MUSIC DECORATES TIME

Chenise Sinclaire photographed by Celeste Shiels

I saw a quote the other night that said; “If art is how we decorate space, then music is how we decorate time.” 

Wow and YES! 

My ex-husband and I are very different when it comes to music even though music is how we found each other.

Let me explain.

For me, music and specific songs make a solid stamp in time. Whatever the song may be, when I hear it, it can take me back to a very detailed and specific memory or at least a short period of time in my life when those songs made me feel a certain way and it can remind me exactly of what I was going through.

I like to call them, ‘timestamps’. 

Music is something I need daily. If I haven’t had a chance to listen to any before the day is over I’ll hop in the car after my daughter goes to bed and go for a short drive just to listen to some in my own space - and honestly, driving is quite therapeutic for me too.

The music I listen to varies but I have my favourites, R&B mostly, Country recently and I can’t fault a good 80s-90s-00s song either.
But for some of them I’ve had to change my memory/attachment to.

*Trauma dump alert.*

My father was an alcoholic and heavy drug user throughout my whole life and his favourite artist to listen to in an episode was more often than not, Eminem. I began to learn at a very young age that when Dad would put on Eminem, we were in for a really long and scary night.
For years and years following our escape, I couldn’t listen to an Eminem song. It was triggering for me because although to some people “it’s just a song”, it carried a lot more than a melody and some lyrics to me.

It brought me back in time. 

In my senior year of high school I was in a very unhealthy on and off again relationship and my coping mechanism? You guessed it - music.
I’d fall asleep with Lana Del Rey’s ‘Born To Die’ album playing on my speakers softly in the background and I’d cry myself to sleep listening to her music every night. I’d play her songs in my earphones waiting for the bus the next morning, on the ride to school, and all the way up until I entered the school gates.

Again, it took me years to be able to listen to her music without feeling a certain way but when I hear a song from that album, I can vividly remember my teenage bedroom and my floor that was covered in tissues.
Oh to be 17 and heartbroken for the first time again.

In 2017, shortly after I moved to Sydney, I decided I needed to go out and listen to some good music and have some desperately needed fun. I called up a girlfriend who I knew lived close and we went out to this nightclub. I specifically posted on my social media that we were looking to go out but the music HAD to be R&B only! And we got an influx of people telling us that this one particular nightclub was the best. 

So off we went. 

Now mind you, before this night I was not the clubbing type - I had tried it a little when I turned 18, realised it wasn’t for me and I never seemed to enjoy the music they played. I wanted old school/new R&B and nothing I had previously been to would play that genre. So when I walked into this house-party-esc nightclub in the city of Sydney and they played Kendrick Lamar, Future, The Weeknd and A$AP Rocky, for the first time in my life I actually enjoyed clubbing. The vibes were unmatched and the atmosphere was addictive. People would jump on beat so hard the floor would shake, the smoke machines were ruthless and the graffiti art on the walls felt like a music video. The music was banger after banger and I specifically remember posting on my Instagram, “Finally, a club that plays my shit!” 

The rest is history and little did I know that 6 years later, I’d be married to the owner of that same club. 

We met through music.

When we were in the beginning of our relationship, I specifically remember he had put on UB40’s cover of Elvis’ Can’t Help Falling In Love as we drove back to his apartment one night after dinner. We sang the lyrics holding hands with the rooftop down and life was good. I was crazy about him and that song, and that moment in time is so vivid to me. I remember it like it was yesterday.

In 2020 when he proposed to me, it was the same song he chose for our proposal video and that song was a way I internally measured how far we had come from that very first time he played that song in his car under the famous Coca Cola sign in Sydney. 

In September 2023 we went to Bali and on our last night of our trip, we had a sunset dinner on the beach and a mariachi band came over to us. Our daughter is two years old and absolutely loves music and loves to dance, so I requested a song for her. When the gentlemen asked what we would like to listen to without hesitation I said, “Can’t Help Falling In Love” and they were thrilled to sing it for us. But this time, I was dancing on the beach, barefoot on the sand with my two year old daughter and my ex-husband right beside us as they sang our song. A core memory was created. It was another measurement of how far we had come together. 

My life has changed a lot since then and a pill that doesn't swallow easily is the realisation that some memories, tied to certain songs, linger despite efforts to move past them.

Now, I plan to use that same song at my divorce party in celebration of finally falling in love with myself. A new timestamp if you will. 

Music can take us right back to certain moments and memories we have whether they’re good or bad because it is how we decorate time and I think that’s really beautiful.

All my love,
Chenise Sinclaire.