“Get Out Yo Head.”
I was driving to Stone Mountain to meet up with a friend yesterday when Spotify on some algorithmic playlist put on this song by DZIDZOR: “Getoutchoohead/Get Out Yo Head.” The song asks, over and over again, that “you get out yo head,” that you stop doomscrolling, even when your phone is away from you, directing you to the coffee shop, that you stop worrying about all of the bad things that are happening for just a second and instead feel your body in this moment, in the car, with the windows down. The song asks you to remember the fact that there are still both ups and downs in your life, an incredible amount of good things amidst all of the danger, that there are still moments where you can feel peaceful, even with all of the lack of peace that is surmounting around you—it’s a reminder that this up-and-down, this life, is a surprise in and of itself.
The song, I don’t think, is saying to stay out of your head, to stop thinking about what’s happening, but to tend to yourself in the moment too. DZIDZOR commands you in sing-song to do this and then, when the song is over, she calls into the silence, forcefully, “You!” and then slowly, “Get! Out! Yo! Head!” as if to catch anyone who hasn’t gotten it yet, who hasn’t remembered that every single person needs a moment to breathe if they’re going to last over the long haul.
I’m worried like everybody I know is worried. It feels like we’re all sleepily watching everything change around us without the might we need to change anything ourselves. The consequences for pushing back seem very high stakes, and so instead, we stay in our heads, maybe, more than we should at this point. Maybe we’re not taking care of ourselves as much as we need to, and so forget, also, how to take care of each other.
I was in one of my favorite bookstores in Atlanta recently, and there was this sticker that just said, “We always figure it out.” It made me kind of emotional because yeah, I hope that we do. I hope that things don’t get way worse before they get better. I hope that we can both get out of our heads and stay in them long enough to figure things out, to look after each other, to still—amidst all the bad news—cultivate and foster our own good moments.
I like how the sticker says “we,” how—in response to all that’s been happening lately, we’ve maybe become more a “we” than ever. We want to make sure our friends are okay, that our family—given or chosen—is okay, that if we cannot depend on larger structures to protect us, we make our own care networks, intricate and bright. We look after ourselves, we look after each other, we always figure it out. And when the figuring it out gets heady, when it feels impossible to crack, we take a moment to get out of our head, to listen when we’re told over and over to move—to breathe in, to breathe out, astoundingly still kicking.
