The Melodic Flâneur

I want to take a walk, though I do not feel comfortable leaving my house without the guarantee of listening to music. Yes I am outing myself as a woman too weak to resist first world melodic pleasures, but hey, what do you expect from a Los Angeles native?

I profusely rummage through every single electronic item that I own. The first pair of earphones I encounter do not work at all but sadly, they are the only pair that have the correct jack to fit into my phone. I miss the vintage earphone jack so much. You know, the one, with the circular point at the end. Why did things have to change? The old design was never broken but Apple just had to go in there and update it anyway. *eyeroll*. As a Generation Z veteran, I totally get how awesome Bluetooth is, but oh my God, let me just plug them in, click on Spotify and be in my own little world. Because I don't wanna be that guy… the one who blasts their music out loud on the speaker for everyone to hear.

Frustrated, I sadly look over to the Bluetooth earphones from Target that have been charging in my wall outlet for 72 hours. Not a straight 72 hours of course, I had to unplug them and transfer them into various different charging ports to see which one would charge it the best. I still haven't found any success. So you mean to tell me last week I spent $11 on these Bluetooth earphones that were supposed to fix the problem that I'm having right now... And those also don't work? Wow. I restrain from yanking the useless pair out of the wall and yeeting them across the room. I should just leave the house now. I've already wasted 45 minutes looking for a pair of earphones that will work properly. It's not like I can't listen to the same music at home that I'm going to listen to while I'm walking, so I should just move on with my life now right?

I can't.

When I tell you I am obsessed with listening to music, that is very much an understatement. I have been pumping songs into my ears in every public, isolated pastime since I developed motion sickness and could no longer read books on the bus anymore. Surprisingly, (and luckily) my ears still work. I would blast my music so loud that the lady next to me on the bus could hear every word Alanis Morissette sang. The act is so embedded in my soul at this point that I physically cannot stop. Do I fear normal human interaction? Am I too afraid of my brain just existing on its own without having a feedback loop of what it likes to hear in its ear all the time? Yes. Both of those answers are yes.

My earphones are like little pentacles. In my mind, listening to music while taking a walk makes me immune to every small encounter and conversation that dares to happen. It is a silent and casual way for my introverted brain to communicate “even though I'm in public, please don't talk to me, please don't look at me, please don't perceive me etc etc”.

I am used to living in a world of constructed melodic pleasure. I want to remain there as I simultaneously fear the reality of city noise. For I am the Melodic Flâneur; sauntering through my socially distanced city in search of something soothing, something I am not sure exists anymore.

The pandemic has definitely been shitty and though I’ve always leaned on music for comfort in the past, I have attempted to almost drown myself in it now. I feel better when I listen to music and I cannot be alone in that statement. In the past year, many articles have mentioned the way music has become a coping mechanism to us during these times. According to Amy Morin, Editor-in-Chief of Verywell Mind “The stress of the pandemic combined with stay-at-home orders left many people reaching for music to help them get through tough times. An overwhelming 79% of our readers said they turned to music during the pandemic to cope”. But, I would rather refer to my behavior as enabling rather than coping.

Leaving my house without working earphones for the first time in years, I realize something I’ve ignored for so long; though my melodic pastime has allowed me to comfortably exist for some time, it has also done more harm than good. Listening to music has personally allowed me to isolate myself from society without physically saying goodbye to it. Such an outrageous discovery coming from music: a medium that usually connects people to one another. I will continue to work on how to separate music from my social anxiety. Writing about it was a start, I guess.