Music is everywhere. It’s on the streets, in the sky, and in the hearts and mind of every living creature. The hum of energy passing through a cable can act as a bass or the low brass of an orchestra. The gentle tweets of birds or the repetitive plunking and plinking of water dropping from a gutter are our flutes. Everything in the universe is connect by sound, everything working together to perform the greatest symphony ever known.

Music is not as apparent as it is in the big cities like New York or Detroit. Last June, while my parents were out seeing the Lady of Liberty and I was in our hotel, sick with flu. I laid in bed with the windows open, my eyes closed. After a few long moments, I heard something I’ve never heard before: life. The honking and shouting of angry drivers mixed with the hum of people’s conversations and the thwap, thump, thump of tires passing over loose manholes acted in a way that made my heart pound. I sat up in bed and listened harder. Birds chirped and pigeons cooed to add more to the sound, and my heart took up the bass drum, beating fast and low in my ears.
It was amazing how many singularly ugly sounds worked together to create something so celestial. There were footsteps and a click as my parents came in, and the music was gone as fast as it had come.