Latinx Heritage Month: #FemmeInMourning 10

There came a point a few weeks before the first anniversary of my mother's death day that I couldn't sleep at all. I also had been thinking about death and dying for so many months for hours a day. This eventually turned into a desire to want to not be alone in discussing these topics. So I turned to music.

It started with my own playlist on iTunes. I titled it "Erotic Death & Dying" as I was very interested in the erotics and pleasure of dying. My mother had been naked and held by someone who loved her as she was being bathed. It's such a human and erotic experience, one that shows love in a way that we often summarize as "care taking." Yet I found it to be beyond care taking. She was my mother's death doula and that is an incredible role to fill.

I tried to tap into my mother's pleasure and I found that in music. I then started a Spotify account and created this list again. Here is my EDD (Erotic Death & Dying) Playlist It has a variety of songs about death, hell, dying, and the like. There are dark songs and there are love songs! Everything from Björk to The Ohio Players to Alien Ant Farm and Zap Mama.

This list will keep growing. I like that it begins with Björk's "HyperBallad" where she sings "I go through all this before you wake up so I can feel happier to be safe again with you" and it really touches on how my coping practices became rooted in taking care of myself so I could show up for other people or be social. This is an expanding list. It has songs others have shared as well but not all the ones folks have shared with me! What would you include for your death and dying playlist?


Read post 9 here.