I always enjoyed writing. As a child, I guess I would write stories, not that I can find evidence of them. Maybe my mother has them locked up with other remnants of my childhood.

One of the challenges for me has been hearing my words read out loud. So much so that I made it a task on my list of 101 things to do – read a poem I wrote out loud. Some of it I suppose stems from an incident in 2nd form when having written what was an extremely emotional piece for me (a search through a forest for a specific tree representing my friend who died over the summer). After reading it out loud in class, my teacher, who I had liked just fine up until that point, dismissed it saying the metaphor was too cliched. I said nothing and sat down. But that was it for me. I refused to read my stuff out loud after that.

The truth is for a long time, anything I wrote remained very private. Then I started blogging and found that knowing that people were reading my words encouraged me to write even more.

Last night I had the unique experience of hearing words that came from my head not just read out loud but put to music and sung. I sat in a studio as music was created around my words, and they came alive, bringing with them emotion to people other than me.

Words are truly a big part of who I am. I love to read them, write them, speak them. They are so powerful and can capture so much emotion and meaning, both good and bad, kind and hurtful. Last night I got to see my words move through music and I was moved. To what? I am not sure.