“The Ugliness of Alzheimer’s and the Beauty of Swan Lake”
My wife showed me a wonderful video of a woman who has Alzheimer’s Disease. According to NPR, aspects of her backstory are disputed (or perhaps, even false). But three important things seem to be beyond dispute.
- The woman does likely have dementia, either Alzheimer’s or some other kind of dementia.
- The music of “Swan Lake,” and music in general, is powerful and evocative.
- The woman knew how to dance, and the music awakened that memory.
You should view the video before you proceed in reading this post. You may do so at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsLLXY_wZYI.
. . .
My wife, after reading my post of November 12, 2020 (“The Magic is in the Story), wrote, “I like your post. I was thinking of the prima ballerina video that I showed you the other day. There was beauty and ugliness in the story but also magic. The magic was revealed in the midst of the ugliness of Alzheimer’s in the beauty of the dance. A story such as this, that can bring you to tears, is true magic.”
There is a kind of memory that is known as “muscle memory.” It is memory that comes from practicing the same movements of parts of our body (or the whole body) over a long period of time. It is crucial in everyday activities, in sports, in playing or singing music, and in dancing. After certain motions are done consistently over a long period of time, it becomes second nature to us. Perhaps it even becomes part of our first nature.
The woman in the video was in a wheelchair. She did not seem very alert mentally. Yet the music awakened her muscle memory and she danced.
Faith, love, joy, gratitude, obedience—all these virtues and more—can become part of our spiritual “muscle memory.” We spend entirely too much time waiting to be zapped from above with these things. And then, we become depressed when the zapping never comes.
We have sayings in twelve-step work that reflect the importance of practicing and developing good recovery muscle memory. Here are three of these sayings:
- Move a muscle; change a thought.
- It works if you work it and give a lot of love.
- One day at a time.
My prayer for both you and me today, indeed for every day, is that we will practice developing our emotional, spiritual, and relational muscles today. You don’t even need to go to the gym to do that! You can learn to dance wherever and however you are.
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