet again. It's a really peculiar feeling. In life I always anticipate these changes and expect them to happen, but the difference is I expect to know when something will change, and that I will then be able to plot it, prepare for it, have some degree of control over it. But lately it feels like I've been bumped over to the passenger seat, and I'm just receiving change after little change, causing my life to keep shifting forwards. I'm not sure if I like the feeling or not, but conversely, part of me is quite enjoying surrendering control for once.

I know I haven't written much lately, but that's mainly because these shifts are moments in life that I really want to be present for. I feel this compelling need to be right there, contained within the very heart of everything. To be a passive bystander somehow doesn't feel right, nor does having one foot in and one foot out. When these shifts happen, I know they are happening for a reason, and I might not know the answer yet, but one day I will. And till that day comes, I want to enjoy these moments as they happen to me. And I want to try to figure out the reason so that I'm ready for the next shift, whenever it should happen.

There have been shifts that make me realise the road ahead is going to be difficult, bumpy, unpredictable and sad at times, and that some of the things I have feared are likely to happen. There have been shifts that make me realise that whatever does happen in the future, I am part of such a strong, loving, tight support network, and that together we can get through absolutely anything. There have been shifts that have felt enlightening and life changing, such as discovering the voice of logic and reason, and having it tell me that it's time to stop reacting in these silly ways I do, stop with those destructive and pitiful automatic behaviours, stop being so damn hard on myself. It's time for a new way of thinking, doing, being. There have been shifts that made me realise I am not perfect, and that instead I have strengths and weaknesses, things to work on, things to do more of, and that this is a good thing. A really good thing.

There have been shifts that have helped me to open up, soften, and be fearless, brave, impulsive. There have been shifts that have changed the way I feel inside, and taken me to realms and wonders and magic that I never knew existed. There have been shifts that have brought me closer to people, and helped me to better understand and know who they are. There have been shifts that have helped me to better understand what I want to do in life, what interests me most, what piques my curiosity and sparks something inside me, and I'm starting to feel like I know which path I should go down. There have been shifts that have prompted me to reach out at particular times to particular people. There have been shifts that made me realise I'm not alone anymore. There have been shifts in the way I now understand the world, and how it works, and I've realised there is no logic- it's all just cosmic and unpredictable and mysterious and somehow always right.

There have been shifts that have made me realise my potential and power to evoke change, whether for myself or others. There have been shifts that have helped me to better respect and empathise and embrace diversity, and really appreciate the fact that we are all just human at the end of the day. There have been shifts in my inner voice, and what it tells me, and I'm trying really hard to help myself, be kind to myself, be my own biggest motivator and supporter. There have been shifts that just feel instinctive and right and telling and meant to be. There have been shifts that made me realise everything, and I mean everything, in my life has happened for a reason, and is happening for a reason, and that it all had to happen that way, almost like the stars aligning perfectly in the sky, for a reason. There have been shifts that have closed old wounds. There have been shifts that make me feel like I don't need to worry so much anymore, or be so anxious about everything, and that there isn't much I can do about the future, but there is so much I can do right here in the present, every single day I wake up and have a new day in front of me. 

So many things have stayed the same, yet so many things have also changed. And it sounds like that change is monumental, when it's all written down like that. But I promise you it isn't. Significant, yes, but also so very, very subtle, like an undercurrent of electricity that keeps surging and sparkling every now and again. And this week alone I have felt every feeling under the sun, from good to bad, to all those different shades along the spectrum. And I have wondered. I have tried not to wonder. I have felt. I have fought on. I have gotten myself through it all. And I just keep on moving forwards. The shifts keep on coming, and I know they will stop at some point, or then again, maybe they never will, maybe they never do. Maybe it's just that right now, at this time in my life, I'm more perceptive and aware of them. Who knows. But what I do know, is that in spite of the hardships, struggles, and difficulty that I have faced, do face, and will face, today, right here in the present moment, I feel so happy, alive, loved and whole. And that is enough. That is everything.