The writing prompt went something like this: “Take ten minutes to write about an experience you had as a child — not a big thing; something seemingly insignificant that, for whatever reason, has stuck with you.”
The timer started and my free-writing hand started in its oh-so-familiar-way across the page. Out came this memory from when I was probably 12 years old or so, during that first year or two after we’d moved from our apartment in Chicago to a suburban two-story home in Bethesda. I am certain that no one else in my family remembers this particular moment… but it’s burned into my cells forever. I see now that it illustrates the first time I consciously experienced music as a healing tool.
And I’m sure it has returned to me now, exactly at this time in my life when I am consciously beginning to incorporate the modality of music and sound in my own healing practices.
After the initial free-write, it took several weeks of marinating, meditating, and admittedly a bit of background research to make sure my crude understanding of nuclear fission was accurate enough. Eventually a poem was born.
(And for the record, I grew up in an incredibly stable home environment. But every family has its moments, doesn’t it?)
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