Chapter 4: Love: Lost, Revisited, and Realized

Without question, music was my first real love. But, I believe it is hard to explain that love, the inherent need that facilitated it, and the habits I acquired from that shared practice, without also detailing its relation to the chaos and pain out of which it grew. Because of this, I juxtapose my story of love—of coming to desire good in the world—against a story about the turmoil, cruelty, and depravity that I experienced around me as a teenager. Traces of the fondness I have for the characters in this piece are strewn throughout, providing both glint and depth in a larger narrative woven out of three smaller but simultaneously occurring stories. These smaller threads include the story of the lifelong connection between my brother and me; a narrative about the circle of friends who shed so much love on me that I had no choice but to begin developing a sense of self-value; and a story about how, in the midst of complete upheaval, music fostered in me an incipient understanding of communal love that would shape and grow with me the rest of my life.