How To Mark Time
How To Mark Time
One of my most sacred rituals + a cover of a Kavinsky song
“It’s been a lot of heartbreak.”
That was the response I received over the phone when asking my friend how it’s going. He’s a fellow music producer, so he didn’t need to expand on that statement for me to know what he meant. But it’s likely that he would have had to explain it to anyone else, because if you peered into his social media or recent releases, you would think he’s thriving. But that’s how it goes, right?
Making music for a living means holing up in (oftentimes) windowless rooms and pouring everything into work that may or may not see the light of day. And if it does eventually see a release date, it’s often a year or two after the fact. That means a lot of Decembers looking back and saying, “What the fuck did I do this year?”
It was about 5 years ago, when that annual end-of-year accounting of my time spent began to really compound the heartbreak for me. The years were blurring together, and the life and career landmarks that I was running toward revealed themselves to be moving targets. This device I walk around with in my pocket - this jealousy generator with its portal into the lives of friends and strangers who are seemingly all on vacation or climbing literal and figurative mountains - that wasn’t helping either.
I had to find a way to mark time.
I knew I couldn’t stick to traditional journaling. It would become a chore - tediously detailing my days. But what about the months?
I figured I could take 10 minutes on the last day of each month and take inventory. Just the bullet points. Nothing too in depth. I’d source the moments from my calendar, my camera roll, and text threads to paint an accurate picture. I only needed to do that 12 times, and I’d have a full snapshot. Then, in December, when I ask myself, “What the fuck did I do this year?” I would actually have an answer.
I keep everything short and sweet, as to not impart too much emotion on the events. For example:
- 2/1 - Lunch at Dune with Tom. We talk about songs he’s been writing.
- Second week of February - it rains & hails in LA
- 2/24 - I get a kidney stone
- 2/28 - Salim visits the studio for the first time
- Sessions in February - Sofia, Maris, scoring “Workday”
By not elaborating, I leave room for perspective. When I look back, the smaller moments add up and hold more weight in retrospect. I find myself recognizing what I take for granted and gaining a sense of what my life actually looks like rather than what I perceive it to be when I’m going a million miles an hour, as I tend to do.
There’s also mercy to be gained through this process. It’s difficult to realize what you’re up against while you’re battling it because in the moment, all you’re thinking about is surviving. But when you look back and see it listed out chronologically and notice the amount of challenges you faced in such a short time span, suddenly you can say to yourself, “Hey, you know what? You did pretty okay.” It’s like finally giving yourself your flowers.
It’s now been years of practicing this ritual. I missed a few months when I fell in love, as I think I may have liked the feeling of life blurring together at that time. But for the most part, I’ve stuck with it. I set aside 10 minutes at the close of the month and take inventory, detailing the bigger and smaller fragments of life from the weeks prior. From doing it for as long as I have, I’ve gotten just a little bit better at feeling it all when it’s happening rather than in retrospect. And that’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it?
In honor of Kavinsky’s performance at the Olympics closing ceremony, I felt it was only appropriate to share my cover of “Nightcall,” which I recorded years ago. Enjoy.