My life in 12 photos, Four

My life has a soundtrack.

Reading is a touchstone for your humanity, but music is the touchstone for your soul.

I tend not to trust people who tell me, 'I don't care much for music'. I assume that they're afraid of facing something. Listening to music is a very physical experience for me. I feel the bass in my belly, the piano up my spice, and each lyric is a taste in my mouth.

No other stimulus can make me feel so thoroughly. I'm that person you see walking down the street, quietly singing along to her iPod, her shoulders swinging with the music. I can (quite contentedly) listen to the same song 7-8 times in a row if it's tweaking a particular feeling.

I've even proclaimed that I could fall deep in love with a man who makes me a mixed tape.

Music can draw me inwards but it can also pull me out into the world. That's why I had the words 'You're my best friend' on the back of my iPod when I purchased it online.

While reading Ian McEwan's "Saturday", I came across this passage:

There are these rare moments when musicians together touch something sweeter than they've ever found before in rehearsals or performance, beyond the merely collaborative or technically proficient, when their expression becomes as easy and graceful as friendship or love. This is when they give us a glimpse of what we might be, of our best selves, and of an impossible world in which you give everything you have to others, but lose nothing of yourself.

Yes, Mr. McEwan. Exactly.

See photos One, Two and Three.