I remember when the girls made them. Or when their friends
did and gave them as gifts. I’d find them all over the house, compact discs of
indeterminate vintage, with titles like “Pump Up” or “Race Day” written in
marker ink.

 I came late to the playlist, the homemade CD; came late to
the careful choice of music, to plotting it out in my mind before putting it
together. To walking with it, seeing how it flows, then tinkering some more and
burning it to a disc.

But once I did, I began to see the value of it. The playlist
reveals both the giver and the recipient; it shares what can’t be touched or
seen but must be felt. It is the gift of music, of course, but more than that.
It is music personalized. 

You don’t give a playlist to just anyone — just as you don’t knit a sweater for a stranger. There is an implied intimacy there, an understanding of interest, an appreciation of taste.

I came late to the playlist, to seeing it as an act of love.
But that’s what it is.