Sounds That Go To My Heart

In the last 24 hours I've been reminded of two sounds that evoke a strong reaction within me. Sunday afternoon my young nephew went through an allergic reaction: he had eaten some soy-based vegemeat about 25 hours previously. He basically went into hysterics, and we could hear wails of anguish and anger. (Funny: I wonder whether those two words (and angst) are as closely related as they look.) I could hear the heartbroken sobs punctuated with screams of "No! No! No!" as his four-year-old psyche fought with the chemical imbalance in his system. It was a sound that told me of a deep and intense unfairness, coupled with a complete inability to do anything about it.

There was something about that sound that struck a chord with my heart. Something in my forgotten past echoed that cry precisely. I experienced something much stronger than the expected sympathy for my nephew and his mother: I felt an intense empathy.

Another sound that evokes a strong reaction in me is the sound of someone coming out of their shell. The two most obvious examples are both from Hollywood. In the movie Sister Act, Sister Mary Robert (Wendy Makkena) is a shy, red-haired novitiate who can barely sing above a whisper. Sister Mary Clarence (Whoopi Goldberg) teaches her how to sing in a full voice, and a few scenes later we find her singing a short scat duet section in performance, and loving it. She came out of her shell, and was radiant with joy. (Nice acting, by the way.)

A similar "unshelling" happens in The Music Man, when Winthrop (Ron Howard) forgets his moping and shyness to sing excitedly about the Wells Fargo wagon. These moments of expressive, excited extroversion awaken my heart and move me nearly to tears.

This may be a normal human reaction, but I do not observe it in others, and so I cannot gauge my level of normalcy.