The Sounds She Collected is a newsletter about mixtapes and mixed emotions. Thanks for being part of this hive mind for empathetic, hopeful people.
I am in my final week of life drawing class. In these 15 weeks, I have become even more grateful for how the body moves, how it supports me, how it is magical.
One week, we focused on the body’s contours. The next, its form. We’ve spent time on its subtle movements, the expressions we make with our faces and our body language, the settings that surround us. We studied the skeleton that supports us and the clothing we drape ourselves in.
Life drawing class has urged me to constantly inquire. To look beyond what I see with my eyes and mix countless rules together, from proportions to values to composition. Through these 15 weeks, I have come to view my own body more tenderly, with more compassion and a gentler approach. I am listening more intently when it says, “Rest!” or conversely, “Go!” I am nourishing it with what it needs. It feels so, so good to listen and to know.
In the span of six hours each week, I have joined this class and immersed myself in a flow state. Initially popularized by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, flow is a state in which time slips away and you are truly present. Psychologists note this isn’t solely limited to creative pursuits; it can also apply to time spent at work, doing routine tasks, or embarking on adrenaline-pumping adventures like rock climbing.
There is music that can encourage flow states and/or enhance them as well as music that I believe can snap us right out of one. I’ve been leaning into music in an energetic way lately, attuning myself to how each song makes me feel and noticing if it’s what I need in the moment.
When I watched Nomadland a few weeks ago, I couldn’t stop thinking about it and its stunning soundtrack, meditative and languid. The music, specifically the song “Golden Butterflies - Day 1” by Ludovico Einaudi, spoke to me in ways I cannot fully understand, completely calming the synapses in my mind while I became enveloped in America’s vast landscapes, standing with Fern in South Dakota, California, Arizona.
This week’s playlist, dreamland, includes this musical epic along with other songs I’ve cobbled together for your next flow state. I hope you can find moments of time to experience it soon—the complete absorption, the rush.
Flow with it,
Sarah
Forward this along to a friend who is also reeealllyy into instrumental music.
Share a hello or song // Press play and listen
The Sounds She Collected is committed to social justice and advocacy. Each month, I’ll be matching donations to a charitable organization. This month’s organization is Marwen, with a mission to provide free visual arts and college and career programming for Chicago’s young people from under-resourced communities and schools in middle through high school. Share your donation receipt with me, and I’ll match.