Without warning, Mariachi tunes stream through the front windows.  I welcome the interruption and turn my attention elsewhere.

As someone who grew up moving every couple of years, I became accustomed to losing things. With every move and new place, there were broken items, lost items, and items that we threw away before even leaving.

A hyphen acts as a symbol that brings two separate words together to create one unified word, with new meaning. This symbol connects us, symbolically,  with those souls whose paths miraculously cross our own in this moment on earth. If by chance a hyphen is formed between the two, regardless of time or circumstance, these souls now have new meaning due to one another. We are simply people made up of other people. The hyphen connects. The hyphen creates. The hyphen paints the big picture. Writers for this blog series have chosen people in their lives whom they feel they'd be someone different, or less, without. Together they create new meaning.

I needed someone who would let me speak without interrupting, someone who would listen without judging, someone who would let me process and give me grace while I stumbled along and figured out who I was, what I believed, and who I wanted to become.
Unbeknownst to me, I needed Claire.

 Admittedly, my life is not very comparable to Harry's: I've never battled a troll, my skin has never made a bad guy disintegrate into dust, and no matter how many times I hold my hand out and say "Up!" my broom will not come to me. I do, however, have a Dumbledore, and he goes by the name of Allen Greenberg.