Music Soothes Troubled Times

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This winter, a friend coaxed me to join her choir. This wasn't something I'd thought of doing since high school. During my childhood and teens, I belonged to choirs at school and church. I enjoyed them and continued to like singing alone or at occasional public events, despite my diminishing vocal quality. No longer able to hit the high notes, my range became limited to about five notes. My voice cracked and stained by end of each song. The tones fell flat, to my own ears. 

My friend got into choir for something to do after she retired. Before then, she'd had no interest in singing and, unlike me, hadn't taken piano lessons as a kid. She explained that some choirs required auditions. Others don't, including Shout Sister, her all-female choir.

She gave me printouts of lyrics to her group's current roster of songs. Leonard Cohen., Simon & Garfunkel, The Beatles; my long-time favourites. I had spare time and was looking for activities this winter, since I was away from home in Ottawa, helping a relative through medical treatment.

"I've arranged for you to try out the choir this week," my friend said. She'd also convinced the  administrator to give me a special rate if I decided to stay, since I'd only be there for part of the year.

"Okay," I said, because she'd gone to all this trouble.

Wednesday afternoon, we drove to her choir practice at a local church. About seventy women, mostly seniors like us, stood in a horseshoe shape facing the choir leader. No sheet music. The notes  rose and fell with the leader's hand, a method of music reading I found easy to follow.

The meeting brought back memories of my youthful choirs. "Don't interrupt the line of music by taking a breath." The director echoed my earlier choir leaders. "Sustain the last note." The large group sang harmonies that sounded lovely to me. I found myself able to sing all the notes. Either the organizer selected songs suited to amateurs or she arranged them for unpracticed female voices.

Best of all, for those two hours of song I forgot my worries about my family member's health challenges. The choir had me hooked.

I looked forward to the weekly sessions. After two months, a woman I talked to during the break  convinced me to participate in the next week's concert at a retirement home. Performing with the group was fun and gave a new dimension to choir practice. Our concert ended with the 1970s O'Jay's anthem, Love Train, which urges people around the world to join hands and form a train of love. At the rousing finish, we were supposed to join hands with the person beside us. Some of us did; others refrained.

The following week our choir session was cancelled due to COVID-19. It soon became clear we wouldn't be singing for weeks and months. Then the organizers set up practices on Zoom, a virtual meeting site that has taken off in this time of home isolation.

I'm not swift with technology and worried I wouldn't figure out Zoom, but with a little advice, Zoom worked easily and well. Now, I follow the leader on my computer screen, while thumbnail pictures of choir members appear along the top or side. During breaks, I switch to gallery view, with thumbnails filling the screen. The first two weeks, over fifty members signed in each time. I'll miss week three since I'll be driving from Ottawa, west across Canada to my home in Calgary .

At the virtual Zoom session, the director puts us all on mute, since the system can't co-ordinate our voices. I discovered my voice doesn't sound as good alone as I sounded to myself with the group. It still cracks and strains for those high notes.

I wouldn't want to start with choir online, but virtually continuing with familiar faces and songs was more satisfying than I'd expected. Again, for those two hours, choir brought me out my despondent mood. For the first time since this mass isolation began, I felt that most of us won't be permanently damaged and we'll return to our humankind.

Shout Sister operates in numerous Ontario locations. Ottawa has three branches, with our afternoon group the most recent sister. Here's a YouTube video of one of our older sister groups performing Ben E. King's Stand By Me, a song our newer group learned this year. 

I have several friends in Calgary who belong to choirs. A year ago, I asked one of them what he gained from being in a choir. He said, "When you sing together, you make each other so much more." I agree.

   

What is Solastalgia and How is it Affecting our Children?

We see headlines like these every day:

"One million species threatened with extinction because of humans"

"250,000 deaths a year from climate change is a 'conservative estimate,' research says"

"CO2 levels at highest for 3 million years"

Unsurprisingly, such reports cause anxiety, sometimes called “eco-anxiety” or “climate-anxiety.” Technically called Solastalgia, it is defined as “chronic fear of environmental doom.” While not yet listed in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual,) the Bible of mental disorders used by psychologists, it is never the less a real thing.

In a 2017 report by the American Psychological Association, the source of the stress is defined as “watching the slow and seemingly irrevocable impacts of climate change…and worrying about the future for oneself, children, and later generations.” It adds that some people “are deeply affected by feelings of loss, helplessness and frustration.”

According to a Yale survey conducted in December 2018, 70% of Americans are "worried" about climate change, 29% are "very worried" and 51% feel "helpless."

Solastalgia is especially prominent in young adults. Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenager, is a well-known example. Mary Jane Rust, a British eco-psychologist states “that (as some of my younger clients have said), ‘We’re completely screwed’. I suspect it might be part of the reason for binge-drinking epidemics, and other addictions, for example. There is a general feeling that the future is so uncertain and it’s extremely hard to live with.”

Symptoms of Solastalgia include panic attacks, deep depression, lack of sleep, palpitations and the triggering of underlying mental illnesses.  One survey in the U.K. showed that half of children between the ages of seven and 11 worry about climate change. Other reports suggest kids are more worried about climate change than their own homework.

In other words, children nowadays are feeling deep hopelessness and frustration. This is exhibited in beliefs like “we are all going to die,” “what’s the point of living,” and the rise of anti-natalism—the refusal to have children. Some children even question their parents: “Why did you have me?”

It is hard for adults to understand the stress that this unremitting stream of apocalyptic narratives have on children’s health. Before climate change, most children dealt with fears which had solutions. The fear of total extinction was never on the horizon. Today, this anxiety pervades their lives.

 Sources:

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/hopeless-or-hopeful-how-eco-anxiety-affects-kids-and-youth-1.4608324

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/b2e7ee32-ad28-4ec4-89aa-a8b8c98f95a5

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2016/07-08/climate-change

https://www.newsweek.com/eco-anxiety-climate-change-parent-fear-discussion-children-global-warming-depression-effects-1459731

https://newrepublic.com/article/153149/cruel-kids-era-climate-change

Mohan Ashtakala is the author of "The Yoga Zapper," a fantasy, and "Karma Nation," a literary

romance, published by Books We Love.. Check him out at www.mohanashtakala.com and at 

www.bookswelove.com