The Music That Remains
The Unfinished Symphony
There was a time I thought the music had stopped,
notes collapsing into silence,
melodies swallowed by the weight of the air.
I sat in the wreckage of unfinished measures,
hands too unsteady to turn the page.
My mind was an orchestra at war with itself—
strings fraying, brass blaring,
percussion like distant thunder that never broke.
I mistook the chaos for composition,
let the wrong conductor lead me astray.
I searched for harmony in what numbed me,
pressed my lips to bottles,
let smoke curl through the spaces in my ribs.
I called it self-help, called it survival,
until survival felt too much like drowning.
Healing is not a crescendo;
it is a single note held in trembling hands,
a chord played again and again
until it no longer wavers.
Some days, the music is thin—
a whisper of something almost beautiful.
But I am still here,
fingers on the keys, bow drawn to string,
learning to play the rest of the song.
Not finished, not perfect, but still being written.
And that is enough.
There are moments in life when it feels as though the music has stopped. The hall grows dim, the audience holds its breath, and all that remains is silence. I have sat in that silence—sat in the wreckage of my own unfinished measures, staring at crumpled scores, hands too unsteady to turn the page.
Inside me, an orchestra raged. The violins quarreled, their strings fraying mid-phrase. The brass blared harsh commands, drowning out any hint of melody. And in the distance, percussion rumbled like a storm threatening to break, but never coming. I mistook the chaos for composition, thought perhaps this was what my life was meant to sound like—discordant, frantic, unresolved.
In my search for harmony, I handed the baton to whatever conductor seemed loudest. I pressed my lips to bottles, let smoke curl into my lungs, tried to hush the restless noise inside. I called it self-help. I called it survival. But the truth is, survival can feel like drowning when you’re cut off from the music you were made to hear.
And yet, even in those shadowed years, the music never fully stopped. Beneath the cacophony, there was a faint hum—so faint I almost missed it. A single note held like a candle’s flame in the dark.
The first time I encountered Quaker silence, I didn’t expect much. A room of people sitting still, no hymns, no sermons, no conductor to follow. But as the minutes stretched, I felt something shift. It wasn’t the silence of emptiness; it was the silence of listening. Slowly, I realized that faint hum in me had grown louder. It wasn’t coming from the world outside. It was rising from within—the Light that had been there all along, waiting for me to hear it.
Healing, I’ve learned, isn’t a triumphant crescendo. It isn’t a moment when the whole orchestra swells and the audience leaps to its feet. Healing is quieter than that. It is a single trembling note, sustained over time. It is showing up, day after day, bow drawn to string, fingers on the keys, willing to play even when the melody falters.
And maybe the music isn’t just for me. Maybe the beauty lies in the way we all sit in this sacred concert hall together, waiting and listening. Each of us a musician, each of us an audience member, each of us carrying a piece of the unfinished symphony.
The Quakers speak of the Inner Light, the divine spark in every person. When I listen closely, I imagine those sparks flickering in the darkness like scattered candles. Together they make a glow bright enough to see the next measure, the next phrase, the next breath.
Some days the music I make is thin, almost fragile. But it is still music. And though the symphony isn’t finished—though the pages are still being written—it is enough.
We are all learning to play the rest of the song. Not perfect, not complete, but alive in the act of becoming. And somewhere in the quiet, we can hear it: the murmuring of strings, the breath of woodwinds, the heartbeat of a drum. The music was never gone. It was only waiting for us to listen.