You are my Sunshine.... in Soul Journey

I have performed for a lot of audiences in my life.
Audiences that love the depth of drama. Others who love to have a great laugh at a good comedy and of course those who love musicals.
I have performed cabaret in dingy pubs to drunken idiots who think they can sing better than the performer. I have also performed cabaret in classy clubs where one has to be member to get a seat.
The audiences I now primarily perform for give more of themselves to me than I could possibly give them.
When I first joined the Skylarkers all I wanted to do was to sing.
When the empty nest syndrome hit after 10 years of looking after my starloves,I had made a list of the things I wanted to do. I rubbed out acting, writing, art I had been there, done that and bought the t shirt. Then I wrote singing on my list and something resonated within me.
I hadn’t sung for an audience for 12years or so at that point. So after doing some web surfing I came across the Skylarkers and it was their mission statement that impressed me. It read “to bring joy to the infirm, the aged and the dis-enfranchised through the magic of song and laughter”. What confirmed it was that they rehearsed just up the road from where I lived at a local church.
They made me feel so welcome that I knew I had found something I really wanted to. I was happy butI did not let on my experience in theatre I just wanted them to accept me as someone who loves to sing. I was there for 4 rehearsals before our first gig of the second half of the year.
It was a lovely Nursing Home in our district. The show takes an hour with beautiful classy costumes, a very clever comedian compere and of course Elizabeth our incredible pianist.
That audience took my breath away. It was high care where some of them were in the depth of dementia and the rest bedridden or wheelchair bound. But the music, the singing did something that no medicines, doctors or nursing could do for them. It lifted their spirits to a magical place.
Fact….Music is the last connection the brain makes.
That is just some of its power.
So when we sang a tune that they were familiar with, smiles broke out on faces that do not smile spontaneously very y often.
Since that first show, I have experienced this time and time again. I always come away from a show with my spirit soaring.
To give you an example of some the things that can happen.
One particular day, a 97 year old was wheeled out on a bed and placed by a window. It was the nurses practice to this for Edith as she was called, because she had loved her garden and the window looked out onto a small but flower laden courtyard. Evidently Edith never showed any interest in the garden, it was a way of stimulating was what left of her poor ravaged brain. She never moved, never smiled.
We had just got through singing, You Are My Sunshine and started on Catch a Falling star, when I noticed two of the nursing staff rush across the room to Edith. We finished the show to the 30 strong audience and I went backstage with the group to change. Glen mentioned to me that she too had seen the concern with nurses.
As I was leaving I saw one of the nurses in the office and asked what on earth had happed and was the patient alright. To my surprise her face lit up with a huge smile. “Edith”, she told me had been in there for 5 years, slowly and painfully succumbing to the ravages of Alzheimer’s and that for the last three, they had not seen Edith move a muscle without help, but when we sang, she slowly put her hands together, and tried to clap and more importantly she smiled.
Well as you can imagine by the time I got into my car I was weeping. I have never in my life had such an appreciative audience. So that is why I sing with the Skylarkers and I have more to tell about my adventures with them at some other stage.
I love Music, it has and always will be part of my life. In fact I cannot imagine my life without it. It is an incredible gift to mankind. It is something that only humans can do. Birds do not compose songs even though their songs are beautiful. Only humans can do that. But it is only since I have been singing with The Skylarkers that I have truly come to understand music’s magic, glory and power.