Call It Anything [Take 4]
A mixtape for 2025, A moodboard for 2026
There was a moment at the Isle of Wight Festival when Miles Davis walked onstage and played an entire suite he never named and he let the world figure it out on their own
sometimes I think about that moment
how chaos and beauty can move together without structure
how a thing can refuse a title and still feel true
and how that kind of freedom is frightening until it isn’t
This year was that for me
my unnamed suite
my unlabelled movement
my long exhale into something I did not know how to hold yet I held it still
a year that left scars that are still healing
a year that showed me parts of myself I had not seen or would not see
a year that held a mirror to my face until the reflection came into focus and softened
I softened too and I learned that beauty and pain often arrive in the same gesture
I turned forty this year
I turned forty this year and I felt everything a person might say they feel when they turn forty except my version was quieter more subterranean
a shift happening under the surface of things like a tide moving in the dark guiding me toward a future I was only beginning to imagine
The breath of the morning I keep forgetting
The smell of the warm winter air
The year began with fires in Los Angeles
I was safe but not untouched
collective fear moves through a city like a pulse and it reminded me of the early days of Covid when time warped and silence grew loud and everything familiar felt slightly off its axis
I lived through my phone
through Watch Duty
I lived through messages from friends asking if I was okay
through messages saying I don’t know
through messages saying I’m so sorry
through updates from people who left town to breathe air that did not carry a red flag warning
I sat in my apartment and breathed
each breath felt like another small shift inside me
like something sliding out of place then trying to slide back in but never quite landing where it used to be
It was hard to focus so my mind wandered
the wandering opened doors I had closed and forgotten and suddenly time became porous
I moved through memories
drifting into childhood rooms where the air was stale
drifting into moments I had hidden from myself
drifting into futures I could almost touch and I felt myself traveling past and present and future all at once so fast that everything appeared still
In one of those movements I saw myself as a boy waiting at the edge of something I won’t describe yet
I sat with him and he sat with me and we sat in a wondrous silence majestic like the ocean
I told him I have lost a lot of sleep to dreams
He put his hand on my hand
in that moment something loosened
I kept breathing from the place inside me that was trying to grow larger
I kept listening for the silence beneath the noise
in that silence I felt the first hint of color gathering behind my eyelids
The year kept moving like a tide that pulls you deeper into yourself then pushes you back toward the world again and again
each wave a reminder
I remembered the first time I saw my parents as people and the ache of that recognition and watching them age in real time
the world shifts when you understand that time is happening to everyone and everything all at once
a train that cannot be stopped or exited
I thought about therapy
about support groups and the way strangers become mirrors
about the first time I said something aloud that I had barely even whispered to myself
about the trembling relief of being met with we understand
and how healing did not feel linear or cinematic but slow and strange like a heartbeat learning how to steady itself again
and I kept moving between these memories slipping through wormholes of what was and what could be and what might still need to be faced and I felt time widening and stretching and folding until past and present were no longer opposites but reflections echoing each other almost in harmony
In that I felt myself returning
to parts I had abandoned
the curious child the quiet observer the artist without permission the boy who colored outside every boundary because he did not know what boundaries were and did not need to
I understood healing is not erasure
it is a reunion
a slow unblurring
As the memories softened I began to feel a faint vibration beneath the surface
a vibration that had been ignored for years but now rose slowly and steadily in the way a maestro may conduct a crescendo
it was my own voice returning to me after years of being muffled by survival and obligation and the noise of trying to be the backup singer the world neglected instead of the frontman I was becoming
Creativity returned like a ghost at first
a whisper that I was meant to make something that could hold everything I had been sketching out but hadn’t fully formed
I began to pay attention to the small things
the color blue showing up in places I did not expect
the way certain songs opened a door inside me
the way Frank can bend memory into water
the way Justin Vernon can turn grief into soil
the way Radiohead alters truth so it feels more honest
the way staring at the moon makes me feel like I’m standing between two lives
I felt pulled toward the idea of making something that could hold all of this
the noise the silence the sorrow the color the past the future the breath the ache
something that was not linear or perfected or polished
something that could expand and collapse like time does
something that did not need a name
and that was the beginning of How Do You Color A Sound
a world where my younger self could walk freely
a world where my present self could breathe without shrinking
a world where all the versions of me could exist together without competing for space or forgiveness
And as this vision grew I began to see the fractures in my identity not as breaks but as openings
entry points into something richer more textured more aligned with the truth I had been circling for years
and I understood identity is not a portrait
it is a collage
a shifting constellation of choices and mistakes and dreams and inheritances and ghosts and desires and the ways we decide to keep going even when the path is dim
I tried to follow the places where the light gathered
I followed the discomfort too
because discomfort pointed toward the parts of myself I had refused to touch
the hunger to be seen fully
the fear of being misunderstood
the ache of wanting community without knowing where I belonged
the exhaustion of pretending the noise of the world had not worn me thin
and yet something in me kept saying
stay
stay long enough to hear what the silence is trying to teach you
stay long enough to see who you’re becoming
stay long enough to touch and hold your future
slowly I began to recognize that this was its own kind of art
the art of listening to the self you used to dream of being
I began to understand what had hold on me
And I knew then that the work ahead of me was not about building a brand or a project or a portfolio
it was about building a life that could hold me
all of me
past present future layered like chords resolving themselves in their own time
As I grew inward I began to look outward again slowly carefully almost shyly because the world felt sharper
more fragile more electric more unpredictable and yet there was a pull to return to it to reenter the collective breath after so much solitary air
I remembered the way community forms in the cracks and found myself trying to map how those communities might exist in this sharp world
evil witches and houses falling from the sky
helicopters circling the sky
protests sweeping through Los Angeles and major cities all over the world
grief and fury and exhaustion and hope
I thought about what it means to stand for something now in an era where everything feels amplified and flattened at once where the internet demands outrage on command where noise is mistaken for impact where burnout is normalized and loneliness hides beneath performance and I wondered how any of us are meant to hold all of this without collapsing
But community has a strange way of forming around the collapse
like the support groups where people speak their pain aloud for the first time
and the room shifting as someone finally releases what they have held for decades
and the quiet nodding the shared breath the small smiles the sudden sense that maybe healing is not meant to happen alone
I thought about turning forty
about how age shapes belonging
how parents age at the same time as children
how roles shift quietly without consent
how suddenly you become the one responsible for remembering everything
and I felt a tenderness for the people who raised me
a tenderness for the people I lost
a tenderness for the communities that formed me without knowing they were forming anything at all
And as all of this moved through me I understood that community is not a static thing
it is fluid
I began to imagine a future where art and community were the same gesture
where creativity was not a solitary act but a collective offering
where the work was not about being seen but about seeing others
where culture was built not through performance but through presence
I know that whatever comes next whatever the next chapter calls me to build it will be built in the direction of us
not just me
but the people who breathe with me
walk with me
remember with me
And somehow I arrived in December without noticing
the days moved with a strange velocity
so fast they blurred
so still they felt suspended like particles of dust floating in the light
December became its own dimension
a threshold where past selves gather at the doorway and wait patiently for me to acknowledge them before stepping into what comes next
I found myself watching the light differently
and I felt time humming beneath everything
another vibration reminding me that I was moving even when I felt still
I kept thinking about what this year took and what it returned
the pieces of myself scattered across old memories
the fragments I thought were lost for good
the versions of me that survived without being witnessed
the voices that grew quiet to keep me safe
the parts that refused to die even when I tried to outgrow them
I felt myself hovering between years
one foot in the ashes of what remains
one foot in the budding soil of what is yet to come
and in that liminal space everything felt precise and blurry at the same time
I began to understand that this part of the year is not an ending
it is an aperture
a widening of vision a deepening of breath
And behind my eyelids I felt the color gathering again
the same color that had flickered in moments of healing
a color that was not a color but a feeling
And in this stillness that moves and this movement that feels still I understand again what the year has been trying to teach me
that transformation is quiet until it isn’t
that new chapters arrive as whispers long before they become stories
that time is not linear but tidal
and that standing on the edge of a year with nothing but breath and awareness is also a kind of arrival
Now I find myself gathering the pieces the way a producer gathers samples
the way a filmmaker gathers scenes
the way a child gathers stones that feel important without knowing why
and I understand that this is what a mixtape really is
a scatter of melodies each holding a truth that needs the others to stay whole
So I begin collecting
the colors that returned to me after years of silence
the memories that resurfaced when the world slowed down
the songs that carried me across long nights and longer mornings
the breath prayers spoken in rooms filled with smoke and fear and strange hope
the faces of people who held me without needing explanation
the versions of myself I thought I had lost
the light that moved in ways I could not name
the loneliness that taught me where tenderness lives
the hunger that pushed me back toward my own voice
the wonder that stayed alive even when everything else dimmed
I gather the taste of winter air in Los Angeles
the disorientation of turning forty
the impossible truth of parents aging
the softness of therapy rooms where strangers become mirrors
the boldness of admitting I needed help
the quiet strength of staying even when staying felt like unraveling
the way healing arrived not as triumph but as slow steady breath
I gather the sound of the city during protests
the collective ache
the collective courage
the sense that activism now is less about spectacle and more about presence
less about noise and more about commitment
less about the world watching and more about the world changing in the small shared spaces where humanity remembers itself
I gather the child inside me
the boy who waited in silence
the boy who placed his hand on mine when I returned
the boy who knew our dreams would get better
and I hold him gently with both hands
as if he were a color I am learning how to mix
a note I am learning how to sustain
a memory that still has edges but no longer cuts
I gather the question that began forming behind my eyes
how do you color a sound
not as an answer but as a doorway
a place I can step into without naming the shape
a place where breath can become hue
where silence can become rhythm
where sorrow can become texture
where healing can become form
where fragments can become language
And the more I gather the more I understand that this post
this meditation
this wave of memory
and breath
and becoming
is my mixtape for 2025
not a summary
not a conclusion
but a field recording of everything that lived inside me this year
And it is also my moodboard for 2026
a sketch of what I hope to feel
what I hope to build
what I hope to become when the next season arrives with its own questions and its own light and its own unnamed suite waiting for me to enter
And in this final breath before the year dissolves I know that this is the first real entry of How Do You Color A Sound
not polished not defined not complete
but immediate
alive
a downbeat that leads into a movement I am not ready to name
And like Miles I am letting it be what it is
a gesture
a pulse
a beginning
call it anything
Process Notes
Sheeeeeeesh…that one took a lot out of me.
It took me a minute to finish because I was feeling pretty insecure about sharing something this personal this early, but f##k it. It’s what I felt, so I’m putting it out there. I hope whoever reads it feels something, too. If it brings up anything from your own year or what you’re looking forward to next year, I’d love to hear it.
This post actually started in a completely different place. It was supposed to be my first big essay. A four-part deep dive on cool, culture, the internet, how I got here, and where I think I’m going. But after making a few big life changes, I found myself on my sad-boy s##t listening to Blonde (my mistake, haha) and thinking about the two books that have been sitting with me the most this year: Silence in the Age of Noise and Septology.
Somewhere in that headspace this whole meditative trip through 2025 came out instead.
I wanted to use lyrics and film moments the way Dilla used samples…little fragments that shift the emotional key of the piece. In that sense, it really is a mixtape. I’ll share an actual playlist soon.
Until then, you can check out my channel How Do You Color A Sound on Locallygrown.tv. The channel is programmed with all of my references for the project.
Thank you for being here.
Liner Notes
Miles Davis Live At The Isle Of Wight Festival 1970-08-29
Radiohead - Subterranean Homesick Alien
Bonus Track
I watched I Saw The TV Glow one night during the fires and this scene (among others) stuck with me:
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“the way Frank can bend memory into water
the way Justin Vernon can turn grief into soil”
So good dude
Every word incredible thank you