The Crush Letter No. 88
I'm Dish and I write a weekly newsletter about friendship, love and sex in midlife. Because midlife is so much hotter than they said it would be. Hell yes, sign me up for the Dish.
{Sorry, the link to our Grateful Playlist on Saturday didn't work so we are resending the Letter to make sure everyone gets the playlist. From what we can tell so far, you’ll dig it.}
Hello Crush,
We hope that you can load up an hour+ of music to make you feel grateful for the day and happy to be alive – a Grateful Mix created by your fellow PrimeCrush Readers. Turn off the holiday music and the unrelenting news and slow down the most irreversible of things, the passage of time, and focus your energy instead on enjoying the moment. Trust me, it will be a calm and joyful moment, well spent.
Thank you to those of you who sent in your songs, and I am so grateful to all of you for being here.
If you're new here (welcome!), I'm Dish, the Master of Ceremonies. For more about me and why we're here go here.
PrimeCrush Grateful Mix
To hear the playlist hit this link
To hear the playlist hit this link
A few notes on our Grateful Mix. It was so fun to see your suggestions roll in. I guess it's unsurprising that the artist making us feel most grateful is Van Morrison, give the spirituality in his songs and his prominence during our formative years. I loved getting reacquainted with old friends I hadn't heard in a while like Lovely Day, Wondering Where the Lions Are, God Only Knows. There were some non-obvious picks that I was delightfully curious about as selections (but we'll let you have your delicious secrets, Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking and Coney Island). Peaches and Judy You Hung the Moom were altogether new on me, which is of course fun. And I was very moved, of course, by the selections that suggest things are lightening up after a really dark (or dry, in the case of Cindy) time Here Comes the Sun, Nick Of Time and even Willin'. Because lord knows, you can't get to midlife without having gone through some real tough times. It's the bitter that lets us taste the sweet, as they say.
That was so much fun I'd like to do another playlist for February. One that celebrates love, but with a non-obvious spin. So not straight-up sexy songs, not purely romantic songs, not only a celebration of friendship but songs that celebrate a certain, particular aspect of love or feeling it gives you. I can't quite put my finger on it. Songs that remind you that you are loved, that make you feel loved, that make you feel like the world has a lot of love in it for everybody, including you. If you can think of a better way to "spin" our February "love song" playlist - a crisper way to describe it, by all means let me know. Let's start building that playlist after the New Year's.
Thank you to the following CRUSH Readers for your sharing your songs with us (in no particular order except roughly the order they came in):
Lovely Day by Bil Withers - "I'm a literal person" Jim
Peaches by Nenei - "a recent discovery!" Tom
Willin' by Linda Ronstadt - "inspired by The Crush Letter!" Judy
Nick of Time by Bonnie Raitt - "I feel lucky" Sarah
Wondering Where the Lions Are by Bruce Cockburn - John
And We Dance by The Hooters - "specific memory" Andy
Bennie and the Jets by Elton John - "dedicated to LM" KBB
Bright Side of the Road by Van Morrison - Bob, also Kate, also Sam
Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles - "a post dry-spell thing" Cindy
Good Vibrations by The Beach Boys - "representing the West Coast" Judy
Don't Worry Be Happy by Bobby McFerrin - "too obvious?" Andrea
Judy You Hung the Moon by Harbour - Aidan
A Beautiful Morning by The Rascals - '@katastraphe007'
The Weight by The Band - "grateful for my friends" Susan
Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking by Rickie Lee Jones - "Rox"
Pulled Up by Talking Heads - ''J"
Coney Island by Van Morrison - 'Ajohnymous'
Days Like This by Van Morrison - 'KT'
Keep Me in Your Heart by Warren Zevon - 'KT'
God Only Knows by The Beach Boys - Geoff Miskinis
Next Saturday is December already (yikes! Wasn’t it just summer yesterday?). We are starting the month off with an issue devoted to the “families we make.” It is my strong belief that what makes a family is an enduring bond of love and support, and those bonds come in different forms. We’ll be celebrating that.
Dish
You Won't Want to Miss A Thing. Here Are Links to Some Favorites.
+ Healing Through Change. By Lauren D. Weinstein One PrimeCrush writer speaks candidly about the tough transition of starting over in midlife
+ Love/Sex/Moon Magick: A Series from PrimeCrush’s Resident Wiccan A regular column from our resident Wiccan Lynn Eaton.
+ Book Review: Maurice by E.M. Forster. Reviewed by Evie Arnaude
+ Who Are CRUSH Readers Grateful For? Not Just the People You’d Expect. We asked who you are grateful for. The answers were not what we expected.