Tuesday Playlist: Kalimba, Bitches
Do you remember / A few days after the 21st of September
A friend emailed the other day to ask how I was doing, and I told him "Ups and downs, ups and downs. Trying to learn how to fine-tune the controls when I notice a dip in elevation." This was an honest answer! I am historically not super in touch with my feelings or whatever the hell might be causing them, but as my ongoing efforts to be more fully present in the moment continue to dovetail with recently acquired hobbies such as quickly identifying and tuning out catastrophizing thoughts as they occur, fine-tuning the aforementioned controls is becoming more of a thing.
Sharing all that is a really roundabout way of talking about my personal creative balancing act. On one side, I believe — and it's definitely been my experience — that simply showing up and grinding it out every day, even if you aren't feeling particularly inspired, is usually a good idea. That, more than anything else, is why I publish here as often as I do. Waiting around for creative lightning to strike — or, even worse, wasting time trying to anticipate how people will react to your work — is the enemy of generating the type of momentum that becomes helpful when you're trying to drag a project across the finish line.
On the other side, I'm also familiar with burnout, and the way it can slowly creep in until you end up dropping the reins of a site you launched, or abruptly walk away from a halfway decent bundle of freelance bylines, or just kind of generally start to feel a level of almost physical pain anytime you contemplate doing something you once loved with an all-consuming passion. This is a side of the street that I would rather not walk on again, so: trying to be better about fine-tuning those controls.
What this meant last week was that I felt like it was important for me to do some things that ended up taking me away from posting here, and rather than questioning those feelings or indulging in (much) guilt over them, I just paid attention instead. I spent more time outside (or taking "nature baths," as Wise Friend of Jefitoblog Benjamin Wagner likes to say); I took care of a variety of things in and around the house; I got myself unstuck from a period of stasis with the next novel. These were good things to do, I'm glad I did them, and I'll take it as a sign of some sort of progress that I even knew I kinda needed to.
Of course, none of this means that I love you any less. But I know how often I inwardly grunt "nope, no time for this right now" when I get new dispatches from the writers I subscribe to, and I feel like there's probably a pretty decent chance that many of you neither need nor particularly desire six posts a week out of me. If I'm wrong about that, then it's a good kind of wrong to be. If not, then I hope you enjoyed your brief respite from my babbling. Now, on to the playlist!
The thought process behind this pick should be obvious — late September belongs to Earth, Wind & Fire, starting on 9/21 (which would have been a better day for me to post it, but whatever, better slightly late than never). Like a bunch of long-running acts, the best bits from EWF's discography are tilted fairly heavily toward the older records, but all things considered, these guys did a pretty fantastic job of weathering decades upon decades of changing trends, changing labels, and changing band members; aside from a couple of rather dire highly programmed albums in the late '80s and early '90s, they managed to avoid hitting too many truly embarrassing low points.
The less said about "For the Love of You" the better, in other words — but don't sleep on their last great single, 1993's "Sunday Morning," or ignore the smattering of genuinely good stuff they released after fully settling into "heritage act" status. There's no way you haven't had their greatest hits stamped into your DNA, but if you're a relative novice to the band's work, I hope you hear some new favorites in here, and if you're a longtime fan, I hope I included a lot of your own personal picks. I'll be back tomorrow with a new edition of Islands in the Stream. In the meantime: Boogie!