Music Did It Again

The music did it again. Today Sharon was playing the piano on the fifth floor at The Lieberman Center. Some thirty residents were gathered around the room in their various and sundry wheel chairs, some were sitting on the sofa, some in chairs, walkers parked along the wall.

Each in his own way, the residents connected with the music. Some clapped their hands, some attempted to clap their hands, some smiled, some sang along with a word or two here and there. Some conducted and some rocked their heads in or out of time with the music.

Some sat and stared, some with eyes open, some with eyes closed whether awake or asleep. But you knew that all drifted on the notes as the piano string vibrations entered their beings.

I sat there attending to each face, one at a time, wondering. Who had these people been? What had their lives been like? How did they come to end up at Lieberman? What was going on inside their minds? Were they aware of their situation? Were they aware of their condition?

And my usually smiling, open face showed sadness, tears, regret, loneliness. I chose not to shirk my emotions but rather to ride them out. No major breakdown, no sobbing, no needing to leave the room, no needing to be consoled by others. And ride them out I did. Slowly they receded as I allowed the piano string vibrations to enter my soul and my being.

And it was good. And people were enjoying themselves. People were taking and support staff was giving. And it was good.

To Love

To truly love someone takes a great act of courage. It is the only event besides life itself which has a built in end and therefore brings fear and sadness as well as peace and joy. Either the love dies or the person you love dies and in some ways that knowledge lingers just a few steps behind all through your life.

This thought, as expressed by me, was part of the theme of last night's play at the Goodman.

“October 5 - November 3, 2013 In the Owen
Extraordinary performances”

• — CHICAGO TRIBUNE

This lyrical new work from “formidably talented” (The New Yorker) playwright Noah Haidle explores the passage of time and the fleeting pleasures of life through three generations of a Midwestern family. 

Change is in the air as Violet prepares to bring twin boys into the world. Inside her womb, her unborn sons contemplate their future, while outside her body her world is in transformation: her husband is secretly planning to leave her, her father is slipping into senility and her daughter has taken a vow of silence.Smokefall spans the lives of this family in an expansive poetic treatise on the fragility of life and the power of love.