Posted by Kathleen Pooler /@kathypooler with Robin Gaiser/@RobinGaiser
“Music gives wings to the mind, a soul to the universe, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, a life to everything.” Plato
It is my pleasure to introduce therapeutic musician and memoir writer Robin Gaiser in this guest post about how music led her to write a memoir. Robin and I meet through a mutual friend who over lunch one day had mentioned she had a friend who was writing a memoir. After chatting on the phone, Robin and I knew we had a lot in common. Robin has a fascinating story to tell about how her ministry as a therapeutic musician inspired her to start sharing her stories. Her upcoming memoir, Doorways is a work-in-progress. She has completed her first draft and fourteen of twenty-two chapters have been critiqued. She hopes to complete the critique process and have a polished final revision and a query letter ready by this summer.
Welcome, Robin!
How Music Led Me to Memoir Writing
As a therapeutic musician (Certified Music Practitioner) I am privileged to offer live bedside acoustic music to critically and chronically ill, elderly and dying patients in hospital, Hospice, nursing and private settings. My fervor for this work has spilled over into writing a passionate memoir about these real people and their real stories as they face the unknowns of life and death.
Doorways (working title) takes the reader into these private and sacred lives revealing wrenching choices patients and their caregivers and families must make. In the midst of it all I enter with healing music, its mystical and miraculous qualities flowing into these unknown, hurting places. Be amazed, be humored, be moved.
I tell these stories and my own in hopes that when our time, or those of our loved ones come, we may face them with wisdom, courage and love.
Below find a short excerpt from a chapter of Doorways entitled “Last Words,” a collection of anecdotes about the value of honoring life as it comes to an end.
“Doug sat alone in his Hospice room seated in a lounge chair, staring out the window at the woods. His door was wide open. The TV was off, no radio played. He was not reading or working a puzzle or talking on the phone. When I knocked lightly on his door he looked up with a response which surprised me. He appeared frightened, apprehensive about my presence. His thick, quilted flannel buffalo paid shirt, his worn jeans, his tan work boots shouted the language of an outdoor laborer. I looked more closely and saw missing fingers on the hand lying across his lap. Lumberjack, I thought.
The vast unforgiving Adirondack mountains harbored many a hard living man eeking out a meager wage in the woods just five hours north of bustling, crowded sophisticated New York City.
I approached the solitary man slowly. Keeping my distance I pulled out my harmonica, showed it to him and began playing “Git Along Home Cindy, Cindy” an upbeat folk tune often played on hammer dulcimer in the lumber camps. He resumed staring out the window, expressionless. I finished the tune and let some time pass.
I didn’t expect him to speak.
“My uncle played one a’ them,” he said flatly, looking at me briefly, then turning his head to gaze out the window again.
“You want me to play some more?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said still looking away.
I played several more camp tunes for him. When I stopped and put the harmonica in my pocket he looked over at me and spoke again.
“When you comin’ back?”
“Next week,” I replied.
“Good.”
The following week I knocked softly on his door hoping I wouldn’t frighten him again. He sat clad in the same outfit, in his chair by the window, but his expression changed when he looked up and saw me. The fear, the reticence was not present and he even cocked a half- smile. I entered carrying my guitar as well as the trusty harmonica and sang country music as he listened intently facing the window with the view out to the woods. After several songs he spoke.
“You know one about grace or something.’ My mama sang it.”
I began to play the introduction to “Amazing Grace” and sang all five verses. Even without looking too closely at the lone man, I could see tears form in his eyes as he swallowed hard.
Weeks later during what turned out to be his final hour, I entered his room without knocking. This time his limp, non-responsive body rested in a Hospice bed. The hand with the missing fingers lay across his chest which was barely rising and falling with his strained breath. No plaid flannel shirt or worn blue jeans, no work boots were in sight. I softly played harmonica over him, remembering the shy lumberjack who allowed me into his very private life.
The music I gave him that day was the last sound he heard on this earth.”
***
Thank you Robin for giving us a glimpse of your work as a therapeutic musician and for showing us how it has inspired you to share the stories of the people whose lives you touched with your music. After reading this powerful excerpt, I am looking forward to reading your memoir!
Robin Russell Gaiser holds a BA in English from The College of William and Mary, an MA in psychology from Marymount University, and a certificate as Music Practitioner from Music for Healing and Transition, Inc. She has recorded seven Cds with the Mill Run Dulcimer Band, and three solo Cds honoring births of grandchildren. She recently had a third short story published and takes classes through the Great Smokies Writing Program at UNC-Asheville. More details are available on Robin‘s newly published website, www.robingaiser.com
How about you? Has music played a role in healing for you?
We’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
Next Week,
2/10/14: ” 7 Memoir Writing Tips for Writing with Intention”
2/13/14: ” From Insanity to Serenity”, a guest post on Janet Givens’ blog.
This post is a confirmation of what I’ve always thought: Music, contact with nature, and exercise are essential for balance in life. I constantly add music to my iPod that will inspire, encourage, or get me going in the morning. Playing the piano has a similar effect.
Sometimes when I call my Aunt Ruthie, suffering from Alzheimer’s and living in a retirement community now, she is in an activity that involves listening to music (good) or singing (better).
Thank you for introducing me to Robin, Music Practitioner and Memoirist.
I echo your sentiments, Marian. I didn’t realize you played the piano.Now we have something else in common!As I often say,”any day I play the piano is a good day.” Thanks for the reminder. I appreciate you stopping by and sharing your thoughts. I’m so happy you enjoyed Robin’s post.
Hi Marian,
Thanks for resonating with the music and story. ALZ pts. like your Aunt suddenly coming to the present really amaze us all, don’t they?
Miracles.
Robin
Music was the therapy I needed when nothing else could be. Over time, it became a security blanket and a comfort zone I would resort to anytime I needed a break from life.
My earphones were always in my ears. From the moment I woke
up to the moment I fell asleep, with hardly any breaks in between, I would listen to my MP3 or my CD player until I could switch songs without looking, or until the battery would die. I almost always had a backup in case that happened. It worked. All through my teenage years, before, during and after high school, and especially with a newborn, music fixed all. It was reliable and ready at a moment’s notice.
My music matched my emotions. Every song, every day. It spoke to me and seemed to understand me on a level no one else and nothing else could or would.
In the last yr, I’ve come to a place where I don’t need music to fill every waking moment. It’s not my life anymore. It’s not a crutch either. I use it to encourage, refresh and inspire myself. I use it as background music to help me read and write or for concentration purposes. It’s a major aid when I encounter Writer’s Block.
Music will always be a part of me. It will always help me.”Music speaks when words cannot” is one of my favorite quotes. Music found it’s way into my life and heart and divinely changed me from the inside out. And I hope I can use it one day to help others in the same way.
Wow, Sarah. Thank you for sharing such a heartfelt testimony to the transformational power of music in your life. Beautiful! I’m sure Robin will appreciate this tribute. I appreciate you stopping by.
Absolutely, Kathy! My pleasure. And thank you!! When I read this blog post, I thought, “Yes, I have a story to tell all about music.” It changed my life before and it continues to today.
Hi Sarah,
Music has literally saved my life a few times when meds or surgery or talk therapy just wasn’t enough.
I am happy you used music with your newborn………what a gift you gave/give him or her. Steady beats, rocking, imitate the security of the womb. When working with autistic children I used the same music but i was sure to only choose music in four/four time……..very grounding, like the heartbeat, like walking. These kids’ responses were astounding. Calm, smiling, singing, tapping beats, …and so many of them were severely affected with that awful diagnosis.
Hi Robin,
I totally relate to you there. Music was indefinitely a lifesaver about a month or so after I gave birth when postpartum depression came at me out of nowhere. Music was the only thing that kept me from pulling my hair out of my head and soothed me and my child back to sleep when the silence just wasn’t doing it for either of us.
He still loves music as much as I do. He likes it even more when I sing to him, usually acapella. His favorite is his bed time music, a calming, relaxing sensation of stringed instruments.
I love that you have worked with autistic children! I’ve always been very fond of those children. A couple of years in a row that I did VBS back in junior high and high school, a few autistic and/or disabled children really took a liking to me. I suppose it’s because I gave them extra attention when the teachers, VBS leaders, and other volunteers were handing out snacks, being escorts to the restrooms, and grouping everyone according to age and grade, ect.
Those specific children stood out in crowd and most of them picked me to talk to or hang out with. A lot of them wanted to tell me stories about how they picked out their clothes for that day or what they had for breakfast and some asked me to read them a story or sing them a song they hadn’t heard in a while.
In conclusion, they were and are an outstanding group of kids who didn’t realize that they were different and even if they did, it didn’t bother them. It touched my heart and gave me a glimpse into their world. It’s so very inspiring to me that you use music to minister to them. I would say music is another language that speaks to and reaches people in such a way that sometimes words alone cannot. Btw, I LOVED your interview and the parts of your story you shared. Amazing!!
Sarah,
Thanks for sharing your experiences with the “different kids.” I too find that we gravitate to each other.
On another note (no pun, of course) do check out my website on the music page and read about my CDs for my grandchildren. Fun. Another fulfilling contribution to music for healing, wholeness. And great fun.
This story gives me goose bumps. How beautiful to be “piped out” that way. What an honor to be the piper. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Sharon,
Being present for dying and extremely ill patients is an honor indeed. I find my work more like ministry.
Just yesterday I began giving dulcimer lessons to a woman with brain cancer who has less than a year to live. On her bucket list is to learn to play the Appalachian dulcimer.
Who is getting the gift? I ask myself that a lot. I have come to believe if I am fulfilling a life calling ,then we both get the gift.
Robin,
Will do! I love sharing stories like that. Thanks for the invitation.
What a wonderful combo and calling, musical therapy and writing. I noticed how my grandparents and aging parents loved to hear me strum the guitar at the end of the day. As you well know it soothes the soul.
It is such a joy to witness the elderly and even the most lost to Azhemier’s patients respond to music, especially from their era. Suddenly their heads come out of their laps, their eyes sparkle and they often sing the lyrics….. and best of all, they are so proud of themselves.
Never give up on these “lost ones.” They are still with us in ways we cannot comprehend. Sing them back to life!