The 2025 Love Mix is here y’all! I’m quite happy with it, too!
The story about this year’s mix involves my heart, (of course), my four-year-old-self, and restlessness. The mix started back in the late spring of 2024. I started hearing songs a la my favorite radio station (Fordham University’s WFUV) and made a 2024 playlist that I could dump everything into. From there, I pulled the musts into a Love Mix for 2025, and then I forgot about it. With everything that happened between November’s election day, which I worked as a polling employee, through the holidays, and a decision to put somethings on old, and break free from self-imposed restrictions and beliefs, I lost track of mixing the songs. E viola! It was mid-January, and after a road trip and finding my footing, I realized I had some shuffling, deleting, and narration to finalize.
I am being vague here, but that’s because some things I’m not fully ready to disclose, and because there’s someone in the midst scrutinizing my writing with harmful intent. I may never share that part of the story, but it is best to leave some things to mystery…
With further adieu, I present the 2025 Love Mix, aptly titled Independence Calls, available on Spotify.
It is a long mix, (over 2 hours, but under 2.5), but after all, 2024 into 2025 WAS A YEAR. I traveled back and forth between New Jersey and Ithaca, New York to study herbalism with a fantastic herbalist, and met some incredible individuals. I made new friends. I said goodbye to someone I didn’t think I actually would say goodbye to. I ran for public office and I lost. I believed in myself and greatly doubted myself. I did so much and still felt contained. The shift I needed presented itself with a ceremonious break - one of the legs of my beloved desk cracked and was irreparable.
That desk was repurposed and redesigned. It was a staple in my life for seven years! Between 2017 and 2024, that desk, that entered my life in 2006 as a West Elm day bed and was converted in 2017 into a extended tall working desk, (with thanks to the handy work of one of my best friends), held my business, dreams, and mess up. But on that fateful October afternoon, as I looked around my cramped apartment and thought to myself, “if I only had a little bit more space”, the desk couldn’t hold anything up anymore. It met its end and I was granted the space that I wanted. Yet, still, that wasn’t enough.
What I was yearning for was independence. It was climbing up and demanding out. In fact, it was dancing to get out. I could only acquiesce.
I’ll leave you to fully dissect the different layers to this year’s love mix, but there are many references to dancing in this year’s mix and so I want you to dance. I want you to dance, dance and dance some more.
We are in an incredibly troubling time right now. Where the government is trying to force people into spaces of fear and discrediting their very existence. Joy is our way out. Joy leads to a more grounding sense in our selves and our body. Dancing is a form of joyous expression. As you’ll hear in the mix, there are elements of doubt, sadness, and fear, and then there are moments of joy, of dancing—an upswing of positivity and understanding—of healing.
This year marks the 19th year of these love mixes. I can’t believe I’ve been putting these together for so long. I had thought a few years ago that I would stop creating these and yet, I can’t stop. These mixes have been deeply personal to my life experience, and hold pieces of myself. I have been sharing them without telling the full story of the journey that led to each mix, knowing that people can feel things even if they don’t have a same experience, or know the full details. If nothing else, then maybe, someone will hear a song that is new to them and takes them on their own journey of inspiration.
I’ll leave it here. If you’re feeling the urge for independence, get up and dance. If you need more, consider throwing items that no longer align with where and who you are. If you still need more, consider leaving some things behind and go a different path. Never fear different paths. Never fear being different, or independent. There is love around you always. You are loved for who you are, even if the greatest love comes from you for you. Happy Valentine’s Day, loves!