She wanted to fly.

And as the lights dim in the packed theater, I watch as she spreads her wings.

The first few notes fill the audience, and she’s fluid on the stage, and suddenly it’s difficult for me to tell where she ends and the music begins. She’s dancing on that stage, and she’s the harmony and rhythmn and sound embodied.

And I can’t take my eyes off that girl. I’m sitting there, in the seventh seat of the second row, but my heart leaps out of my chest and onto the stage, where she’s making music with every wide sweep of her arm or touch of her toe to the wooden floor.

In that moment, she is all that exists.

I don’t have the capacity to wonder if everyone around me has also forgotten to breathe. These are things I wonder about later. But right now, she’s all there is – a visual culmination of every note written on every page.

And as the music slows, as the notes begin to fade and come to a close, I realize that there are tears streaming down my face.

Yes. She wanted to fly.