It might not always be about you, but it could be for you she thinks.

She is listening to music that makes her swoon and dive into the sound. It is starting to get late on a particularly cold winter night and she has figured out an unromantic way to stay warm but it works and she is grateful. She is alone tonight, but she doesn't feel lonely. In fact she feels the love of the world all around her, and when she thinks about this it makes tears well up in her eyes and one escapes and rolls down her cheek. She loves this world mightily and she knows perhaps she shouldn't but she can't help it. The music pulls her into this place where everything is possible and she is reassured that there are people alive on the planet that feel as deeply as she does. Whenever she feels this mutual understanding she is overwhelmed, this has gotten her into trouble in the past. There are many good actors out there and they can pretend to feel as deeply, but time will tell on them eventually and she is smarter these days.

But that is not what this is about. This is about the hum of the little heater beside her. This is about the curtains she never closes, on the windows that face the East. This is about the snow she can't see outside in the darkness and the street light on the corner. This is about the painting that she studies on the wall. This is about the space around us.

This is about escapism and making something beautiful and real. This is the next track on the album and her hand is in your hand and she isn't letting go. This time must mean something. She can imagine so much, so clearly. She can see the beginning, the middle and the end. She feels the characters in the book come alive.

She has never felt like much of a woman, or maybe she should say she has never felt good at being a woman. People taught her early on that it was a liability, so she nipped it in the bud. She tries hard now to get it back, to remember how to play the part. She knows sometimes she is helplessly naïve and childlike because of this stunted experience. Perhaps it is part of her charm, she hopes...

She laughs or maybe it is more of a giggle...

A cello sings out against the air from her speakers and she wishes she would have kept playing, even if it was hard and even if she never would have been as good as her older brother. She decidedly has the soul of a cello.

But that is not what this is about. This is about the way the flat keys feel against her fingers as she types, this is about the dark sky she looks out into above her. This is about imagined kisses in the night. This is about time travel and stars. This is about magic and the dreams she had in April.

This is how she tells her story, in the third person, in photographs, paintings, in words and songs. This is how you will listen.

x.