Mixtape: Hula Hoop Hysteria

Turn off the heater, turn up something good. The sun’s actually warm now. I grab the fixie, text everyone I know is free, pull the hula hoop from whatever closet’s been holding it since last summer. Craft Spells starts playing. Wolf Gang next, then Yuksek. This is the summer playlist, the one that makes me believe this summer’s actually mine instead of just something that happens to people in nice places.

The hula hoop was never about skill. None of us had any. It was just something to hold while standing around waiting for life to get interesting, hands busy with something useless while someone’s phone made the moment feel intentional. I know this will feel exactly like last June. The same people, same songs on a different year’s streaming service, same belief that something’s changed. But the music makes it feel possible anyway.

That’s what Craft Spells, Wolf Gang, and Yuksek do. They exist in that narrow window before you know better, when a decent song and friends and summer sun actually feels like enough. They’re the soundtrack for believing this will be the year, the summer, the one that actually matters.

By August I’ll have forgotten all this. But standing here with my hands on something pointless and my phone playing the right songs, the world is small enough to actually be mine.