The Saudade Letters: a selection
In our reading period for Issue II: SAUDADE, we received an abundance of gorgeous notes along with your even more gorgeous submissions. These letters showcased your overflowing love for melody, and we found such light in knowing that we had stumbled upon souls who adored song just as much as we do. Here, then, is a smattering of our favourite love notes from all of our Issue II submissions. Thank you for your endless passion, songbirds.
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For me, the yearning isn't just a harbinger of autumn, spring is yet another time that leaves me nostalgic and misty-eyed. It's as if the poet in Wordsworth's 'Solitary Reaper' is still searching for the highland lass, or rather for the words to her haunting melody.
People who are no longer around, friends who've grown too big to remain, siblings, who've grown too important to fool around all day, and a life that has attained too much discipline to roll about in the mud. … I'm very much the saudade person. I live, dream, breathe and revel in the mildewed photo frames that keep on flooding my mind.
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I have always taken saudade in a far more depressing way than the definition you listed (the feeling that one is trapped in a desolate place with no hope of rescue)... but I try to go with your definition. I'm happier these days.
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i love music so much, but my girl skylar has made me look at it through a whole new lens, since skylar is a singer-song-writer-extraordinare, and wants to pursue music. i credit the vocabulary in this piece to her, since her babbles about music theory help me fall asleep and stick to the caverns of my mind. i know so much more about music, thanks to her. skylar writes me songs on her ukulele and sings them to me through voice memo, and these sound memories stay lodged in my ribcage for when i'm lonely, i can unspool them and hear love all over again. i love the cadence of her voice, it's all pink and periwinkle indigo, like a dream.
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Thank you for establishing this lovely sanctuary for music and all of its forms. You've inspired me to get back into the musical touches of my past, and for that, I am grateful, as if you had just taught me a new language all over again. I used to play the cello for school, and started to play recreationally recently, which means that I fumble through sheet music of songs that I've heard on the radio and wish to play instrumentally. I hope that whoever is reading this does not fumble through life and wish them a good morning/night wherever they are.
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My social anxiety was at its worst when I was fourteen. I'd sneak out of class early just to avoid everyone in the hall, and the principal even suspended me for eating in the bathroom after she told me countless times that I needed to eat with the rest of the kids. This was freshman year and now, as an upcoming senior, I can walk in the halls and eat in the lunch room. Of course there were many things that helped me, but one of the things that keeps me on track is music. Anytime I feel like I can't face the world, I put in my headphones and it feels like everything's almost okay again.
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Music is so part of our lives. It evokes emotions, teleports us to different times in our lives, connects us. I feel Half Mystic is another step in that connection.
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Saudade is also one of my favourite untranslatable words, along with kairos. I think that's why I'm submitting this. Because of saudade. Maybe it's meant to be? Maybe it's kairos? Is that cheesy?...
This poem is inspired by the animated film Children Who Chase Lost Voices, by Makoto Shinkai. The soundtrack is just beautiful and in one scene it talks of how songs can carry the last stories of a person before they die (in the film this means going somewhere rather than a sense of permanence). Anyone who hears this song carries a part of the singer's story within them. Immortalises them that way.
Beautiful, isn't it?
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There's a deeper meaning of saudade as it explores the mythic origins of song to be found in the strange mixture of joy and sorrow that lies at the core of life.
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I've never really understood saudade, or how there could be any type of beauty in pain, but I think maybe I'm starting to. There's the music and the memory and nothing in the world realer than those. And it's about capturing that. Singing it to yourself over and over until you don't need the memory any more...
You have the music, you have the rhythm of memory, and it's enough to make up for all of the hurting that came before. And for everything else to come.
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Half Mystic's second issue, SAUDADE, is available for preorder now. Dropping on December 18th, the SAUDADE issue is a stunning compilation of art, lyrics, and writing in celebration of music in all of its forms. It showcases the the drifting photograph – the ache so tender-willing – the shards of bitter-soft yearning just before the fall... and is not to be missed.