I first heard “Pears” by Weston Estate the summer between senior year of high school and freshman year of college. No longer compelled to fill my schedule with volunteer shifts at the hospital or community college classes to pad my college applications, each day blended hazily into the next. This abundance of free time was initially liberating, but—me being obsessed with schedules and lists and all things structured—this lull in activity soon led to introspection that I was not equipped to handle at the time. Every book I’d read, every movie I’d seen, and every podcast I’d listened to depicted college as the place for reinvention and self-discovery. While I didn’t want to build my entire personality and lived experiences from scratch, I did worry that I would not be a perfect fit with the peers I would meet come September. 

In that liminal space between who I believed myself to be and who I desperately wanted to become, I turned to music for comfort. Since I had long been listening to the same artists and rotation of albums, I hoped expanding my music taste would be a catalyst for other changes in my life. So, I traded in my Apple Music subscription for a Spotify one and proceeded to make playlists like my life depended on it. I assigned myself artists and albums to listen to as if they were homework assignments. I religiously listened to suggested songs from my Discover Weekly playlist. I wanted to curate playlists for every possible mood and experience I could think of, from rainy days, to flights, to childhood nostalgia.

 It was through that process of constant discovery that I, on an early morning drive to the beach with my dad, first heard “Pears.” I hate to use the word serendipitous lightly, but that’s truly what it felt like to find it upon shuffling my suggested songs. Windows down, salty breeze flowing in, and the July sun overhead, the mellowness of the first few guitar chords perfectly captured the scene around us. I knew I had struck gold when my dad—a man who prefers music from his youth so strongly that I’ve curated a playlist titled “father approved” for when we’re together—turned the radio up and bobbed his head along. It didn’t matter that I didn’t personally relate to the lyrics, nor that my dad didn’t understand them. I thought of Collision Theory in chemistry, where molecules need to collide with sufficient energy and at a specific orientation in order to produce an effective collision. The song met us at that precise space, resonating with our ephemeral selves in that exact moment. And I’ve often found that the best music does just that. It surprises us and flips a certain switch in our brains that we can’t quite pinpoint. Whether it’s the poetic nature of the lyrics, the richness of the melodies, the textures in the production quality, or simply the context in which we hear it, the best songs transform us ever so slightly upon every listen. 

Looking back on that memory now, I am grateful for who I was that summer. I still collide with her every now and then—when I read in the morning light, in my footprints in the sand—a glance of where I’ve come from, soundtracked to our timeless tunes.