Showing posts with label benefit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label benefit. Show all posts

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Keep Me in the Music





Did you know that in the State of California, 230,000 children and adults with disabilities have had their services cut or reduced by the 2009 State Trailer Bill? Yes. 230,000 children and adults with disabilities have had their belts "tightened," cut off from those services that in some cases are essential to their quality of life.

I have written several times on this blog about the power of music therapy in Sophie's life. An essay I wrote on the subject, titled Small Victories was published in the anthology My Baby Rides the Short Bus. Here's an excerpt:


Minutes ticked by and Jackie continued to sing. The guitar, resting on Sophie's and Jackie's knees, hummed. I closed my eyes and willed my anxiety down. When I opened them, I looked at Sophie and saw what I can only describe as her appearance. But not the appearance of beautiful skin and curly hair, distant eyes and a mouth not often softened by expression. I saw the essence of her, and it was emerging from deep within her, from the baby that I had once had and that had died in bits and pieces over the years. It was as if her skin had thinned, allowing her soul a surface upon which to light. Jackie's voice, the plucking of the guitar, the vibration of the instrument on her lap had coaxed out an inherent intelligence that I had fixed onto over the years and defiantly and sometimes only half believed in. It seemed less a victory than an acquiescence from the universe.


I will be reading this essay at a fundraiser for Music Therapy that a non-profit foundation called Touched by an Angel is having on September 25th from 2-4 in the afternoon. I hope that those of you who live nearby might be able to purchase a ticket ($20) and come by for the reading, great music, performances by two music therapy students and good food (cooked by The Husband, of course!). For those of you living far away, if you are so inclined, please feel free to donate.

I'd sing to you now, or play the flute (my eighth grade instrument), but then you might be scared away!

Click HERE for tickets and donations.

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