From Coma to Chorus

Not being able to carry a tune kind of sucks. I love music. Ever since I was a little, I’d choose the radio over TV any day of the week. I always wanted to be the girl that wrote the songs. I just always thought having musical ability was a requirement.

When I was a baby, I had Reyes Syndrome–a rare illness that is linked to aspirin that can cause brain inflammation, coma and death. My case became a whole family saga involving a helicopter flight, a team of Army doctors, Native Americans praying over me, and eventually being the first survivor to walk out of that particular hospital.

It was one of those stories my parents liked to tell to strangers. It also kind of made me want to crawl into a hole.

It’s hard to feel heroic about something you barely remember. The memories that I do have are mostly watching things happen while my voice didn’t work. I remember my baby brother walking into the room and no one noticing he wanted his hat off. I remember waking needing to use the bathroom but being pinned down by tubes and not knowing how to get up. Stuff like that.

My mom said that I had to learn to walk again. I vaguely remember that part–a painful pilgrimage across a bridge in a room with tall people in white coats watching. She said that I lost my rhythm. Before I got sick, I could carry a tune. Afterward, I couldn’t.

Spending time in Asbury Park, walking in the shadows of all the musical history that I grew up with, made me think about it differently. I started writing down images from my life–starting with my grandpa’s kitchen table and ending with throwing a piece of driftwood on the beach last weekend.

The list turned into a poem. The poem turned into a song. Then the song needed a chorus so people could sing along.

I plugged my lyrics into Suno and a track appeared. I was blown away. I accidentally typed in list instead of lost, so one lyric is wrong, and I think the line about counting calories needs a little tweaking. But still–I think it’s a freaking amazing song.

Now I just to need to get a real person. not a robot to sing it.

The nice thing about a robot, though, is that it never loses patience. I change one word, remix it, speed it up , slow it down, add violins–whatever I want.

A real person probably would have quit by lunch.

Yesterday, retirement looked like sitting around in sweats and spending five or six hours writing a single song. I say that like it’s a bad thing, but honestly, I don’t think anything has made me feel so high or so alive.

Maybe I woke up from a coma when I was a little kid. But part of my voice stayed hidden, too scared to enter the room.

She’s here now.

And she’s ready to sing.