Q. Tell me a little bit about yourself.

A. Okay so, I’m Melanie’s roommate and friend. I mostly grew up in New York but also a bit in Tbilisi, Georgia. So, that was super interesting. My memories of each place, representing very different points in my life, contribute to who I am as a person.

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Q, How do you feel about music?

A. I feel like I have my headphones on anytime that I’m doing something that involves me being alone. It helps me to romanticize doing silly, little mundane tasks.

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Q. Do you have a favorite song? Or, a song that you love immensely?

A. That’s hard... “In My Life” by The Beatles

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Q. Why do you love that song?

A. For me, that song is one of my first memories of music in general. It was on the first CD that I ever got as a child. I would play it on my CD player that I carried with me throughout all the different places that I lived. The song was the first song that I played out loud and really listened to.

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Q. Can you think of a specific moment in your life where you turned to music in relation to grief?

A. When I was in the 6th grade and I was attending The Computer School in Manhattan was when my parents got divorced. As a result of my parents getting divorced, my mom who had custody of me had to move back to Georgia. She had been hinting at the fact that we were going to move there for a bit before we left, but she didn’t outright tell me until a month before we had to leave.

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And the thing is, as a child I don’t know if I preferred my dad, but I definitely had a stronger relationship with him back then. He is definitely one of my biggest music influences and I found a lot of my favorite songs through him. The song that I associate with him specifically is "Wild Horses" by The Rolling Stones because we would just hang out and listen to that song. Back before there was any real sort of music streaming service like Spotify, we would play the music channels on cable TV and that song would come on all the time while we were together. The first time it played is a core memory that I have of my dad and I. We were just dancing, listening to music, and having fun. So, when my parents got divorced and I had to move to Georgia with my mom, I would listen to that song and remember my dad and everything else that I left behind in New York.