Pandemic Playlist: MOVEMOVEMOVE

Car Seat Headrest, by Carlos Cruz

This week’s playlist prescribes a cure for cabin fever: moving your body.

It has been 63 days since I began social isolation, confined within the eggshell-colored walls of my house. I’ve gone out, of course, for groceries and bike rides and to pick up horchata from the Mexican restaurant down the street. I haven’t been completely alone, thanks to the company of my partner and my cat, but there’s something about this type of companionship that makes the stagnancy of quarantine all the more frustrating. If I were alone, I think I would be able to embrace the feeling of dystopia more certainly, allowing myself to adjust to this new reality; instead, I’m trapped in a surreal dimension defined by the drafty thresholds of my front and back doors. Even my cat seems to feel the same, darting through open doors to experience the outside world despite his previous phobia of it, which is long forgotten now. We’re all just looking for a way to escape.

I’ve tried my best to wait patiently for this virus to release its vicious hold on society, but I’ve never been good at waiting. A go-getter by nature, I cope by taking on an endless number of projects, constantly ticking to feel as if I’m moving the clock rather than it moving me. I’ve miraculously managed to stay busy thus far, but I’m starting to itch. 

It’s as if I’ve been sitting in one place for the past two months—which, honestly, is not too far off—and now, I need to move. (Before you ask, no, I do not exercise. It is the bane of my existence, but I’m working on finding the motivation to go for a run. It’s been two years.) I need to thrash my limbs, to release the crackling ball of energy that has burrowed into my chest. I want chaos; I want action. I want to get lost in a sea of bodies, an unspeakable sin that today seems like something out of a fever dream.

This playlist, titled “MOVEMOVEMOVE,” consists of songs that take over my body in a way that seems a bit like magic. There’s something about them that hypnotically guides me to movement, so convincingly that it becomes hard to sit still once the rhythm starts to pulse. It helps that I’ve seen five of the thirteen tracks performed live, making moshing feel like muscle memory. They’re full of screaming and anger and frustration and excitement. They’re full of humanity. 

This tracklist is both a commemoration and a prayer. It’s a frayed memory of easier times, when being tightly packed in a room full of strangers didn’t come with a death threat. It’s a shout into the void, screaming pleas into the vacant spaces between notes. I’m desperate to escape, but I’m not sure what I’m leaving behind. I would be content anywhere, I think; I just need to move. As SWMRS so aptly sings, “Anywhere is fine, if we run free.”