I think a lot about what I would say if I could go back in time and talk to my past self — stuff like "Stop hanging around those kids you think are your friends," or "Keep up your Mandarin because you'll regret not being fluent in the future." It's hard not to imbue the fantasy with some kind of power to re-do, a want to change everything.
Dominican and Mexican-American musician Ambar Lucid, who's 18 and has also thought about this question, has resolved to go a more restorative route. "A letter to my younger self," a delicate acoustic cut from her new EP, Dreaming Lucid, out today, is healing, wise and remarkably tender in ways that I wish I were when I was her age; "I know times are hard, but I promise you'll be alright," she sings at one point. It's impossible to go back in time, of course, but past you is present you, and maybe this whole exercise is just to emphasize that you were right all along.
Lucid traveled to Mexico to film the music video, and the younger version of her is played by her sister, who she met for the first time on that day of filming. "The underlying meaning is me being in Mexico finally facing a part of my past that I have always been scared to face," Lucid wrote via email. "And manifesting as my current self, recognizing that the universe has always and is always giving me Flores."
Thumbnail credit to Aidan Cullen.
