A friend recently asked me what makes me happy, what always brings a smile to my face. The first thing that popped into the forefront of my mind was music. Music has always made me happy. I once said, in answer to a question, that I would rather suddenly blind than deaf because I cannot imagine a world without music.

Music taps into my emotional core. Like movies, I do not listen to music, I inhabit it. Lyrics strike my heart, make it warm or break, make me smile and cry. Stories write themselves around the lyrics, memories thread their way through the melody, hopes for the future flow over the bridge. Music impacts me the way that few other mediums do.  I hear my thoughts, my fears, my life, my self reflected in music. It can express me better than I ever could, but a soundtrack of me would take forever to compose, I think. I obviously don’t know a song’s impact until I heard it/read the lyrics, but, when the moment is gone, I might forget it for a while.  Then I will randomly hear it again and be flush with those emotions once more.

Music makes me giggle and blush, dance and cry. It makes my heart soar and my stomach crash. But, more often than not, music makes me smile. Whether I’m singing it, playing it on the piano or flute, or listening on the radio or my iPhone, music is melodic joy to me. It speaks my heart, stories my life, and I love it.