Thank you to everyone who joined for this session!
Todayโs narrative journey started with an excerpt from the NY Times โOpinionโ essayย โYou Can Hear the Whistle Blow a Hundred Milesโย by Margaret Renkl, posted below. โTell me something about this personโ opened up our discussion of the female narrator who seemed to be on a train at night, and possibly in a state of uncertainty. On the surface, โI know you think Iโm making this upโ and โmisrememberingโ made us consider the narratorโs reliability, and reflect on why/if that was problematic as reader/listeners. We returned to the text and recognized what was there (a book, a light, darkness, a harmonica) as well as what wasnโt there (people gazing at phones, iPads, or laptops). This created for us a sense of nostalgic sight-and-soundtracks that evoked camp songs, train songs, and a respect for the narratorโs imagination. We avoided the temptation to โdiagnoseโ the narrator, although โMy eyes suddenly too blurred to readโ made us wonder if it was a moment of fatigue, sadness, crying, longing or a combination.
Our prompt for this session was: โDescribe an aching kind of sound.โ
One reflection was a brief-yet-detailed cinematic journey that started with a door creaking on hinges โas old as our relationshipโ and then shutting, as a figure lay in the bed under the sheets. We also heard a story that started with the excitement of impending birth and moved us through the fear and anxiety of labor as we heard the long, low, unearthly moan that signifies motherhood. Another reflection explored the aching sound of a childhood memory, being in bed and hearing a distant train whistle โ silence that is heavy, broken by sadness and longing; but also feeling like a warm blanket, a time now lost bringing both ache and comfort. Another writer shared a moment while โchopping veggiesโ that quickly felt like being โcut to piecesโ by the blaring sound of a song once โoursโ no longer being shared. And one reflection brought us back to our present experience in โlockdownโ when a plaintive melody once familiar, is now changed forever to a sound of grief for our losses.
A closing comment in the chat apropos to Narrative Medicine pointed out that each of us is like an individual instrument adding our voice or clear notes to the music, responding to the aching sounds/voices that we hear through our Narrative Work.
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Please join us for our next sessionย Monday April 19th at 6pm EDT,ย with more times listed on ourย Live Virtual Group Sessionsย page.
When they turned off the cabin lights and my seatmate closed her eyes to sleep, I tucked my book under my arm and made my way to the club car. There the overhead lights were off, too, but a single light shone above the table at each booth. A few people were reading. One was playing a hand of solitaire. I donโt remember if nobody was talking, or if the sound of the train moving down the tracks simply masked their quiet voices. โIf you miss the train Iโm on, you will know that I am gone.โ
As I made my way to an open booth, darkness gathered outside the windows and in the corners of the car. Darkness swept across the floor and curled around the ceiling, and thatโs when an old man at the far end of the car started to play a slow, sad song on the harmonica. It was the kind of music that fills a silence with longing and gives a voice to loneliness, and without needing any words at all. The aching kind of sound you would swear you could hear a hundred miles.
I know you think Iโm making this up, or only misremembering myself as the tragic heroine of a movie where Willie Nelson plays a cameo role. But this part of the story I remember perfectly. Those thin, plaintive notes reached through the shadows and found me as I sat down alone, my eyes suddenly too blurred to read.
Margaret Renkl, You Can Hear the Whistle Blow a Hundred Miles, NYT April 2021
Connections in Narrative Medicine 