“Rainbow on the inside!” He giggles. “Can you imagine if we all took them for Pride? Dozens of us. Hundreds. Thousands? All of us marching, rainbow to the core?”

“There’s always music. Everywhere.”

“Sometimes, sometimes you find a riff that fits so comfortably, you wish it would go on forever.”

“Sometimes, when you know what’s coming on your playlist, you anticipate. You see how one song leads into the next. But when it’s new you can’t see what’s in front of you at all. That moment when the next song plays, all you have is what you hear. Moments to make up your mind. Sit it out, or dance.I like this beat. And I’m ready to move.And this one has a beat that you can dance to.”

“Rainbow on the inside!” He giggles. “Can you imagine if we all took them for Pride? Dozens of us. Hundreds. Thousands? All of us marching, rainbow to the core?”

“Have you ever thought about rhythm? The way it changes from inside a song? The way it picks up pace or drops and takes you somewhere new?Rhythm is the key, but sometimes rhythm shakes and shimmies, shifts and emerges all mermaid-new.”

“Music is the real life. Everything else is just mortar.”

“Music is obsession.Like jumping in a river and getting swept away, too fast, too hard, hoping that you find an eddy somewhere that will let you gasp for air.”

“Music does that; I would often dawdle home to make it last, all calm and wide awake and bouncing-still, and music would be everywhere, in everything.”

“But everyone has a voice, and everyone sings. Oh, we all do it differently. Some of us sing quietly, alone, only in the dead of night or in the shower. Some of us sing a cappella, and some stand on a stage beside a band and let the whole world share their song. Some of us, some of us don’t sing at all, like that. We sing with other instruments: There’s song in stores, and in art, and in getting up before the dawn and putting food onto the table. There are angry songs and sad songs and songs that make you want to dance. But everybody has a song to sing, their own personal story leaked into the world. And mine is one of love.”

“…We feel different things. We like different things. It’s like they say with books, no two people ever read the same book. It’s the same with music, yo.”