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Rainer Maria Rilke once said, “Things are not all so comprehensible and expressible as one would mostly have us believe; most events are inexpressible, taking place in a realm which no word has ever entered, and more inexpressible than all else are works of art, mysterious existences, the life of which, while ours passes away, endures.”
I think that's what I was trying to convey in my last article. I borrow Rilke's words because I have not yet lived long enough to claim my own with certainty. However the feeling that he describes, I feel it too. The sentiment that the experiences I'm living in are outside of the realm of vernacular. Fully indescribable moments yet fundamental in creating the newfound perspective I'm building. Art and music describe this feeling without needing words. It's an encapsulated moment and sentiment, forever stuck in time.
This is why whenever I listen to Eternal Summer by The Strokes I will be 18 on a hot beach in Barcelona, with paper white sand, a volleyball, and great company. Or when I see an image or rendition of Venus de Milo, I'll be back in Paris on a rainy day with hints of a long conversation and hushed laughter.
Music and art have, to me, become time capsules for feelings that I can not put on paper. Looking back on my life, I can see divisions of sentiments and states of being based on the music I listened to. Emblems of core memories; songs, and bands have marked my life in different time periods. I listen to the 80s rock I fell in love with like Warrant, Whitesnake, Scorpions, Kiss, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, and Led Zepplin looking for my dad in pieces of the lyrics and remembering my inner child in family kitchen jam-outs. I'll listen to Mac Miller, Frank Ocean, and Tame Impala as a final grasp of my high school years. Holding on to the late-night car rides with the roof down, the house parties, and moments when I felt that life was just beginning.
The interesting thing is that now I have songs that remind me of people, places, and memories of my time here, and there is an anticipated nostalgia for the feeling they are connotated with. I have realized the power that art and music have in suspending time, and now I look at my life in playlists and mixes indicative of the different people I've been and the different people I will become.