Taking the prompt Sonic Interiority both literally and figuratively, I listen to the sounds and songs that carry me.

It begins with the plucking and tuning of violin strings. This process—of returning to my interior self—has been its own kind of tuning, an attempt to realign the notes that once came effortlessly.

Holding my violin for the first time in years, I prepared for the journey ahead. A promise to fulfill. The particular strength and memory that once guided my fingers had atrophied. I captured the awkward notes during the first evening spent reintroducing myself to my old companion—tuning the strings until they harmonized. A quiet ritual of coming back to myself.

Acts of sound—rituals, vibrations, resonance—are what help me reach that interior space.

I try not to get frustrated when the muscle memory doesn’t match the mental one—when my hand can’t keep up with the speed I still feel in my mind. It’s a slow, sometimes painful process: rebuilding what was once second nature. I played for ten years. And now, it’s been ten years since I left the instrument behind, stepping into adulthood.

I’ve practiced single toning before, though with harmoniums. That same search for mental relief, for clarity, now finds its way through strings and their subtle hum. A way to shift.

I shift and travel—by trains mostly. Hours spent on night trains, entire days rushing through countries without internet, without signal. Rocked to sleep by the rhythm of the Ukrzaliznytsia trains. The sound of motion, the lullaby of movement between temporal spaces. And adulthood—well, it feels like it’s rushing forward too, with no sign of stopping.

I wanted to play with the sound elements that surround me, live within me, and emerge from me during this process.

The siren in the piece—fading in and out of the music—is from a recording I made the morning ruzzia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022. In Ukraine, sirens are so common now they become part of the background; you sleep through them, tune them out, endure them. But the first time you leave the war zone—entering a country with quiet skies—you notice the silence. And strangely, you still hear the siren. A distant highway, a leaf blower—any sound might trigger the memory. It’s an echo etched into your psyche, permanently residing inside.

To navigate this new reality, I realized I had to carve out time—space to be with myself. To listen. Before the world gets too loud, too busy to think. For more than two years now, my mornings begin with an anchoring playlist. A sonic guide. Whether I’m breathing, journaling, practicing yoga, or meditating on a sadhu nail board, these songs accompany the effort to connect with my core.

One of those tracks is ‘the peach tree next door grew over our fence’ by Dylan Henner. It plays in the background of a sadhu meditation, captured in one of my recordings.

The sadhu nail board has become a tool for presence—helping me sit with pain, with fear, and breathe through it. It helps me connect with something deeper, something essential. During one session, I recorded the breath and sound generated—letting it remind me that these experiences I carry aren’t scars, but part of the symphony. We’re simply encountering the depth of what it means to be alive.

And so, I search for resonance as I go.

The track ends with the sound of waves—this time above the water. A sound that holds past, present, and future all at once. It is Crimea. It is Oleksandriivka. It is California. It’s the birds singing from my window in Kyiv, the balcony brushing up against the chestnut tree.