Sami Freeman. Ambassadorial Scholar.
Consistency and Showing Up
Ambassadorial Scholar Speech for Arbutus Club
Isaacc Bashevis once spoke of a "gratitude for every day of life, every crumb of success, and every encounter of love." In light of Isaac Bashevis, I'd like you to know how grateful I am to all of you for welcoming me to this lovely lunch meeting today, and for being part of an organization that makes peoples lives better around the world, including mine. I will begin by giving a quick introduction about myself, and then talk a little bit about what I have learned in this last year abroad in Vancouver, since I will be returning back home in a month or so.
I am an Ambassadorial Scholar from District 5240, specifically Hermosa Beach. Hermosa Beach is a quiet town by the water, just South of Los Angeles . People wear flip flops all year round, surf without a dry suit, and play volleyball on the beach. Like Vancouver, it is big in athletics, except for the Winter Sports. I talk to my friends back home and they complain about 20 degreez celcius being too cold. Actually, I'm not sure they know what the word rain really means. To be honest, I didn't appreciate the Beatle's song, "Here comes the sun" until I lived in Vancouver- I didn't comprehend the idea of the sun just deciding not to peek through a vast sky of daunting grey clouds, ----for 9 days, in a row, until now....That being said, you sure do learn to appreciate those rays when they find your face, if even for a moment.
Anyway, back on track... Ambassadorial Scholars are given grant money, sponsored by your hometown district and partly funded by the international Rotary. The role of Ambassadorial Scholars is to promote cultural awareness and goodwill. They are required to study abroad for a year, and are encouraged to do a service project. I have been doing my post baccalaureate studies at UBC for music therapy. I am a singer songwriter, and interested in the therapeutic powers of music. I heard once that "Music washes away the dust of everydays living" and couldn't agree more.
For the last eleven years I have played piano at an Alzheimer's home at the Sunrise community center in my hometown. As a fourteen year old girl, it was scary at first, but I realized that people needed this music. A ragtime would spark an old memory, and Satin Doll would make people sing or dance... Chopin could be relaxing. I noticed that people got what they needed from the music. I saw a positive response. Rita would sit next to me on the piano, close her eyes, and hum a melody, and Eleanor would dance and recall how she and her cousin Lillian snuck out with some boys at a dance by the river one night long ago.
Personally, music got me through college. I was a dancer at UCLA, and biology student. With a heavy load of classes, I would sit late at night and compose at the piano until the building closed. With a melody soaring through my head, excited about some new song I was writing, it was music that got me up in the morning. I do the same thing at UBC. I found a room in the Hillel building on campus where they have a grand piano.
When I arrived to Vancouver in January, and didn't know anybody, it was the piano that helped me get over the shock of coming to a new city and the loneliness of not knowing anyone. It is also what brought people together. Students, professors and workers on campus would come up to me and tell me how much they appreciated hearing the piano played. They would stay for a while, and we developed mutual relationships. The students said the music helped them study, and I got to do what I loved. Although I am a professional musician, I am always shocked when people seem to love something as much as I do. Furthermore, I can forget that it is healing for more people than just myself.
For the last nine months, I have been a music therapist at Yaffa, on 58th and Fraser. It is a home for the schizophrenic and bipolar. It is supposed to be transitional, but it is unlikely that most of the men living in the home will ever lead a "normal life." But nonetheless, at 3:00PM each week I sit at the piano, pick up my guitar, and sing for a while. We play everything from Bruce Springsteen to Yiddish songs, to Classical and, even Here Comes the Sun. Each resident has a wildly different taste in music, so we take turns.
People were hesitant in the beginning to join in---. They thought I was going to reduce them to a sick patient or treat them like they were two years old. Gary, one of the residents who sufers from both bipolarity and schizophrenia told me he didn't want to join because he did that sort of thing once, and they made him play the cowbell. He was angry. While I do love the cowbell, there is a time and a place. We must all remember how important it is to treat people, no matter what their condition, with respect, kindness, and compassion.
After a month or two, the six residents came to know that I was just there to have a good time with people- to stimulate a little activity in an otherwise stale environment, and to get people moving, mentally and physically! We tell jokes and stories and laugh. It is not all a walk in the park, but that being said, we do ..... walk in the park. Most of the residents also suffer from diabetes, which can be a result of the medication. It was definitely tough to get people to join on the walks. You would have thought I was asking them to walk a marathon. But after a while, more and more people joined. Some even looked forward to the walks.
I took a break for a while because I wrote a children's album, produced it, recorded it, and am now trying to get that up and running. I thought it would be ok if I didn't go a few Wednesdays. When I returned a month later, the residents weren't doing as well. It was heartbreaking. But it taught me a good lesson. You can't just build a house and then leave it, expecting it will stay the same. A house takes upkeep- it needs to be taken care of- to be dusted and cleaned, but also to be lived in.
Those residents looked forward to me coming each Wednesday, way more than I could have imagined. Of course, I went back, and will go every Wednesday until I leave-- but it breaks my heart that I will have to leave again. And it teaches me that one of the most important things in life is consistency. It is showing up. Then, once you show up, it's finding what gets someone excited, what keeps them going, and then learning ways to let that person shine.
This year has been one of the most formative years of my life- More than ever in my life I feel like I can fly... That I have always had wings, but I never knew how to make them flap- and if I did, I never knew how to keep them going. I learned something in Vancouver. I learned how to be light just by being myself. I learned that when you let go of trying to prove yourself to people or being nervous whether someone is going to like you or not, you have all this extra energy to dedicate to people... to learn about who people are, what they need, and how you can be of service to them. As you know, I also learned the power of consistency. Because of this, I believe there are two things that will give us the freedom of flight- showing up, and having the courage to be ourselves.
Showing up is half the battle. Whether it is a service project, the Rotary meeting every week, going to your son or daughter's hockey games or dance practices, I believe showing up is the body, the make, or the machine... and our essence, or what has been with us all of our lives, is our wings. In this way, we can reach people, starting right here, with ourselves, and extend outward, farther than we can imagine.
Thank you for having me today, and for facilitating this year abroad. I am truly grateful, as Isaac Bashevis said, for every day of life, every crumb of success, and every encounter of love.