Episode 4 - Whimsy Wakeups

When did life stop feeling magical…and who decided that was the new acceptable norm? In this episode of Beautiful Rounds, we take a light, nostalgic spiral through whimsy, wonder, and the quiet ways that we are trying to reconnect with magic in adulthood. From early 2000s movies and T.V. and “main character energy” to simpler times where we allowed ourselves to dream, this episode explores why joy, courage, and expressive imagination are more important today than ever before. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

This is riding and windy wake up. This is not XOD and we are taking this to another episode, episode four of the Beautiful Round Podcast. Yeah, y'all like how I did that applause effect. Y'all like that.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Mm-hmm. I told you my audio game about to get back up there. I'm telling y'all, she was she was a little rusty. She was a little rusty. I ain't gonna house you. But we getting there. We're getting back. Um, so I hope you guys have had a great week or however much time has passed since you last tuned in. Um the topic for this episode is one that really like excites me. I'm not gonna lie. It just immediately triggered like all of my childhood nostalgic feelings. So the topic that I drew out of this lovely jar is magic. Cute some color magic. Shout out to Radiant Simonier. Um, so yeah, this week's topic is magic, and wow, like I feel like this topic couldn't have come at a better time. Um last so these last three weeks have been uh Mercury has been in Gatorade, and I told y'all I'm a I'm a woo-woo girl, so yeah, she's been she's been getting tossed around inside out. Everything's been happening. Um, and I have to be honest, um, I told y'all a couple episodes ago that you know people don't know me anymore. And you know, it's true. I am going through a major uh personal spiritual overhaul awakening, whatever, whatever words you choose to use. Um, and it's not fun all the time. I'm not gonna hold y'all, it's not fun. Um, there are days where it makes sense, and there are days when it doesn't. Um, there are days when it doesn't feel magical, and then there are times like, you know, for me these last few days where it's actually felt pretty magical. Um, so yeah, you know, I'm I told y'all, I'm I'm in my 30s. She's she's a millennial, right? So we grew up on magic, right? We grew up on, you know, everything feeling magical. We used to believe in magic. Like, as a millennial kid, we grew up on the possibility of magic. Like, we we we were still in that era of our parents and you know, adults telling us that anything was possible, you know, we could we could become things. We grew up watching child actors and actresses and you know kid pop stars and everything, you know, kid writers. So it was, you know, the possibilities were so endless, right? Um, and I think it's it's so funny. Like, I and I'm probably a bit late to the party, y'all, but I saw something uh last week on Twitter where apparently Raven um did an interview. Now I did go watch the interview, y'all, before y'all do me, y'all like girl, you saw it on Twitter. Like, I doubled and watched the interview, but the inner during the interview, um, the interviewer asked Raven Simone who her Disney channel Mount Rushmore would be. And she said, you know, appropriately, herself, uh, Lee Thompson Young, rest in peace, um, Hilary Duff, and Shia LaBeouf. And, you know, of course, the internet got thrown into a tizzy because, you know, everybody seems to have forgotten that, you know, Mount Rushmore is the founding fathers. So they asked her who her founding team, who her founding members of Disney Channel were. And I don't see anything wrong with what she said. Now, of course, everyone, you know, semi in my age bracket in a little bit, and you know, below were like, well, what about Miley Cyrus? And don't get me wrong, like, Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana will forever be like legendary Disney. I want to say, like, I'll say like 2007, eight, on up, right? But like, for the for those who don't know, like Lee Thompson Young was the famous Jet Jackson and and more. He has a resume. But we're just gonna stay on Disney right now. He was the famous Jet Jackson. And for those of y'all who watched the famous Jet Jackson or who haven't, I suggest you, you know, find someone's Disney Plus account to get familiar. But the famous Jet Jackson was a show about a black teenager who was a student who was an actor and was also a Secret Service agent. Like he was a spy, he was a super spy. So who do we think set the standard for Hannah Martana, the girl who is a teenager and also a music star? Yeah, okay. Hopefully you've come to the conclusion that I think you've come to. And then, you know, don't get me started. You have Raven with that so Raven, the Cheetah Girls, and you have Shia LaBeouf, even Stevens. I wasn't a huge Evan Stevens girl, but even Stevens, you know, Holes, so many other shows. You have um, she's she also said Hillary Duff. Hillary Duff is Lizzie B Lizzie Maguire, right? The Lizzie Maguire movie, Cadet Kelly. Then we're not even gonna roll into Hillary's, you know, teen movies outside of Disney Channel. The fact that Hillary single-handedly ruled Radio Disney for a time, like, come on. So I think it was appropriate, but that conversation just like reminded me even more of like the magic that we grew up with. I tell, you know, anybody who knows me who's a close friend, you know, I always tell them, like, for the longest time when I was growing up, I wasn't really into um, I guess I wasn't really into like quote unquote black cultural things, nor necessarily pop culture. Like, I'm not gonna lie to y'all, I grew up with my grandparents. I grew up, you know, my mom kept me watching Disney movies, animated Disney movies, the you y'all know the Disney Renaissance. That's that's when I came up. Um, I didn't really start getting into like popular music until around like my, I want to say my fifth, maybe sixth grade years, well into middle school. And that wasn't, that was only because I started hanging out with, you know, like my cheerleading friends, my gymnastic friends, my middle, my school friends, you know, but I was Disney down. Like my mornings, afternoons, and evenings, especially on the weekend, was Disney. Like it was Disney Channel, it was, you know, Disney movies. Like I said, I'm a big Disney, Disney kid. And come to think of it, even going into my preteen years, my first uh, my first, I want to say big girl video game exposure was Kingdom Hearts. Like that was my first big girl video game. I had been playing Mario and Donkey Kong and Kirby, anything on N64, like Pokemon, anything that was QC animated, that had been my steez. But once I got my PlayStation and my PS2, like my first big girl game was Kingdom Hearts, and Kingdom Hearts is what Disney and Final Fantasy matchup, like so we were literally raised on magic, and it makes me it makes me a little sad these days, not gonna lie, y'all. It makes me sad that like a lot of people don't believe in magic anymore, and we're not, and I don't even mean, you know, I don't even mean like spiritual magic, I'm not talking just like astrology, tarot, you know, all of that good stuff, because people very much do believe in that, which absolutely, but so many people don't believe in magic anymore, like possibilities, and it makes me sad. Now, granted, I'm not diminishing everything going on in the world, like I get it, y'all. I I was a political science major. Like, I have a brain, eyes, ears, capitalism, everything, genocide, you know, everything with ice, like I get it. It's so much real life shit happening in the world that it's hard, right? It's hard to actively believe in magic. But I really like I really want us to get back to that. Like, we were literally told we can be anything, anything, and now we've diluted ourselves as a society down to being something that is going to make enough money to pay bills for the rest of our lives, right? Or to at least live comfortably. We have diluted ourselves down to okay, well, what can I be that's gonna get me popular right now, right? Whether that's social media popularity or you know, popularity as a musician, an artist, dancer, what have you. And I'm just like, dang, like we are no longer programmed to believe that good things can just happen. We're no longer programmed to expect wonder, right? Think of social media, like that's the other thing that makes me sad. Anything that you see good on social media, immediately people say it's AI or it's fake, or oh, somebody set that up. And granted, yes, some of this stuff really gives you a sad. It's like you hit the record button, you set this up, okay. But the things that happen that are just naturally like good things, and things that just seem like beyond the realm of possibility, but they're clearly happening. We don't like it doesn't excite us anymore, it doesn't light up our snapsis, it doesn't give us any sense of dopamine. And I'm really sitting here at 33 trying to figure out what age did we just collectively decide that like magic and wonder couldn't be a thing anymore. And I know it may not necessarily be a particular age that you can pinpoint, more more, more so than just the state of the world and the state of society, but I think we need to I think we need to believe in just like anything being possible. Like, you know how the girly say Delulu is a Solulu? Like, I agree with that 1000% in relationships, not so much. I'm not gonna tell y'all to just be delusional in these relationships where you know you're being abused or somebody don't like you or they don't know what no, not not these, not these relationships, but just like in your life, in your in in your own life, delusion, be a little bit delusional. I promise y'all, I have right up on my mirrors. I I I have affirmations splattered throughout my apartment, especially on my mirror, that be a del that we should be, I should be a little delusional. You should be a little delusional. Sometimes the Lulu is the Sululu, delusion is magic, delusion is believing in yourself and believing so much that good things happen. That is literal alchemy, y'all. Like, we're literally alchemists walking around here. So I don't think we should allow our adulthood, right, to kill our sense of wonder and our magic and our whimsy. Like, we need to actively make time for it, and that in itself is an act of resistance. I was um, I was on social media the other day. I had to get on Instagram to promote Hi, beautiful rounds, and I saw this real and it was this podcast. Um, I forgot the name of it. I'm sorry, y'all. It was these young men, and I do know that I enjoy when I do see their podcasts, you know, pop up because in my opinion, they're young men that they get it. Like I hear them and I'd be like, oh, the kids are all right. Um, anywho, so I saw them talking and they were talking about how, you know, people, specifically men, they were talking to other young, other men, I can't lie, and they were telling them, like, be more whimsical. You know, they said men are, you know, they see men nowadays getting so angry and upset and diving headfirst into this, you know, these red pill manosphere idolations because they're like, oh, well, women, women don't like us or women are boring. And they literally said it. They were like, how about you just be a little bit more whimsical? Like, the the girl, the woman is probably sick of you asking her generic shit, like, what's her favorite color? Where is she from? Blah blah blah blah. Like, ask her where her favorite power girl is. Ask her, you know, what she liked to go frolicking in the park with you. Ask her what her favorite, you know, fictional realm is, you know, just just random stuff that doesn't necessarily make sense. And they literally were like, dudes need to be more whimsical, like go frolic in a field or in a park, go get on a swing, go skip up and down the street, like go skip somewhere. And I thought it was the cutest thing, and also I heavily stamp it because yes, like be more whimsical, be more whimsical. That is so much fun, and it's so interesting. Like, as a woman, I go gaga for conversations that are like left field, questions that are like left field, but in like a childish, fun way. That's literally why I have my friends that I have. Like, we're awesome whimsical motherfuckers. Like, we be doing shit like that. I personally, you know, I go skipping, I frolic, I dilly-dally and lollygag. And I I wholeheartedly believe more people, I'm not just gonna say men, but I believe more people need to do that. They need to do that. We need to, we really, I really feel like we need to reinforce that in our kids. And I know some some folks feel like that's dangerous because of how cold and harsh the world is now, but I literally think the antithesis of that will be the reset. Like, let's let's raise our kids, let's nurture our kids to have that whimsy and that sense of wonderment. I I've seen so many people, you know, mention on social media, and unfortunately, I've even heard it in you know, certain social spaces, that as adults, like we get uncomfortable when kids are like in a low way. Like when they're doing and saying things that don't make any sense, when they're you know, hobbies, the things that they like don't make sense, when they're skipping or you know, whatever, it makes adults uncomfortable. And that made me sad because it's like, damn, now I feel like I'm I'm cringe. I feel like I'm that cringe adult because I've and I've I promise y'all, I've had it happen to me. If a kid comes up to me and tells me they drew Narnia and it's literally just two dots on a sheet of paper, I'm gonna pretend like it's Narnia. I've had a little girl like skip up to me one day. I was walking, a lot of you guys know I was walking back home from work and I lived very close to an elementary school. And this little girl literally, I don't know why, I don't know what she had going on, but I loved it. She literally skipped up to me and was like, hi, and just being very friendly. And it was so funny. It was it was funny that I saw her, I saw her mom in the background, like looking like terrified, like, oh my god, like you skip to a stranger, like, what are you doing? And also looking terrified because she's like, oh my god, my kids cringe, like she just skipped up to somebody. But I literally said hi to her and I held her hand and skipped back down to to her mom with her. Like, and I know her mom probably was thinking, oh, like, is she okay? But I'm like, why not? I'm gonna feed into the whimsy, I'm gonna feed into the shenanigans. I have a niece now, like she can literally, like, my yaya can literally be like, okay, let's play. And I'm like, all right, bet, like, what we doing? Like, where we're where are we going? Does it make sense? Absolutely not, but let's do it. So I really, I really want us, I really would love us as adults to like just reprogram and rewrite our just rewrite ourselves so that our whimsy isn't killed, right? Of course, productivity culture, you know, no time for wonderment. Everything has to quote unquote be useful. And, you know, even hobbies have become like content and branding and side hustle, which is why, you know, I told y'all in an earlier episode, like, I'm literally just doing this just to, just to like, yeah, and just to connect with you guys and, you know, get you guys thinking about something that you maybe you wouldn't have thought about on a regular day, or something that, you know, never would have crossed your mind on your day-to-day going to your nine to five or whenever you're listening to this, right? So I just really want for us as adults to like re-reinvigorate our sense of whimsy and wonder. Like, why can't you just enjoy doing something without monetizing it? Like, why does your joy need a business plan? You know, I am currently quote unquote rebranding. I know y'all are gonna be like, didn't she just say, like, why some everything gotta be branded? But I'm rebranding myself. And honestly, you guys, like one of the things that I've been transparently very insecure about is I've noticed that my rebrand isn't necessarily geared to what is going to make me money or make me this instant artist, or you know, make me the most popular gamer or twitch streamer or, you know, YouTube channel. My rebrand is me literally putting out things and sharing things with the world that is me. It's an extension of me. And to go even further with y'all, I was a little insecure because I realized earlier, you know, when I did start my rebranding, that oh, my brand is very much similar to my personality and who I was when I was in middle school, when I was in high school. And not in an immature way, y'all. Like I don't need nobody like, oh, she's she's being immature. No, not in an immature way, but just in a way where it's like I've realized it's it's come full circle. I've realized that I am exactly who I was at that time. And it's not a bad thing. Like, that's my personality. I told y'all, I was a girl who was on Tumblr. I was a girl who was writing fan fiction and diving into stories and meeting people who Had similar, you know, fantasy realms. I was the girl who was up at 2, 3 in the morning making choreography to songs. I was the girl who was still watching Disney Channel movies and, you know, really just into all that stuff. I was the girl who still wanted to go outside and play. I still want to go outside and play. I will skip to my loo. Like I will skip to my loo wherever I'm going. And that's okay. Because as adults, we really need that wonderment. And I know we all still crave it. We all still crave it, right? Like I said, I'm 30-something years old on social media, Twitter, threads, whatever, even in you know, social conversations, everybody usually talks about nostalgia, right? The you know Gen Zers and Gen Alpha, everybody's throwing 90s and early 2000s parties, nostalgia, millennials. We're we're actually using our adult money to buy things that we enjoyed as kids that we may not have been able to afford, or that our parents just didn't see the reasoning in getting it. We're buying things that we grew up with that, you know, we're realizing now, like, oh, this is actually, you know, I actually prefer this. And I'm talking about, you know, your iPods, your flip phones, your retro games, like your Polaroid cameras. Simplicity is so magical sometimes, right? And you and we're really getting back to romanticizing, you know, things that we did when we were teenagers, and even young adults for some people. Like, we didn't stop necessarily I don't believe we stopped necessarily believing in magic. I think it just diminished a great deal, but it's being rebranded, right? Um, and like as an adult, we reframe magic as we've reframed it as, you know, attention, right? Noticing the small things, you know, romanticizing things. We've reframed it as being present, right? Being fully in a moment, whether that's you know, by yourself in your own company or with your friends, or if you're going on a trip, or if you're in a concert, or you know, at an event wherever you are. It's just about being present and being fully in a moment and not worrying about how you're gonna prove to other people that you were there or how you're gonna take that moment and you know, monetize all of it, right? And we've rebranded magic as like again, romanticizing. I said that already, but pretty much turning anything ordinary, you know, into things that are special. So, you know, maybe magic isn't gone, maybe we've just stopped looking for it, which again makes me sad. Um, and like I said, you know, earlier, being whimsical is really an act of resistance, like choosing joy in a heavy world is so rebellious. Like, how how much do we talk about black boy, black girl joy? How you know being black in the age of Donald Trump and resting or you know, playing with things and you know, nurturing our hobbies outside of you know being productive with them is an act of resistance. Being playful, it it doesn't allow the world to harden you, right? And that's so necessary for us. I see so much on social media about how you know people hate dating, and you know, we were lied to, which is true, we were lied to, you know, being an adult cloaky is nothing but bills, and how you know everything just feels so depressing and draining. And like I said, y'all, this is not to diminish or you know, excuse any of that, but being playful and not allowing the world to harden you, taking that softness and that imagination, that's powerful. Like, that is powerful, and I really truly believe that embracing and becoming whimsical, embracing and looking for and accepting magic just in life, is how we refuse to become bitter, and how we refuse to let the quote-unquote powers that be turn us into these people that we don't recognize. It's how we get the love back, it's how we get the friendship back. So many things that just at base are magical about us as humans have turned into these difficult things because we added so many elements and so many things to them because you know we're humans, so we end up packing on trauma, right? You've been nice to somebody one, two, three times, and they end up giving you their ass to kiss. So now you're like, oh well, fuck everybody. And I get it, I get it 1000%. But again, the best way to get somebody or something, some system back, the best way to resist is just by not allowing it to harden you and not allowing it to take away that magic. And we create magic in so many moments that I don't think we recognize. Like making a playlist for a specific mood is magical. Like, that's one of my favorite things to do. I love making a mood, a mood playlist. I love making a mood board. That's that's magic. Talking to yourself like you're in a mood movie. So many of us now will like break the fourth wall in certain situations and give ourselves, you know, inner monologues or like inner montages as we're going through our everyday life, or as we're going through the airport, or as we're going on an adventure with friends, like that is magical and whimsical. Like, we talk to our plants, we talk to trees, we talk to animals. Those are things that are so magical and whimsical. And I really would love for us, especially in 2026, when everything in this world seems bleak and nasty and angry and you know, difficult, and about literally nothing more than money and power. I would love for us to just be like, yo, like we're human. Like, we're here to have fun, we're here to grow, we're here to enjoy this experience, we're here to cultivate the earth, we're here to cultivate community, right? And interact with each other. We're not our our nervous systems weren't made for all of this capitalism and work and worries. And then on top of that, how do I monetize this? How do I make a a daily spreadsheet out of that? How do I get my ADHD brain to work in this strict as way? Like, we're not meant for that. We're meant like our very existence is freaking magical. So I really just want everybody. If you don't take anything away from this episode, please, please, please, just embrace the magic and the whimsy of yourself, your kids, your community, your family, your environment. Just embrace it. Like, I'm gonna give y'all some homework. Go skip somewhere. Go skip. It's getting warmer outside here. At least here in Baltimore, it's getting warmer. Go skip. Go find your nearest playground and sit on a swing and just swing. If you happen to walk by kids, don't be afraid to like interact with them if they interact with you. Like, don't be afraid to just sit on the floor during the weekend and color instead of getting up and you know structuring your weekend and your Saturday for maximum productivity. Just sit down and color. Sit down and watch a movie that you watched in your childhood. Like, just be just be just be whimsical. Just go go on a random adventure, right? That's something else that you know I think we take for granted. It's just those random, spontaneous moments. Go on that adventure. Go take that drive. It's not hot yet, it's not a beach weather yet, but this around the time, I would definitely be taking a drive up to Rohoba just to just to chill by the beach. Sweatpants, a hoodie, whatever. Just just a random adventure. Just I really would love for y'all to do that. You know, maybe nothing about life has to change for it to feel magical again, right? Maybe we just have to look at everything differently or softer or like we did before we really knew what realistic mean meant or what adulting meant. So I hope you guys really take the time out and just give yourself a moment, Owenzi. Give yourself a moment to believe in magic, to remember what magic feels like to you. So I am again, I am XOXOD. You guys can catch me on Instagram at underscore XOXOD. Uh check into my website, xoxodge.com. It is going to be live in a in a few weeks. Uh, catch me on stream. My Twitch is also XOXOD. And I wish you guys nothing but a whimsy and magical ass existence. I I wish everybody a whimsical and magical ass summer 2026. Let's start there. I love you guys. See you on the next one. Bye.