Music Is My Closet Friend, My Fiercest Foe

Composing the highs and lows of life’s musical melodies

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“I learned to love the music of all the tunes in my mind, the changing of chords, the rhythm of time.” — Let Time Go Lightly, Harry Chapin

For as long as I can remember, music has been my go-to method of coping. In the small extra bedroom of our fourth-floor walkup apartment in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, I would listen for hours to my parents’ collection of records from the musicians they’d left behind in their beloved Cuba.

When I was 7 years old, Mom and Dad bought me a battery-operated transistor radio that fit in the palm of my hand. That tiny radio burned through enough 9-volt batteries to power a concert at Madison Square Garden.

Stress, sadness, boredom — it didn’t matter what the emotion was, music offered a way to make sense of it. It was a roadmap to the bigger picture behind my feelings.

Lyrics became a more intentional part of how I processed things. They painted pictures that matched the daydreams the songs sparked in my mind. I often say that I invented music videos, but someone else capitalized on it.

I searched out songs that matched my mood. I learned to play the guitar and would lie on my bedroom floor playing John Denver…