The Healing Power of Music...and Writing

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.

A Needed Message of Hope, Joy, and Love: LITTLE PIECES OF HOPE by Todd Doughty

When the pandemic hit, Todd Doughty began making lists on Instagram of things that made him happy – and as a community started to build up around it, he realized that staying connected to everyday joys mattered more than ever before. LITTLE PIECES OF HOPE combines the best of Doughty’s happy-making things with new ideas, essays, and prompts, alongside charming illustrations by Josie Portillo.

Doughty’s ideas range from the broad (Knowing your worth) to the hyper-specific (David Bowie’s recording of “As the World Falls Down”). He takes inspiration from food (Dunking an Oreo in a glass of milk until it becomes a bit soft; The glow of the fridge when searching for a midnight snack), nature (A stroll through the park at dusk, just as the crickets start to hum; Dipping your fingers in water to shape the final touch on the sandcastle), community (A good friend who gives it to you straight; Guests who arrive right on time), and pop culture (Bryan Burrough’s February 2016 Vanity Fair article, “The Mystery of the Maltese Falcon”; June Cleaver’s pearls; Tina Turner, national treasure). He’s incorporated special editions for things like graduation and the ‘80s; playlists; and short essays on everything from small towns to road trips to Templeton from Charlotte’s Web. Doughty even has suggestions for “Things You Might Consider Doing Today,” like eating breakfast outside, listening to Zadie Smith’s Fresh Air interview, or watching a Christopher Guest movie.

Readers are sure to find something to smile at, to appreciate, or to explore further in LITTLE PIECES OF HOPE, and to be inspired to consider their own small joys.

LITTLE PIECES OF HOPEis such an uplifting book to read–through good times and bad. What inspired you to make these lists? Do you think you would have written a book like this if not for the impact of COVID-19 in the last year?

How this all came about can be laid squarely at the feet of my Metronorth commute: On my March 11, 2020 train ride home –the day the WHO declared a global pandemic –I started crafting a list of “happy-making things in a difficult world.” It was a random, scattershot, zig-zag catalogue of stuff that brings me joy: “Newly sharpened pencils. Stephen King’s Twitter. Someone forgiving you. Any movie of Katharine Hepburn’s, especially her entrance in THE LION IN WINTER. An extremely green grasshopper. E.L. Konigsburg’s FROM THE MIXED-UP FILES OF MRS. BASIL E. FRANKWEILER. Long walks. Fat goldfish.”

That little list was a bright spot at the beginning of a very scary and rapidly changing time, and after that, I just kept going.And going. And going. The fact that everything is now curated together –with Josie Portillo’s gorgeous art and Sabrina Bowers’s genius design –along with new essays, playlists and about 50% entirely original lists into a book is beyond anything I could have imagined last March.

Your project began on Instagram –what kind of a reaction did you get from your followers? How was the writing process different once you started to collect your thoughts in book form?

The comments started percolating immediately and it was such a feeling of connection to see folks respond and/or start to add their own items, thoughts, memories to each individual list. There’s a fine line between remembrance and discovery, and each one of those new comments created that shared spark between us (and more than once I thought “I should have thought of that one!”). Once the book sold, I took an Instagram break from late August to October to keep writing in earnest –the isolation was a bit strange, like hitting the mute button on that communal dialogue. But that will (hopefully) pick back up with the reader and my hope is that each of the new 16 essays –longer pieces ranging on everything from red velvet cake to taking the leap to living life like Mary Bailey (from IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE) –resonate as much as the lists themselves.

Your lists are so immersive and touching to read, and you manage to avoid repeats and to draw from all aspects of life –from delicious foods to pop culture touchstones to the natural world. How long did it take you to make the lists, and did you ever get stuck?

I tried very hard to avoid repeats–I wrote nearly everything on my iPhone in Notes, so I was able to look up something to make sure that it wasn’t previously included. The element of surprise–connecting the dots or bridging that gap between the nearly 3000 items that comprise the book –was essential, and there’s a definite rhythm. LITTLE PIECES OF HOPE is a book you can dip into or read in progression. It’s left to the reader’s schedule or whim. And I didn’t really ever get stuck because I am a packrat and Saver of Things –articles, postcards, CDs, photos, books, objects, etc. –and that nature of collecting helped me curate the book because I curate my life. There were also daily inspirations: hearing a song on the radio, seeing a painting online, looking at the books on the shelf, cleaning the apartment, watching a favorite sitcom. And knowing that I was doing a list everyday (or so) kept me grounded in an extremely disrupted world. Each one took about two hours, but it was pure joy for me.

There’s one name that comes up more than once in LITTLE PIECES OF HOPE, and that’s Lin-Manuel Miranda. What is it about LMM that makes him a pinnacle of delight for you?

I’m a Broadway nut –I wrote a fan letter to Michael Crawford in high school when he was starring in THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (he wrote back!); brought flowers to Katharine Hepburn at her townhouse door my first week in New York (she wrote back!); and saw the original cast of RENT six times. Theater is an escape for me –you enter a room with 1300 other strangers and share the same experience for three hours and then it’s gone, except in your memory (and on the cast album).Once the lists began, I started adding Lin-Manuel Miranda as a coda to each post because his work on Broadway and beyond (and Twitter feed) radiates happiness.

There’s been much written about the health benefits of a positive mental outlook and how optimism can help reduce anxiety and stress. What did you gain from meditating on these everyday joys? Do you feel your own mental health benefitted from this project?

Like pretty much everyone I know, I’ve had my ups and downs(sometimes well-deep)during the past 18 months. But something a friend of mine once said has stuck with me over the years: “Everyone is carrying an invisible bag of rocks.” I believe that, and whether you are going through a challenging time in life or just having a plain old bad day, try to think about that one (or more) touchstone that gets you through: the song, painting, recipe, memory, photograph, sitcom, movie, person, thing or book. Cling to your little piece of hope as best you can.

What do you feel reflecting on these happy-making things can give us as we move forward in life? Do you consider this type of list-making to be therapeutic in its own right, something you will continue to do as a daily mental exercise?

I had a heck of a lot of fun building these lists and writing the book, and I hope that sense of play is felt in the experience(and again, in Josie’s art and Sabrina’s design). And if this book lightens a reader’s burden for just a moment, then mission accomplished. On the daily front, I’ve started doing this thing before I fall asleep: I think of five good things that happened in the past 24 hours and picture them written on a yellow Post-It Note. It’s a nice little coda to the day: a little quintet of happy-making things and then you start all over again tomorrow.

You’ve worked in publishing for over twenty years, and in your day job, you’re the deputy publisher of Doubleday. What’s it like to be on the other side of things as a first-time author?

Over the course of my very lucky professional life, I’ve done publicity, which is the caboose of the publishing train. We receive a given book in its final ,tip-top incarnation: it’s finished, designed, jacketed, fully-formed and ready to go. I have now experienced the life of creating a book in its entirety and have seen first-hand the remarkable effort it takes to build that publishing train from the beginning. Being a first-time author has given me a newfound respect for our writers and my colleagues in editorial, copyediting, production, design, sales, and art. Working with the incredible Penguin team and my North Star editor Meg Leder have been the best part of this Mr. Todd’s Wild Ride in the past year.

What do you hope readers take away from LITTLE PIECES OF HOPE

The ultimate goal is to provide a thought-provoking or energizing break in a busy day and scary world. LITTLE PIECES OF HOPE is kind of like a modern-day version of a scrapbook, carefully crafted just for you. I hope it inspires the reader to listen, read, watch, look at, spring into action, and discover.And that it reminds folks that we’re all in this together.

Todd Doughty is currently SVP, deputy publisher of Doubleday and has worked at Penguin Random House for more than two decades. A graduate of Southern Illinois University (Carbondale) and former bookseller, he lives with his partner in Westchester County, New York.

Dating, Depression and Double Espressos - Author K.A. Masson On Writing As Escape

Hello there! My name is Kat Masson and I’m a new writer, based in London, UK. I published my début novel in October 2020, though it took me four years to write it, and it was kicking around in my head for ten.

I hadn’t written anything longer than an email since my college dissertation, and not since school had I produced anything that was entirely fictional. But when my relationship began to seriously fall apart as a result of my partner’s serious depression, and with a young baby to look after and having to keep working as I was the only breadwinner, I turned to writing down my thoughts as a way to cope with the stress.

The first of these musings was an imaginary journey, written late one night. I had tried so many different approaches with my partner. I knew he needed help to deal with his depression, but he refused to do anything. Actually, that’s not entirely correct. He did go to see our GP who then gave him some anti-depressants and signed him up for talking therapy sessions. A week or two after starting the medication, and spending much of the time asleep, he stopped taking it, complaining that it made him ‘feel nothing’. That was that. He went to one of the sessions but had no appetite to continue.

I had a friend from a baby group, another new mum, who I talked to a lot at the time. Her partner had suffered badly from depression but had recently turned a corner and was improving. But she told me she no longer loved him; she too had tried everything and felt like she’d just completely run out of patience and sympathy. She told me how, at times, she felt like throwing the baby out of their second floor window. I completely understood. Depression breeds depression, I think.

The enormity of my dire situation, and my then inability to see a way out, became too much one evening and I had what I now understand was my first and only depressive episode, possibly post-natal. I described my emotions, and then detailed how I would grab my handbag, get in the car, stop at a petrol station to fill up, and then head out of London on the M1, north, and keep going until I hit the west coast of Scotland, around 500 miles away. I would find a quiet spot on top of a cliff, wait for sunrise and then drive at high speed towards the edge, Thelma and Louise style.

This escapist fantasy didn’t last. My son, asleep in the room next door, turned over in his sleep, and the green lights on the baby monitor gently glowed before dying down. What would happen to him? I was shocked at how seriously I had considered the trip, however briefly. I felt guilt, so much guilt, but at the same time it had made me realise that I needed to do something, and that matters would not resolve themselves on their own. It took two years but I finally managed to get my ex to move out. My son and I began our lives as a smaller unit. Going it alone was a scary prospect at first, but I really believe we have both been happier, calmer and more content than if we had continued to live with his dad.

To this first piece, I added a few scenes typed on my laptop and grouped together in a folder entitled ‘Dating, depression and double espressos’. A friend who I mentioned them to said I should start a blog with the same name. At the time, that sounded like quite hard work; what did I know about writing a blog?

The blog didn’t materialise, but the idea of a book did. In early 2017, after a design contract ended a month or so earlier than planned, with an amazing stroke of luck, I found myself enrolled on a short course at the Faber Academy in London: ‘How to Start a Novel in a Week’. That gave me the impetus I needed; I had to continue working, but at any time when I had a free day or even a few hours, I worked on the book.

The day before the first lockdown in the UK was announced, I had a call from one of my main clients; their Head Office in Germany had put an immediate stop to all marketing spend. This meant that all the projects I was working on would either grind to a halt or not happen at all. On the upside, I knew this also would mean more time to write! At around the same time, Mark Dawson’s Self Publishing Formula beginners’ course, 101, was open for registration; the timing was so fortuitous, I jumped at the chance to do this. In tandem with writing, I worked through the course, learning how to build your audience, setting up an author profile on Amazon and other retailers, how to find advance readers… it was all exciting but absolutely new territory for me.

Through the course’s Facebook page, I met a fellow new author based in Pennsylvania, Jessica Stone, who was writing a memoir, Craving London, about her time in London in the 2000s. We really clicked and began having regular video calls, talking about our writing, dating (we had both done a LOT!), children (we were both mothers) and life in general. We both supported each other as our respective publication dates grew ever closer. And now we are both about to embark on Book Number 2… actually this Saturday coming, Saturday 1 May. Not only, as writing buddies, will we hold each other accountable, it will also be a lot more fun than going it entirely alone!

K.A. Masson is a graphic designer who lives in London with her teenage son and cat Slinky. Alter Ego is her first novel, jump-started by a chance encounter with a Faber Academy “Start Your Novel In A Week” course. She is fascinated by books with a psychological element and the lengths people will go to when pushed by anger, fear, jealousy, and hate, and is currently working on her second thriller. You can find out more at her website, kamassonwriter.com.