Steph nodded. “Yes, but when I was little, it was just music. We had an old guitar at home, and our neighbor gave me lessons for a couple years. I started writing songs with lyrics when I was twelve.”

“What were the songs about?” I asked.

Steph laughed self-consciously. “Uh, well, the first one was about this girl I had a crush on, but I didn’t know it was a crush back then. And then I sang it to her—”

“Oh my God,” I said.

“Courageous!” Joan said.

Steph grinned. “It was a mistake. That’s when I learned that people don’t like it when you write songs about them. Like, they might say they’d like it, but if the song doesn’t show them exactly the way they want to be shown, they can’t handle it.” She grew serious. “And then, even if the song isn’t about them, people see themselves in it when they shouldn’t. I don’t know what to do about that. Like with your portraits—didn’t people ever get mad if they didn’t look the way they wanted?”

Joan smiled as if she’d heard this question before. “It depended on who was being photographed and whether they understood what I was going for. I think sometimes it was my fault. I needed to be clearer with them about what I was trying to do. But you can’t always explain yourself clearly, and sometimes people don’t understand because they’re clinging to an idea of themselves, and any disturbance to that idea is devastating.”

“What if it’s not even about the person who gets upset about it?” Steph asked. “Like, sometimes I’ve written songs that start from personal inspiration, but it changes in the process. And ultimately, it’s not about that personal experience at all, but the people who see themselves in it—they still think it’s about them.”

“You can’t worry about other people’s feelings about what you’re creating,” Joan said. “That will suffocate you. You have to do what your heart desires.”

Joan and Steph were so focused on their conversation, it was as if I wasn’t even there.

“What if what your heart desires hurts someone else?” Steph asked.