American Dreaming
Running, Realizing: the Good Folk May Playlist
Hi all,
Somehow the world has slipped into May. Last week, I officially finished my final semester of my M.A. program and now all that bars me from summer is the grading of a few final exams. There are some exciting things on my horizon for the summer: a month off grid backpacking through Alaska, a long weekend in the Grayson Highlands of Virginia, a move back to downtown Durham to T and I’s new place. There are good things happening!
There are also very bad things happening. If you have any proximity to a college campus, you’re well aware of the tension in trying to teach students to look critically at the world all while administration cracks down on free speech and student protest. Here at UNC, a peaceful protest on Tuesday turned into a violent clash with police officers, the same day that UNC administration sent officers in to arrest students at our Gaza Solidarity Encampment that morning. Now, two days later and a week ahead of graduation, the perimeter of our lawns have been blockaded with tall metal gates, preventing anyone from entering onto the grass. (FYI, for the most up to date coverage on campus protests across the South, I’m sharing as much as I can on my personal Twitter, which you can find here. Mergoat Mag is also doing an amazing job with news on the South).
It’s not the first strange finals week I had. My senior year of college at Barnard, a student was stabbed and killed a few blocks off campus the night before finals were set to begin; that spring the world was embroiled in a global pandemic and all my finals took place over Zoom, which back then still felt like a novelty. Much of the world has changed since then; even more has not. I remember working through a large stack of speculative American novels that spring, looking for a glimpse into the future for this country. As I begin my doctorate this fall, where I will specifically be studying futurist American fiction, I am still looking for that answer. It was pointed out to me recently that Octavia Butler’s brilliant work, Parable of the Sower, begins in 2024 and now I cannot stop seeing the parallels.
Like I always do, I turn to narrative and art to try to make sense of the world. This month’s playlist follows that theme, a slightly all over the place group of songs that fit the plethora of emotions I have felt this month. I’ve been running more than ever, hours out on trails looping up and down over the root-covered dirt. I’ve been lifting weights, looking for clarity in the flex of muscle, the feel of my body growing stronger each day. I’ve been angry. I’ve been joyous. I’ve been impossibly sad about everything. These are some of the songs (focused as usual on music from the South) that have soundtracked that. Don’t shuffle it unless you want to go from protest music into hip hop. Or do. There’s no right answer to anything anymore.