Between Classes and Crosswalks

Notes on music, media, and learning how to pay attention.

I think it’s safe to say I’ve always been observant, maybe even excessively curious, but as my first year of college begins winding down, I’ve found myself taking more quiet moments for myself. In these passing moments, between classes, study breaks, or waiting to cross the street, I keep turning to my notes app, or more frequently, my Snapchat private stories. I keep walking out of lectures thinking differently about the media I already love, and wanting a place outside the classroom—bigger than the classroom—where those thoughts could breathe on their own.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how songs carry ideas before we realize they do. I’ve paid special attention to how artists shape narratives through album structures and bonus tracks, how music videos quietly teach us how to interpret performers, and how concepts from media studies suddenly make pop culture feel easier to read. I’ve always lived a fast-paced life—I’m not sure whether that comes more from growing up in NYC or from the constant instability of my childhood home, but either way, it’s always been easy to get caught up in the go, go, go way of life. Since coming to a small-ish college town, I’ve had the chance to take more time with even the simplest moments.

I think I’ve always been scared to slow down, and though I strongly resent the infuriatingly slow walkers found in Charlottesville, they have taught me to pace myself. I’m one to walk so quickly that I give myself shin splints (perhaps just to feel some semblance of the athlete I once was), but recently I’ve begun to slow my stride (obviously only when appropriate) and just slow down a little bit. Part of me has struggled to feel like I’m moving toward something new instead of running away from where I’ve been—but I only really notice that once I stop moving.

So I’m here. I’m here between classes and waiting at crosswalks and I’m here when I can’t be bothered to touch any of my actual work. I want to write about the music I keep returning to and the music I never thought I’d listen to twice. I want to write about finding my voice and style (hopefully finding both along the way), and I want to write about the intersection between what’s happening in my classes and everyday listening and watching.

A lot of this will probably look like margin notes—writing about albums that stay with me longer than I expect them to, ideas from my media studies classes that change how I understand what I’m watching, and the small cultural details that start to feel bigger the more attention I give them. I’m still figuring out what exactly this space will become, but that feels like part of the point. I’m starting with a piece about an album I can’t help but come back to lately, and I’m hoping this space keeps expanding as my questions do.

For now, it’s somewhere to slow down and pay attention—and somewhere to figure out what happens when I do.

—Lucia, for Footnotes & Feelings

P.S.
(Next week I’m writing about an album I keep returning to lately and what it captures about growing into your voice in public).