Can You Hear the World Sing?
December 9, 2025
Writer: Ana R. Zarate
Editor: Katherine Zubiaur
When I was younger I wrote a song to perform for my parents. Something about pretty flowers, the sun coming down harsh in the summer, and whatever else a four-year-old cares about. A few months ago I went to a Songwriters’ Open Mic, a little routine I had fallen into over the summer. The first performer was around my age, she played the piano and sang about relationships that weren’t meant to be, but that she held onto to avoid solitude. The second performer played his guitar and sang about never being kissed, about growing up shy and unwilling to show himself. The third performer sang about the first time she met her partner and they sat under a starry night holding hands. The next three performers were older, they leaned more towards songs about their children, pets, and life experiences. And it made me wonder why we give so much importance to romantic love at this age. As one grows older, does the capacity of love extend to other things? Does one give up on the idea of love as a whole?
It’s not to say that romantic love is not important at all; it’s one of the most beautiful, yet hardest things life has to offer. I believe most of the songwriters would agree that their songs about children and family wouldn’t have been possible if not born from a romantic relationship. However, I believe that society, especially in youth, centers much of its identity around dating and relationships. As people age, however, love disperses into more directions. This expansion does not negate romance, it reframes it as one among many expressions of care. Older songwriters, having lived through more iterations of love’s arrival and departure, seem to gravitate toward forms of love that endure beyond passion.
Just as a childhood song reflects the concerns of a four-year-old, these performers’ songs reflect the concerns of their ages. Romantic love may dominate youth not because it is inherently superior but because it is the love that tests one’s early sense of agency, vulnerability, and worth. With time, other loves emerge to challenge or accompany it. If anything, these performances urged me to reconsider where we look for love, and where we overlook it. Romantic love is important, but it is not the sole measure of a full life. There is love in the world simply continuing around us, offering it freely to anyone patient enough to notice. To embrace love fully, then, is not only to seek it in other people but to let it meet us everywhere. It can live in the simplest forms of being alive: in a starlit midnight sky, in a bird chirping on a cold morning, in the feeling that everything is singing if we only listen closely enough.
To be human is to seek connection in many forms. So let yourself long, let yourself hope, but also let yourself look up, look around, and find the countless places where love is already waiting for you.
