Ten-Finger Exercises

Fill up your senses, some of them

If you asked me to point at the place in my body where "I" live, I'd say, "behind my eyes."

I am visually oriented, I think. I remember names better if I see them, can't add or multiply in my head, need to read music if I want to really get the tune right. In a way, it has been a drawback, because it's always been hard to learn to speak or understand a foreign language. I could read or write high school French okay; then I moved to Georgia in my junior year. Not only did I have the Southern accent to contend with but the French as well. My French teacher, a very tiny lady probably in her late 40's with pinkish strawberry blond hair, liked to begin each day with "la petite dictee." (I don't know how to type accent marks.) I was terrible at it. I could write down the sounds of the words she said, but I couldn't make them into words--let alone sentences--without seeing them in my mind.

I think I would do a lot better with a language now because I've lost a lot of my self-consciousness with pronunciation. I used to feel like I was hamming it up to speak French with a French accent. Now it's kind of fun to try. But there's still my need to visualize the words. Even in English.

***(This is a change of topic, but I'll try to connect it up at the end.) Audiobooks are great. I get them from the library, and have enjoyed them for years. My daily drive to work used to be 53 miles, then seventeen, now just eleven; but I still like listening to books. Mostly novels. I'm a slow reader, because I like the sound of the words. Books on tape give me a chance to "read" more than I would otherwise.

It was also helpful to be in the middle of a good story when I was on call and had to go in to the hospital in the middle of the night. "Oh good, I can listen to my story."

One of my favorite authors has been Alexander McCall Smith. His stories about Mma Precious Ramotswe and her Number One Ladies Detective Agency are easy to start and stop without missing something. Mma Ramotswe solves several little cases in each book, rather than one big one. The best thing about them to me, though, is the sound of the names and places. Lobatse, Bobonong, Gaborone, Mochudi and Molepolole. There is something so comforting about those words: they roll off the tongue and feel like old friends by now. (He is a prolific writer.)(I am delighted to find these names easily on Google under Botswana cities!)

This evening Bill and I went to an organ concert at a local college. I have never heard anything like it! He played "Passacaglia" by Dietrich Buxtehude in the beginning, "Passacaglia" by Bach at the end, and some other pieces. First, I love those names too. They're fun to hear and to say.

In the middle he played "The Embrace of Fire" by Naji Hakim. I didn't know organs had those sounds in them! I closed my eyes and tried visualizing my brain during a PET scan while listening. It felt like it was opening (or maybe closing) synapses that had been lying there dormant.

I don't have a musical vocabulary to be able to describe it, any more than I can knowledgeably talk about wine. You know, how they say "with a nose of raspberry, and cedar and tobacco notes," or "telltale aromas of plums & stone-fruit, complimented by hints of smoked meat, chocolate, coffee & charry oak." Using that kind of lingo, I'd say "The Embrace of Fire" had guts, but also heart. I heard overtones of the ferry to Ellis Island, riveters at Boeing, strong hints of Armageddon but with a smooth, Paradiso finish.

It was exciting. I need to use my ears more. I've been neglecting that sense.