I get a lot of press releases and pitches from people who want me to write about their work. So when Tristan Scott-Berhends e-mailed me out of the blue with the new music video he directed, I flagged it but didn’t think much about it.

I’d never heard of Tristan or Sarah Mary Chadwick, the artist whose video he directed, before he e-mailed. However, as soon as I clicked on the YouTube video, I knew this was something special. Chadwick’s stripped back, throaty vocals swept over me like an icy Lake Michigan wave, transporting me back to those days in the early ’10s when I first moved to Chicago. I was in my 20s, a whole lot thinner and a lot more fashionable, and the world was my oyster.

“Full Mood” didn’t remind me of any one man I dated. It reminded me of many. The guy who booked a fancy hotel room in the Loop so that we could have a weekend as tourists in our own city. The guy who pinned me against the freezers at the Target on Elston so that he could kiss me. The Viking–oh the Viking, my six-foot-sexy broad-shouldered, blonde haired, blue eyed colleague who is married to a woman now but back then wanted nothing more than me. We would get drunk in North Center before drunkenly stumbling back to his apartment in Roscoe Village, passing out snuggled up on the mattress he had on the floor – what passed for a bed in those days. Well, at least to a broke 20-something in the city.

Scott-Berhend’s video is just as sexy as my memories and no doubt contributed to the walk down memory lane. It tells the love story of two ridiculously attractive men living in New York. Seeing them galavant around the city in Instagram-filtered footage was incredibly nostalgic, if only because I no longer live in the city and even if I did, no one is riding the train or dancing in the streets during the pandemic (or at least, they shouldn’t be). It made me miss those carefree days, when I had fewer wrinkles and fewer pounds and my biggest problem was that I lived off the Blue Line but worked off the Brown Line.

Being young and in love in the city is a magical experience. There’s so much to get up to, so many adventures to be had, and–crucially–someone to have them with. Those days are long gone, at least for me. But oh, how I remember them. Cherish them. Long for them.

As we all lock down for another wave of Covid, “Full Mood” reminds me of what came before, and hopefully what lays on the other side.

Watch the video below:

Skylar Baker-Jordan is a freelance writer based in Tennessee. His work has appeared at the Independent, Huff Post UK, Salon, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter @skylarjordan and become a sustainer at www.patreon.com/skylarjordan