Chill-Bitten: Ode to Late Winter Melancholia

At some point in February, everything starts going faster. I’ve felt this shift every year since starting college, and I attribute the feeling to the transition between winter and spring in Ohio. The winter sputters on and off, snowing several inches after an encouraging spell of 50-degree days, lingering uncomfortably until something finally decides it’s spring. This arrival of spring, for me, represents the hectic march towards the end of the school year: everything accelerating at a rapid pace, with decisions to be made, summer jobs to be found, projects to finish. The whiplash from a seemingly never-ending winter to a spring that hurtles us faster and faster through the second semester has always been unsettling to me, but, this year, I’ve experienced it differently. I’ve opened up to the uncertainties in all areas of my world, charting the ebbs and flows of winter weather and the beginnings of fool’s spring through music.

After taking the fall semester off from school, my conception of time and the traditional 2-semester school year was inevitably altered upon my return to campus. The spring semester has felt like a year in and of itself so far, and I’ve been excited for nicer weather, for more time outdoors, for a shorter-than-average slog in the process of completing my 3rd year at Kenyon. This year, it feels like the season is approaching more gradually than usual, a welcome change from the whirlwind of the Kenyon February I’ve come to understand. I know the cold snaps are not forever, I know snowstorms are not forever, I know college is not forever –– all of it constantly evolving and unraveling as we push through our midterms and celebrate our milestones.

This playlist imitates, and replicates, the mood(s) I associate with this time of year. There are stretches –– of weeks, of songs (“Happiness,” “Naranjita,” “Every Time the Sun Comes Up”) –– that are slow and melancholic, slipping into the haziness of themselves, building up just to crash back down into a similarly-chilly ballad. And then, suddenly, there is a song or two that wakes me up –– either with its change in tempo or its lyrics. The path from winter to spring is not linear, and the arrangement of low-energy songs interspersed with higher-energy, more upbeat ones is a sonic portrayal of the waves of feeling, motivation, and good weather that come with the transition from one season to the next. Sometimes, the thrill of a warm, sun-filled string of days is met with another week of surprise snowfall, momentarily dashing our hopes and signaling that spring still needs more time to unfurl itself.

The final track, “Under The Pressure” by The War On Drugs, serves as the pinnacle of a playlist that has been gradually infused with more life –– but it’s also the catalyst for whatever is next. As we’re propelled through the semester, through the year, through our college careers, I often turn to music to match how I’m feeling: cautiously climbing uphill, through Ohio’s bleak winters, to a finish line framed in sunlight. The days and weeks and months take their time to culminate in a season worth celebrating, but I’ve learned that the buildup along the way can be just as fruitful, just as bright.