Where Words Fail, Music Speaks

How powerful is music as a language or a bridge between reality and imagination? I suppose the short answer is "really really really  powerful. But then the next question is why? What makes music different? I volunteered at Ability First in high school while I was living in LA. I was perhaps only 13 when Sami [not his real name] came in. Sami was five years old, non-verbal and severely autistic due to a lack of intervention. He would fecal smear, take electronics apart almost instantly, and required 24/7 care. We found out pretty quickly, that Sami loved playing the piano. And so we pulled out the terrible cheap keyboard and let him go at it. Within three months, he was beginning to sing song lyrics. He was still nonverbal, but he would occasionally belt out several lines of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or Mary Had a Little Lamb. On his 6th birthday, there was a birthday party for him in which we stuck some LED stars on the ceiling. Sami pointed up at the l...

Can we trust our memories? Do they encompass  everything  we have gone through? These were just two of the many questions that I sought to answer during the journey we took through unit one. During the last two weeks, we talked extensively about the loss of memories, souls, brain anatomy, memory formation, and a fascinating and debilitating disease called Alzheimer's. During our discussion about souls, I found myself drawing more towards Plato's idea that the soul does not die, even if the body perishes. The idea of the immortal soul is especially comforting to me, as like I mentioned in my first blog post, I lost one of my best friends earlier this year to suicide. It's difficult, especially realizing that I vaguely remember the happy memories we shared, but more clear to me is the traumatic week in which I learned that she had taken her own life. Even though I'd prefer not to remember losing her, the memories seem to stick. She was so so excited that a "w...