For many years, I heard people speak about feeling the music.

Teachers spoke about expression. Musicians spoke about emotion. The body, the performance, the person behind the instrument.

The feeling was expected to come from somewhere.

Later, I found myself listening to a music box.

A small mechanical instrument.

Metal. Pins. A cylinder turning.

Nothing more.

And yet, it carried something.

I have wondered about this.

A music box does not feel the melody.

A wind chime does not listen to the wind.

Water does not hear the sound it makes as it falls.

Still, something reaches us.

Not through intention.

Not through expression.

Not because something wished to be understood.

Perhaps music does not always begin with feeling.

Perhaps feeling sometimes begins with sound.

I do not know where music begins.

In the hands.

In the body.

In the instrument.

Or somewhere between them.

I only know that a broken music box can still move me.

And that the rain continues to play, whether anyone listens or not.

Jeanette