Emily Dickinson declared ‘hope’ the thing with feathers. Others have pushed against this, including a modern response from Caitlin Seida that compares hope to a sewer rat. Rebecca Solnit calls upon an axe, something to break down doors with in an emergency. I agree with both sentiments - Hope has definitely seen some shit.

During the first Trump Administration, I created a stages of grief playlist, or rather five playlists to accompany each stage of grief. It was a brief and hasty project on Spotify. I am feeling the call again and this time for something more community-based, intentional, and niche. If you find yourself content with the current state of the country, this may not be for you. But I think we are all grappling with fear in a world that is both increasingly difficult to understand and hostile to the average person. We all want a better world for the people we care about. That is my hope anyway.

I offer you one song per week. One song of resistance, of spitting blood and chiclets out and resuming the fight, of dancing on our own. We are going to explore together what hope feels like — Some days hitting a window at full bore and absorbing the impact, others like taking off.