The Radio For Equality exhibition took place at a huge convention center. I arrived an hour early to get the lay of the land. It mimicked an empty museum: colourful booths, welcoming banners and the scattered event organizers speed-walking from place to place, following invisible paths of purpose. After stashing my winter coat into a locker, I went inside and spun in a circle, looking at all the booths. Most of it seemed to be informative stands for R4E's grassroot initiatives for the different members of the LGBTQ+ community. Some terms I was familiar with—gay, transgender, non-binary—while others I hadn't heard before, like gender-fluid and polyamorous. Some appeared to be individual businesses, including one that stood out from the rest thanks to its giant bunny logo.

"I'm ready for this," I said to myself, after diving into what Tienne and I nicknamed Hermit Mode for another week, to recharge myself for this event. I repeated my goals in my head like a mantra--

"Hey Tai," Rajethiran said distractedly as they chewed their hair. "I had it right here..."

Observing the table of stickers and yoga equipment, I picked out the object that seemed the least likely to belong—a phone.

"There it is! Thanks," they exclaimed. "Since you're here, can you help me set up stuff? Wait, I'll need to rearrange it anyway. Actually, I'll need to rehearse talking to other people about Harmonic Balance, so—"

I averted my eyes. "Do you always talk so fast?"

"Yes?" they said, like I asked if the sky was blue. "Oh I forgot, not everyone has ADHD. I'm so sorry if I'm making you feel overwhelmed! But--" they took a deep breath and purposefully paused "--I swear I'm not talking fast because I want to dominate the conversation. I hate talking actually. Sometimes. It's not personal. Really. I'm trying to be better at social interactions."

"Me too."

Awkwardness stretched between us like a rubber band. They said, "Do you want to learn more about Harmonic Balance? I have so much planned for how to say it to people, but I don't know if they'll understand how...important it is to me, you know? Because--"

"Slowing down will help," I said.

"Oh. Right. Okay."

"And obviously it's important to you."

"But I want others to feel the same way about yoga."

"Really? Yoga? Or...is it how yoga...makes you...feel complete?"

"How did you guess?"

I gestured to my guitar. "I can help you set up. Just focus on the present. That's all we can do."

The more I helped them, the more they calmed down, and so did I.

—

I studied the buzz of activity the way I would a map, trying to find patterns and the explanations behind them. Some areas were sectioned off as quiet zones, so I went there. One particular booth in these sections was selling floral embroidery on hoops. Some were feathery flowers outlined in gold, while others depicted stylized landscapes. Behind the booth, a woman used a text-to-speech app to communicate with the sole customer. As the customer walked away, I glimpsed a word embroidered in careful cursive, with roots and vines intertwining together, forming half of a face's silhouette.

I wasn't sure what emotion the face had, but the bold, unusual colours of red, turquoise and black spoke to me.

The woman was speaking to Joachim when I approached. "Make sure you avoid the cameras," she was saying.

"No one pays attention to the interviewer," Joachim said, flipping a pencil in his hand. "But I'm sorry I made you bring all your stuff for nothing. I don't like wasting your time either."

She flicked the lint off her white hijab while typing into her phone with the other hand. Something about her red dress and the painted staff leaning against the booth made me wonder if she was cosplaying a character. "Me too. I would have liked to see the performances, but I expected the weird questions anyway. At least I got the old embroidery off my hands."

They started to pack up. I shifted on my back foot, torn between committing to say something and stepping back for good. The conversation topic I'd armed myself with felt fragile like glass. Too fragile for me to handle the right way, the way others did effortlessly.

"I didn't see you," Joachim said, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Um--"

"Are you going to perform today? You'll do great. Or did you want to look at Gülay's embroidery?"

Gülay said briskly, "You can find them on my website--Oh, you're a musician too." She waved and continued to type."I'm Gülay, a vocalist. I'm not part of the music performance today, but I am looking to collaborate with other singers. I like singing about nature, acting, and the perspectives of outsiders. Would you be interested in a collaboration?

Full introduction and clear-cut direction? Someone finally spoke my language!

We exchanged information. I learned she was cosplaying Eda from The Owl House, and she strongly recommended the show.

"I like your embroidery," I said. "The plants look like the real thing even if they're stylized. It's hard to build 3D plants in dioramas without them looking stiff."

"Embroidery can't hold a candle to the real thing," she said.

She gathered her supplies. On the way out an older woman, presumably a relative, helped carry her things.

Joachim started folding away the table that had been left behind. He didn't have his accordion with him.

"You're not performing today?" I asked.

He gave a lopsided smile. "Music's not something I take as seriously as everyone else."

"I thought you're part of Hidden Stars...?"

"No, but my cousin was. Actually, I saw your email to my article on the record label, but...whatever I've written was all I knew for certain. You could say we were doing detective work."

"For who?"

"Confidential."

I grunted. "For a confidential mission, you chose the worst instrument."

"How many musicians can say they own an accordion? It's a great ice-breaker. I got a lot more information out of people's mouths who otherwise wouldn't want to talk to me. In that star-studded environment, the best way to blend in was to stand out."

"Must be nice."

"I'm not here to steal your spotlight," he said.

Reluctantly he walked away. If I breathed, I'd explode, but forcing my lungs to cling onto stale air felt unfair, too.

I shouldered my guitar. No matter what, the stage would be my microphone. Even if I didn't have a voice off stage.

—

At one point, I spotted Monty and Nora talking together. They waved. They didn't expect me to approach them. It echoed a contradictory sensation that I first experienced in university, of being a lone ship in the open sea. The transition from being surrounded by clamoring classmates to anonymity in lecture halls and libraries made me question what a reliable safety net looked like. But now I did have support--and at the very least, blindly grasp at my dream, making out its shape from the instances I touched it.

—

Performing in front of five hundred people who weren't cloaked in shadows of an auditorium or a dimmed restaurant, but were visible in rows of folding chairs, gave me acute awareness of every action I did on stage. I sang a new song, Facing the Wind, then thanked the venue hosters, technicians, and the audience for having me there. (Acknowledging everyone on stage, I learned, filled the cumbersome silence after a show and lowered the tension without crashing it.) Then I received questions from the audience. Per the rules, the artist was excused from answering questions they weren't comfortable answering, and they would take as many or few questions as they wanted. After the basic questions one would ask a musician, Joachim raised a hand. He held a notebook and pen, and it was clear he took time to formulate questions outside the box, though he stumbled on reading them outloud. "Do you feel your culture and/or ethnic background impacted the way you approach music, and how others perceive you?"

I stomped my feet, mimicking the thundering gallop of horses. I could talk for days about my culture. "I liked composing songs in Vietnamese. It's different from English since Vietnamese is a tonal language, so your word choice needs to match the melody, otherwise the words' meaning isn't clear. So in English I'm very particular about syllables and word flow. For perceiving, when it comes to my background....I'm surprised when others expect my career story to involve rebelling against my parents. It's not without reason, but not every Asian parent is controlling. I think that narrative locks them into that box and doesn't allow them to change. I know it's an optimistic thing to say though, coming from a place of privilege," I admitted, catching the potential objection like how one would catch a curveball. "Oh, um, going back to your first question, my background does make me conscious of how my music is representing the rest of the Vietnamese diaspora. I'd recommend watching Paris By Night for that stuff, my mom watches it and--" I needed to stop otherwise I'd talk forever and never get off the stage! "--the comedy skits are funny and they have Vietnamese pop songs too. Shows a lot more..." And I nodded to finish my response, because the trap of sharing about things I loved was that I'd never stop, and at some point, I needed to stop.

Joachim nodded before his hand shot out again. "Sorry one more question. Earlier you mentioned difficulty breaking into the music industry. Any advice for overcoming those challenges?"

"When this path gets tough, I wonder how much harder it would have been to go down the path forced upon me," I said. "I'm not ready to overcome anything when I'm still proving to others that I deserve to do music in the first place, and give it everything I have."

I smiled in the face of expansive silence. Some nodded in agreement, but a few head tilts and my own intuition signaled that wasn't the answer people expected. As I walked past the audience aisles, Monty was signing to Joachim, "Don't expect a sunshine-and-rainbows answer from every..."

I did not have the energy to drive home as soon as I wanted to. So I strayed near the entrance, sipping a coffee and savoring its heat mixing with the cold air snaking in from the entrance doors.

The spotlight came to Joachim. After requesting for cameras and phones to be put away, he delivered some passionate spoken word poetry of which the specific meanings escaped me. To love and mourn while living. I remembered a younger me hiding simple feelings behind cryptic lyrics. Whatever it took to take that first leap of courage onto the stage.

Phiona's performance was next.

Being told that things would get better, or that my family loved me, didn't help manage emotional challenges. I wanted affirmation that yes, it did hurt. That sometimes life sucked. Phiona felt extremely positive to me as she had the power of hindsight, but she didn't sugarcoat, so how did she handle the audience?

Half of her face was illuminated by the soft stage lighting. The speakers amplified her voice. "This song is called 'A Promise.' It's not quite like modern soca, but I use as many traditional instruments as I can."

Through the speakers, the first harp chords resonated in my chest, like the song knew exactly how lost I felt. It built up into a gentle release of guitar and drums that reminded me of rain on a sunny day. Phiona danced in beat with her lyrics.

"Promise

You'll brace 'gainst the wind and fly

And who you find, on the other side

A different person, a different child

She'll tell you

How freeing it is, to step outside of the black and white

How big the world seems

How small it is, when we only have ourselves

To talk to."

After the applause died down, Phiona walked around the stage. "I'm blessed to be here today. A special thank-you goes out to my tiny but dedicated subscribers on Youtube who came up to me and in disbelief said, 'No way! You look so much older in real life!' I'm not ashamed of my age, but I am glad my make-up is doing something. It made my day, it really did." There were some laughs.

Phiona answered audience questions with energy and a right to own the stage. Despite not being new to the music industry, I hadn't experienced engaging with the audience like this; my gigs consisted of smooth musical transitions so I could get away with minimal talking while acknowledging my audience. I didn't do storytelling or heck, plugging in my non-existent merch.

Someone asked, "What was the biggest thing that pushed you to pursue a musician's career relatively late in life?"

An imperceptible beat passed before she answered. "I held it off because it felt like I was afraid of losing more. How can you balance between your passion, and your loved ones? What parts of you are worth keeping, and others shedding?" There was a murmur of agreement. "Life is a series of trade-offs, but it doesn't mean you're destined to be stuck," she said. "I do what I can to make myself happy, and whether that means doing music or switching to something else, it's been worth it."