Hey there, today's episode is hosted by the poet Dianelli Antigua.

Enjoy, and I'll be back on June 22nd.

I'm Dianelli Antigua, and this is The Slowdown.

Thank you. Antigua, and this is the slowdown. There was a time when love or the possibility of it came to you as a mixtape or burn CD.

The songs were carefully chosen and painstakenly ordered.

It wasn't limitless like today's playlists.

You had maybe 70 or 80 minutes,

which meant every song had to mean something.

And when you got one, you'd sit there rewinding and replaying, trying to decode the hidden message the music played back. Out of all

the mix CDs I've received, it's impossible to forget the first. I was 18 in college, and my crush was in my

public speaking class. When he learned that I'd spent most of my religious childhood not listening to

secular music, he set out to immediately rectify the situation. He made me a mix CD.

I played the CD for the first time in my car with an adapter that connected my walkmen to the

stereo's cassette deck. I listened to the songs and lived in their lyrics.

In one song, I was the punk rock princess, and he was my garage band king.

In another, I was Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, or Aphrodite.

I listened to the whole CD,

believing the songs had revealed his feelings.

I carried with me the little warmth of being seen,

that maybe I was beautiful,

and that maybe beautiful things could happen to me.

A month later, we had our first date at a Chili's restaurant.

...