Spring Time- Music, Flowers, and Some Rain
Tuesday, May 12th, 2009
Sweater on – sweater off – sweater on – sweater off; the temperatures in April were extreme even by New England standards. May usually offers a bit more consistency. Usually. You just really never know.
Grief is compared to weather for this reason. You never really know how it’s going to hit you or when. Just when you think you’re ok, you get knocked off your feet, until finally, you have more mild days than stormy – more days that pull you out than keep you in.
This sort of unpredictability can cause us good deal of stress. People are cranky after a long winter and impatient for the nice weather to arrive. People are irritable when they can’t hurry through their grief.
Truth is, we can’t change the weather or the loss, but we can harness the power of a few things to make the wait a little easier. One of these is music. We’ve all experienced it’s ability to lift us up, calm us down and make us sing loudly in the car. What you may not realize is just how powerful it is to your body as well as your mind.
This month we’re inviting some friends who have attended our groups to come out and experience the music/mind/body connection for themselves at “Simply Sinatra”, a musical review at the Jane Pickens Theater. We hope to see you there or at one of the many musical venues on the island this season!
So bring on May, be it stormy or mild and turn up the volume with or without the sweater!
“He who sings scares away his woes.” ~Cervantes
Nathaniel Ayer’s knows first hand the power of music to heal, elevate and become the catalyst for a life changing friendship. How did one man’s passion for music inspire the compassion of a heavy-handed political journalist?
Lopez met Ayers four years ago, when Ayers was a homeless musician on Skid Row in Los Angeles. Lopez learned Ayers had been a promising violinist, and that he had left the prestigious music program at the Juilliard School because of his struggle with mental illness.
Lopez chronicled Ayers’ struggle in several columns at the Los Angeles Times. These columns inspired readers to send instruments to Ayers through Lopez. The friendship that Lopez formed with Ayers and eventually helped the musician get off the street, settle into an apartment and find treatment for his schizophrenia.
Lopez chronicled Ayers’ struggle in several columns at the Los Angeles Times. These columns inspired readers to send instruments to Ayers through Lopez. The friendship that Lopez formed with Ayers and eventually helped the musician get off the street, settle into an apartment and find treatment for his schizophrenia.
Lopez says his friendship with Ayers has “always been a two-way street, it’s not just me doing for him.” The writer explains that the musician re-ignited his passion for journalism and gave him a sense of well-being: “You know, there’s this humility, there’s this good feeling I have from giving something,” Lopez says.
Lopez published a book about Ayers called The Soloist: A Lost Dream, and Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music. The book inspired the recently released movie The Soloist starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr.
Hear the interview.