Do you like American music?

The one year anniversary of our Big Move is coming up! What better way to celebrate than with a playlist in honor of our first year.

I really love a good mixtape and I can probably measure all my brightest and darkest moments (and everything in-between) in music. Music is my silver lining. Music allows you to remember moments worth remembering and to forget those that are not**.

**I can’t remember / Google can’t find who said this first. Do you know?

A dear friend made our group of schoolmates (friends since 1992!) a going away present. She put together a mixtape with songs that make me sing my way down memory lane at the top of my voice (in the car). Her selection captured some of the best moments of my (often misspent) youth.

I have playlists for the months leading up to and the days my kids were born. I know what song was playing on our drive home after watching the plane hit the second tower. I chose with great care the music for my (middle) brother’s funeral and for my wedding. I had a ‘songs for leaving’ playlist that kept me company as I packed our South African lives into (many) brown cardboard boxes.

As much as this blog shares our adventures with friends and family, it’s also my diary of our American Life.

This has been the soundtrack to my first 12 months: