someone asked me a while ago what it feels like when i’m dj’ing. nobody had ever asked me that before, or not in those terms. people ask what i’ve seen. or people ask if i have any crazy stories. or people ask if i have any moments that i remember, either glorious or awful. but nobody had ever asked me what it feels like, in the act of dj’ing, when i’m on the stage or behind the booth. it caught me off guard, and i rambled for a minute as honestly as i could, but i didn’t have a real answer for her at the time. and i still don’t.

it feels like breathing. but not really, or not exactly, it feels like exhaling a breath i didn’t know i’d been holding for days.

it feels like… when you sit down in a coffee shop and settle in, and situate your coffee mug within reach and your bag to the side, and you open your journal to a blank page, and you draw out your pen and you click the top so it’s ready to write even if you’re not. it feels like that. like that *click*. not like a blank page. not like a clean slate. but like you’re about to cover a clean slate with graffiti. like you’re about to paint a blank page with ink from your soul.

it feels like breathing something unwritten. it feels like wild possibility is at your fingertips, and things can go all kinds of wrong or all kinds of right. it feels like magic.

i don’t know how to describe it. or how to explain it. but i keep thinking about it since she asked, and i still don’t have an answer.