Equanimity

 
             

   
 
 

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

 
Very interested lately in stories of resiliency, esp. where they overlap with poetry -- as in this item reported today on Boing Boing about Dilbert creator Scott Adams, who lost his voice -- permanently, or so he thought -- eighteen months ago:

The day before yesterday, while helping on a homework assignment, I noticed I could speak perfectly in rhyme. Rhyme was a context I hadn’t considered. A poem isn’t singing and it isn’t regular talking. But for some reason the context is just different enough from normal speech that my brain handled it fine.

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick.
Jack jumped over the candlestick.

I repeated it dozens of times, partly because I could. It was effortless, even though it was similar to regular speech. I enjoyed repeating it, hearing the sound of my own voice working almost flawlessly. I longed for that sound, and the memory of normal speech. Perhaps the rhyme took me back to my own childhood too. Or maybe it’s just plain catchy. I enjoyed repeating it more than I should have. Then something happened.

My brain remapped.

My speech returned.

Not 100%, but close, like a car starting up on a cold winter night. And so I talked that night. A lot. And all the next day. A few times I felt my voice slipping away, so I repeated the nursery rhyme and tuned it back in. By the following night my voice was almost completely normal.


Jordan - #

 

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I'm Jordan Davis.
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Say hi: jordan [at] jordandavis [dot] com.

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