🎧 A grieftastic playlist just for you

Songs from the community to reflect and remember; plus, leave me alurn.

Last weekend, I found myself stuck in the Denver airport for several hours during a blizzard (do not recommend) while trying to get to Utah. While my children gleefully used their bonus iPad time to zombie-fy themselves while reaching stratospheric levels of existence on Roblox (also do not recommend), I surrendered to the impotence of the situation, bought myself some Mentos, and fired up an AMA on the Modern Loss Instagram.

Among the various questions were several touching upon the connection between music and loss. A lot of people asked me what my go-to grief song is, and how can I possibly answer such a question about such an all-encompassing experience so simply?

The truth is, it always depends on what we need at the moment: To rage, to reflect, to avoid, to be inspired, to feel just a bit lighter. For me, sometimes it’s needing to weep while listening to Jerry Orbach crooing “Try to Remember” from The Fantasticks (Try to remember the kind of September. When life was slow and oh, so mellow, Try to remember the kind of September, When grass was green and grain was yellow…) But sometimes it’s raging to Jet’s “Cold Hard Bitch.” We are but complex beings.

Our mighty crew agreed that it was high time to create another Modern Loss playlist; this one specifically meant for feeling connected to that person, that memory, that pet, that dream. Here’s the collaborative result, which was set up even before I downed the last Mento and boarded my connecting flight (you can see one of my go-tos in the number one spot; Zevon forever):

Please tap here to save it and add a track that gets you in a contemplative (but not despairing) state. You never know how much it might help someone else to reflect and remember when spoken words fail. Keep an eye out for more specifically-themed playlists for the states of mind listed above.

What I’m reading

🎶 In 2013, we started this wild Modern Loss experiment with the belief that while this whole Internet thing might bring us down in general, in the wide world of grief, it has the ability to create ripple effects of empathy and resonance, the extent of which we will never realize. This gorgeous piece by Evan Wolkenstein, Chemo Stole My Dad’s Hearing. Then, My Daughter Heard Her First Sound, which details his family’s circular journey through cochlear implants, cancer loss, and Coltrane, is a shining example of just that.

📘 Grief Is My Neurodivergence by Elizabeth Kopple; a stunning reflection on a mother’s realization that the grief brain that overtook her is the thing that finally helped her to empathize with her son’s ADHD. Who among us cannot relate to this one? → Grief brain is like a gremlin who crumbles cellophane when I’m trying to read. He eats the ticket I need to exit the parking lot. He knocks over the liquid detergent which then runs across the floor and under the washer. Now I use laundry pods.

💡I’ve also been enjoying people’s posts about the urgency of “quiet self-care” in this absolute mess of a world. As in, think less “going on a five-day yoga retreat in Tulum” and more “find tiny, accessible rituals that make your daily existence calmer and more palatable.” The trend of these posts are so helpful because they remind us that each of us does, indeed, have agency over making at least some of the small moments okay. Here are a few of my own quiet self-care rituals as of late:

1. Listening exclusively to Little Steven’s Underground Garage while driving. Nothing lowers your heart rate quite like his tone and a great Shirelles track.

2. Enthusiastically revisiting The Sopranos in its entirety. Yes, the content is wildly soothing to me in spite of, well, the content, and yes, I laugh so hard. At night, when I reheeeallllly want to avoid any news whatsoever, I pull up another episode as though I’m calmly tossing another log onto the campfire.

3. Finally starting to learn how to use the fancy espresso machine I’ve had and feared for two years. (Though I may not in fact be smart enough to figure it out.)

4. Making soup. A lot of soup.

Live from New York, it’s SNL + death

One of the U.S.’ last communal cultural mainstays has been having the longest 50th birthday party of all time, and why not? We need some nice things right now. In honor of the Not Ready For Prime Time Players and their disciples, please enjoy a few of their grief-related skits to kick off your weekend.

Grief as a conversation prophylactic:

Turnt memorial service:

Take me out to the…funeral?

Weekly community let-it-all-out Zoom

Look around and you might be shocked that the planet still spins in the throes of so much cumulative and collective grief, from wildfires to wars, cultural and political upheaval, legislation that nearly guarantees future grief, and oh, is the asteroid