Netta’s Reviews > The History of Sound > Status Update

My grandfather once said that happiness isn't a story.

I thought of him in the way you do when you're young: in the mornings, lying in bed listening to the songbirds, sheets tangled around my legs; when I stood in the kitchen watching the kettle, waiting for it to boil; when I was pruning, grafting, staking, and guying the fruit trees; after work, walking to the streambed and listening to the spring peepers; sitting on our porch <...>. As in, always.

I sang for David then. I've always felt as if what came from my throat and lips was not mine, like I was stealing rather than producing something. This body was mine - <...> the lips and the softening of my tongue that shaped the sound - but what left me, ringing through the crown of my head so my skull felt more bell than corporeal, flooding my ears' timpani, vibrating through my nose, wasn't my own.