It’s been a while since I’ve written anything here.
Not because I haven’t had anything to say.
Probably the opposite.
There’s been a lot on my mind lately. Work. Family. The future. Things changing. Things I can control and things I can’t. The usual collection of thoughts that somehow become much louder when everything around you gets quiet.
I’ve learned over the years that I need places to put those thoughts.
Sometimes I write.
Sometimes I train.
Sometimes I travel.
And sometimes I DJ.
A few weeks ago, I set up the equipment in the backyard and decided to play some music.
No audience. No real plan.
Just me, the backyard, and Sara Tavares.
The Backyard
My backyard has become one of those places for me.
I spend a lot of time out there just thinking. There’s something about being outside that changes the volume of everything going on in my head.
The problems don’t disappear.
The questions don’t suddenly have answers.
But they seem to take their proper size.
Maybe that’s one of the things we’re constantly trying to do in life: not eliminate the noise, but find enough distance from it to understand what actually deserves our attention.
We spend so much of our lives reacting.
An email comes in. The phone rings. Someone needs something. There’s another problem to solve, another responsibility, another decision.
Then you sit outside for a while and realize the trees aren’t in a hurry.
The sky isn’t waiting for your response.
Life continues perfectly well without your constant intervention.
There’s something humbling about that.
And freeing.
So I Played
I didn’t want this particular set to feel like a performance.
I wanted it to breathe.
Sara Tavares’ music felt right for that.
Her music feels rooted without being confined by its roots.
I’ve always appreciated that.
Maybe because identity itself feels that way to me.
We spend a lot of time trying to define ourselves: where we’re from, what we do, what we’ve accomplished, what comes next.
But we’re really collections of experiences.
Places.
People.
Losses.
Music.
Memories.
Versions of ourselves that existed for a while and then quietly became somebody else.
Sara’s music has always seemed comfortable with that complexity.
So instead of thinking too much about where the set needed to go, I just let the music take me there.
One song into another.
One thought into another.
And somewhere along the way, I stopped thinking quite so much.
Maybe That’s the Point
I’ve been thinking about why creative outlets matter so much.
I don’t think they’re necessarily an escape.
Escape suggests you’re running away from something.
Maybe they’re a way of returning.
Returning to a part of yourself that gets buried underneath responsibility.
When I’m DJing, there’s really only the moment I’m in.
I’m listening to what is playing while simultaneously thinking about what should come next. I’m adjusting, feeling, reacting.
You can’t spend too much time thinking about yesterday.
You can’t get too far ahead into tomorrow.
You have to listen to what’s playing now.
We spend enormous amounts of energy replaying things that already happened or imagining things that haven’t happened yet.
Meanwhile, life keeps playing.
The transition is happening whether we’re ready for it or not.
Maybe peace isn’t getting everything figured out.
Maybe it’s learning how to stay present while things remain unresolved.
Sara
This set was also simply my way of saying thank you to Sara Tavares.
Some artists make songs.
Others create spaces.
You put their music on and suddenly you’re somewhere else or perhaps a little closer to somewhere you already knew.
Sara was one of those artists.
She left us far too soon.
But that’s the strange thing about music.
The person can leave.
The voice stays.
You press play and, for a few minutes, time becomes negotiable.
A Quiet Afternoon
By the time I finished the set, none of the things that had been on my mind were magically resolved.
They were still waiting for me.
But I felt different.
Quieter.
And maybe that’s enough sometimes.
We don’t always need an answer.
Sometimes we just need enough space between our thoughts to hear ourselves again.
That afternoon, my space happened to be the backyard.
My outlet happened to be a dj controller.
And the soundtrack happened to be Sara Tavares.
— DJ Alex
