All Mixed Up

I remember '92 Cool Songs pretty well. There was some Bobby Brown a little SWV, maybe Salt and Peppa, and even Right Said Fred. It was my premier mixed tape, and, well, fortunately my music tastes in no way resemble my beginnings. I was Nine. I can remember sitting in my room with my little two cassette AM/FM stereo listening to Q99.5 for hours until my favorite songs came on. I would even call incessantly to try and make requests, but I only got through once in my three years of annual mix tape production. Frantically pressing play-record when the song started, I would slowly begin my tape. Flipping in the middle and writing down the song list.Once I was finished with the tape, I would make copies for my few close friends, and label it accordingly: '92 Cool Songs. It amazes me how much time I must have had as a nine-year-old to devote to this task.

Soon thereafter I started "going out" with a guy in 4th Grade. For me, all this meant was that he had asked me if I wanted to go out, I said yes, and we stopped talking. With the exception that he called me once on the phone. Most importantly, he also gave me the first gifts I ever received from a "boyfriend" - CDs. Tyler gave me my favorite: Mariah Carey. These were really my first CDs, I had one Vanessa Williams album, and got the Aladdin soundtrack for Christmas soon after. From then on out, most of my boyfriends (or semblances of them) can be characterized by music tastes - and many in CD form. I received Nirvana, then Simon and Garfunkel, then a whole series of mix CDs with underlying messages, then CDs that I picked out, and finally a 2 CD mixed set. From guesses, to overt (and subversive) romantic gestures through music, I've gone from the high-tech future (when CDs were just becomming common) to the low tech present (regressing to another two-sided mix - but this time on two CDs), and I think -- minus my 92 taste in music, my early love for the custom mix wasn't far off the mark.

Pink Moon/There's Nothing Wrong with...

Spontaneity, yes; uncertainty, no. My whole body rejects uncertainty, my mind doesn't know how to process it or where to put it. I need a plan so much that often I find I've made too much of a plan and I want to rebel and take back control of my time. Finish college, get job, then? uncertainty. What job I had never seemed all that relevant. Now that my job has become most of what's relevant in my life, I've realized I should have put a little more thought into it. or maybe a little less into doing it. So, I shrugged off the big responsibility of running the gardens and took on a new job with the Sundance Film Festival running the volunteer program. I'll be starting next week, and I'm hoping it will be a welcome and refreshing change.

Change, though, involves lots of uncertainty. I'm not quite sure how I feel about the whole thing. At the same time, as I've started to come undone from the shackles of my job, I've found new friends, rediscovered old ones and actually had time to spend with them. This is where spontaneity, wonderfully and fully, has played a fabulous role in helping me to give up my need for control and a plan. Creating something to look forward to and think about that isn't work. Unfortunately, I'm still waiting for my glorious embrace of spontaneous fun to spill over so I might gloriously embrace a future filled with unknowns.

A future full of unknowns scares me and makes me sick to my stomach. I'm not saying it's normal, but I'll also admit that it is pretty fun. I don't want to use that whole roller coaster analogy here, however it's surprising in reflecting on how I'm feeling that people might be right on with that one. There is something really exciting about being utterly and completely confused, nervous and not in control. Maybe it's good to shake things up completely once in awhile, to be this bonkers, and to let uncertainty keep me up at night. Though I hate uncertainty, I don't think I ever knew it could be this good.