by Rebecca Lyn Gold
When Mrs. Almeda, my 9th grade music teacher, first played “Fire and Rain” for the class, she had no idea that song would have such a profound impact on my life. As she swayed back and forth with her long black hair flowing, she sang along with James Taylor:
“I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain,
I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end …”
I remember that day so clearly. Most of the kids in class were talking to each other and not paying much attention, but there was something about the singer’s voice that drew me in, so I walked closer to the front of the classroom to hear the lyrics more clearly.
Mrs. Almeda was singing along quietly and strumming her guitar, with her eyes closed. I closed my eyes, too, and listened.
“I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend,
but I always thought I’d see you again.”
The last line hit me. I felt like someone had punched me in the chest, and I couldn’t breathe. This singer, with the most beautiful voice I had ever heard, was singing exactly what I was feeling.
I started to cry. First, just a little sob. And then, as Mrs. Almeda belted out the chorus, something inside of me burst wide open. Everything that I had been feeling: abandonment, confusion, fear, sadness, and loneliness: All of it had been captured in that one song.
I got up and walked as fast as I could to the bathroom down the hall. I couldn’t stop the tears from pouring out of me.
What Mrs. Almeda didn’t know, nor did anyone else at the time, was that within the timespan of one year, everything I knew to be true had been turned upside down. My father moved out of our home and left my mother with four children to fend for ourselves. We lost our five-bedroom suburban home and moved to a two-bedroom apartment in a nearby city. My mother worked jobs as a waitress and bartender to make ends meet, and was experiencing freedom for the first time in her life, which left my siblings and me alone much of the time. To top it off, I had found my way into the home of an older man, a leader in the Adidam cult, who was posing as a guitar teacher.
He lured teenagers like me into his home, kids who were vulnerable and lost—latchkey kids. Through drugs, mind games, sex, and secrets, he seduced and manipulated us into thinking that we could be happy if we were devotees of his group. That what he was doing was good for us: providing a family that we lacked and needed.
So while my own close-knit Greek family was falling apart, this leader of the Adidam cult was offering a way for me to be part of a family again. And every week as I went for my “guitar lessons,” I got sucked in further; it was confusing and dangerous. I was scared, lonely and had no one in which to turn. I even considered suicide.
Until this singer, this stranger, sang a song that rattled my inner being. I felt his pain, his struggles, and this made me feel like I wasn’t alone anymore. He brought me into his world through his songs and gave me the strength and the words to finally break open the truth about what was going on behind closed doors in my guitar teacher’s home.
In the midst of my trauma, I did not have the words to express what was happening. I could not make sense of the experiences, nor my desire to continue to be a part of it. Something inside my brain broke open that day, when I heard James Taylor sing about his own pain and suffering. His voice and his words allowed me to find the language for my own healing to begin.
I went directly to the neighborhood record store and walked out clutching Sweet Baby James. I listened to every song on that album over and over. “Blossom,” “Anywhere Like Heaven,” and of course, “Fire and Rain,” inspired me to open my journal and write down everything I was feeling as well as everything going on in my guitar teacher’s home. When I went to bed that night, I left my journal open in my mother’s bedroom in the hope that she would read it when she got home from work. She did; and so began the journey for me to get the help I needed.
The story doesn’t end there. In fact, it is where it begins. James Taylor’s inspiration in my life continued through the next four decades as he has continued to write and sing songs that have touched me deeply throughout different periods of life. And I continue to take the breadcrumbs of his music to follow a path to my own true and healed self. Through episodes of PTSD, depression, divorce, and struggles with infertility, as well as through glorious moments like the birth and adoption of my children, living in South America, and marrying my soulmate.
In her memoir, My Story, Elizabeth Smart writes about her own coping mechanisms after she was freed from nine months of captivity. She says that, “Music is the unspoken language that can convey feelings more accurately than talking ever could.” For Elizabeth Smart, playing the harp was her therapy and meditation. For me, it was the music of James Taylor.
I did not know any of this when, at 13 years old, I was drawn into the music of James Taylor. I did not know that my own healing would come through his music and continue to be a defining force in my life.
Music and writing together can be a profound conduit to healing at any age. I am deeply thankful to James Taylor for writing songs that have rattled me, consoled me, and inspired me to continue to write my own deepest truths.
Rebecca Lyn Gold is an author, editor, and the founder of Yogic Writing™ a practice that utilizes the philosophies and disciplines of yoga, meditation, and journaling for writers of all levels to heal, reveal, and leave a legacy through writing life stories.
She is the author of Till There Was You: An Adoption Expectancy Journal, A Wizard Called Woz: a biography of Stephen Wozniak, How To Write It Funny with author/humorist Amy Koko, and From Your Mat to Your Memoir: Creating a yogic writing practice to find and write your life stories.
From the early 1970’s when Rebecca first heard the song “Fire And Rain,” James Taylor has been a source of inspiration and healing throughout her life.