It’s the first night of December, and I’m in the middle of the street. My street. It’s blocked off on one end, leaving ample space for me to pace around where no car can intrude. This space is the size of the driveway I wish I had in front of my tiny Berkeley apartment. I stand in the brightest spot on the block, lit by streetlights and the lamp-lit living rooms filtered through the curtains of cute, boxy cottages with porches out front. My weight is shifting from left Ugg to right Ugg as I sway to “Adore You” by Harry Styles.
Today is the day of Spotify Wrapped. Everyone has been tweeting and ‘gramming their Top Artists, Top Songs, Top Podcasts they listened to in 2020. Until a few minutes ago—after closing all the Google Docs, Zoom, and Gmail tabs on my work laptop—I hadn’t checked my Spotify Wrapped. I waited until I could be present. Music is important to me, as it has been for everyone while trying to survive 2020 without too many botched bangs and reckless spending on sourdough starters. This year forced me to do many things—it forced me to finish my academic career on Zoom, it forced me to go through hundreds of boxes of Rice Krispies, it forced me to accept that I may not see my family for a very long time—but something I’m glad it forced me to do was collect joy. And when I reviewed my Spotify Wrapped of 2020, I had tangible evidence that I had extracted all the joy I could from the streaming universe and squeezed every last drop into my ears.
It’s the first night of December, and I’m in the middle of the street. The road is blocked off with hollow cylinders of cement stuffed with soil and dying bushes. The one in the center is impaled with a DO NOT ENTER sign that looks much larger up close. Beneath that is another sign. It says “$75 MINIMUM FINE”, though I noticed that someone stuck a “2” in much smaller font in front of the 7. Perched on another clement cylinder is an empty cookie tin. It’s red and green, and there are two cardinals standing atop block letters spelling CHEER.
2020 is almost over, and, against all odds, I achieved something big. I was in the Top 0.05% of Harry Styles listeners in 2020. My Top 5 songs of the year were all from Harry’s Fine Line, his second album which debuted a year ago, when things were normal. Then Spotify nearly made me choke up when it told me that, yes, 2020 was a lot, but there is “one song that got me through it all”, and that song is “Adore You” by Harry Styles.
It’s the first night of December, and I want to dance harder. I spin around, stiff in my three-jacket getup but feeling free enough. I let the streetlights melt into the glow from inside the homes—a blur of light and shadowed trees and cars lining the street. I am still self-conscious, though I don’t think anyone sees me; all my neighbors are asleep or in post-dinner Netflix mode. The final chorus comes around—Harry just wants to adore me—and I let myself sing, quiet enough so that I’m not performing for the neighborhood but loud enough so that I feel like I am celebrating my biggest victory of 2020.
