Apparently they call it cognitive dissonance—a mental phenomenon that occurs when the ideas or beliefs commonly tied with an event or place conflict with reality. Dissonance usually breeds discomfort. Think of that scene, for instance, from “The Sound of Music” when Julie Andrews returns to the nunnery after months of nannying for the Von Tropp children; she expects a happy homecoming, a return of the comfort, safety, and familiarity from her days of youth, but what she experiences is dissatisfaction, displacement, and a longing for what has become her new home with the Von Tropps. If you have your PhD, you say that Julie Andrews is experiencing an identity crisis fueled by cognitive dissonance. If you’re a normal person, you say she is confused, and has a bit of soul-searching to do.

I think I experienced a bit of cognitive dissonance one Sunday last month when, returning from my lunch break, I could hear singing coming from the Woods’ chapel—quite normal, you say, but imagine my shock when I found it was not the chorus of some old spiritual (“Come Thou Fount” perhaps), but the roistering anthem of sports fans everywhere, Queen’s classic “We Will Rock You.” A retirement community. On a Sunday. Singing Queen. Was I missing something?

Further dissonance ensued when, upon investigation, I found not only alter pieces, vestments, and hymnals adorning the chapel, but speaker boxes, laptop computers (macbooks no less), and eclectic lighting effects. The congregants, too, joined in the fray, a mixture of well-mannered, venerable seniors and spunky teenagers, complete with ripped denim and spiky hairstyles. Myself: a mixture of wonder, fear and trembling. Apparently it’s called “Intergenerational Rock Choir”— the brainchild of Kameri Muir, a senior from Florida State University who, for her final project in the Music Therapy program concocted a way of bridging the gap between the young and old through song. “I just love doing this,” says Kameri energetically after choir practice, held typically on Sunday afternoons. “Everybody responds to music—it’s a great connector. And it’s multipurpose, you know: you refresh the older generation while inspiring the new.”

 The formula itself is inspired: take a group of teenagers eager to exercise their melodious chops (drawn, in this case, largely from volunteers from Forest Hills Eastern high school); put them together with a group of thriving retirees (drawn, of course, from the vivacious population of MapleCreek); place a dynamic song leader in front of them (I don’t think Kameri stopped singing or moving once), and the result is no less than orchestral. But the core of her concept lies in finding classic hits that both ends of the age spectrum will recognize and consider “their own” in some degree; music thus becomes the common ground, a mutual space in which the two groups, so different in so many ways, can relate and engage one another effectively. In other words, real community between the two populations is possible with ambassadors like Freddy Mercury, James Brown, and Bob Dylan.

With my dissonance dissipating, I was more prepared than most, I think, when on April 17^th the Intergenerational Rock Choir held its first concert in Trinity chapel. It was (I can’t help myself) a show for the ages; a chapel full of family members and loved ones sat in awe as hit after classic hit

issued from the choir, from the soulful camaraderie of “Lean on Me” to the exuberant frivolity of “I Got You!” Many songs took on deeper meanings, given the context—The Who’s “My Generation,” for example, struck exactly the right theme of unification that the choir seemed to manifest, and when Dylan’s “Forever Young” poured forth, there were, as Woods’ Life Enrichment Coordinator Beth Terborg recalls, “tears everywhere!”

“It was such an awesome time,” Beth reminisces, offering her kudos to Kameri for a job well done: “families were really impressed.”

It is a truth universally acknowledged that normal people are afraid of needles. It is also true that this fear is probably rooted in childhood trauma—I still shudder when I think of my early trips to the doctor’s office for annual shots: the quiet anxiety of the car ride turning slowly to agony in the waiting room, building quickly towards panic upon entering the patient room, yielding to horror as the doctor unsheathed his weapon, and culminating finally with uncontrollable sobs as the needle plunged. If preventative health required sharp pokes to the arm, I preferred the flu.

Perhaps Virginia Speese never got her shots. Or maybe she’s just not a wimp. Either way, the 84-year-old resident of the Lodge at MapleCreek went willingly, even happily, to an establishment called “Screaming Needles,” a moniker evoking all the warmth and charm of a haunted house. Insanity, you say, but with her birthday month just around the corner, Virginia could think of no better way to celebrate than by fulfilling a life-long dream—getting a tattoo!

“I’ve always wanted to get one,” says Virginia with a tinge of rebelliousness in her voice, “but I never dreamed it was possible, especially at my age!” Inconceivable though it may seem, her wish, dismissed for so long as an opportunity missed, was reborn during a conversation with her great granddaughter, Brittany Wellman. Realizing this was something more than mere mid-life crisis mischief, Brittany sprang into action with all the fire of a new generation. Buses were called, appointments were made, and on April 7, 2012, laughter could be heard coming from the operating room of Screaming Needles.

Before you ask, “it did NOT hurt. Why does everyone always ask that first?” More interesting for Virginia is the meaning behind the tattoo itself: a small, curled-up kitten perched at the top of her shoulder, representing her own cat “Sandra,” which currently lives in another building on campus. Its real meaning, however, is best summed up by Virginia herself: “I’ve learned this—you are never too old to do the things you want to do.”

Think of a time you heard a classic song come on the radio, an old favorite from years ago. You’re driving along, perhaps, or doing the dishes when those first notes come through the stereo, and suddenly you’re back in time, highway driving in your first car or dancing the night away at prom. You can hardly remember what you ate for breakfast that morning, but somehow you can remember every word to that 80’s cult classic and the names of everyone in the band. That’s the uncanny power of music—nothing transports us so quickly to other times and places, and nothing quite so easily primes the feelings and emotions that are deeply connected with past experiences.

But that’s not its only power, not for Lindsey Perrault and the residents at the Woods at MapleCreek. On a given Saturday morning, the Woods’ dining room is transformed into a veritable concert hall, complete with guitars, tone chimes, and most importantly, a chorus of voices. While caregivers and nurses move about their daily tasks, the echo of vintage tunes reverberates through the halls and offices, from “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows” to “Wild Irish Rose” to “Auld Lang Syne,” sung by the residents themselves and led by Perrault, one of the Woods’ Activity Coordinators, a Board Certified Music Therapist (MT-BC), and a member of the Grand Rapids Symphony Choir. 

“Music can also be used as a tool,” Perrault informs me after a morning of singing with the residents, “it can be used to reach functional goals.” Such goals include increasing social skills, improving memory and mood, decreasing physical pain, and motivating activity. Certainly there are other activities meant to do as much, but none so aesthetically pleasing, and none that share another of music’s peculiar advantages: because music is stored in and uses many different areas of the brain, damage or deterioration to one area does not prevent a person from participating. For residents of the Woods, the majority of who carry cognitive deficits to a certain extent, music thus becomes a particular blessing, a means of reaching across the divide, of communicating and expressing themselves both personally and to one another. 

Perrault is very intentional in the songs she chooses (songs from a person’s twenties, apparently, are best for long term memory), and she is more than happy to share the rationale behind each specifically; songs like “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean” and “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” for example, provide visual cues for clapping and other upper extremity exercises, while others such as “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” prompt emotional mirroring and feeling response. Residents are even able to participate directly in the music-making, casting tone chimes to “Auld Lang Syne” as a group.

Of course, the music is not meant to be wholly practical. The other dimension of music therapy is the one to which we can all relate, that aspect of song which feeds our inner lives, strongly manifested in the hymn-singing that takes place on Sunday afternoons. Again with Perrault’s lead, the residents sing many of the church favorites—“Amazing Grace,” etc.—and the effect is certainly moving. For many of the Woods’ residents, access to the inner self is increasingly clouded, at times impossible. And yet, it seems, with every resident joining together in chorus, the human side is being reached. The dam bursts, memories flood, and as Perrault puts it, “the spirit revives. It’s special—it really brings out so much life.” Witness the lively, boisterous scene on Saturday mornings or the peaceful, meditative sobriety of hymn-singing on Sundays afternoons, and you’ll know what she’s talking about.

“Cut throat.” It’s a word that usually describes pirates, politicians, and certain citizens of Wall Street. Oddly enough, it also applies to certain residents of MapleCreek. How, you ask, could such a sinister adjective possibly be attached to the dear denizens of a retirement community? The answer might surprise you. But then again, it might not.

During the work week, the Woods’ lobby is an ever-changing, at times unpredictable scene of hustle and bustle, but one constant I can always rely on is the regular afternoon card game that takes place at the corner table near the coffee pots, and it is not to be missed: four-player, winner-take-all Uno. The scene itself is a bit of an irony: nowhere is the dark, smoky, fiendish atmosphere of some back alley card club, exchanged instead for the effervescent, cheerful environment of the Woods’ lobby. But don’t be fooled, warns Judy Hoult, a daughter of one of the residents and the game’s main facilitator, your grandmother’s game of Uno this is not—“These ladies are card sharks! It’s all business when you’re at the table.”

Of course, even as she says this, a smirk touches her lips; with cards in hand, Judy visits her mother Margaret frequently during the week, and she sees firsthand the big smiles that a competitive game of cards can bring to the residents’ faces, most of whom were probably raised playing some game or another. For her own mother, playing cards was almost nightly ritual—growing up in the country, Judy reminds me, in the days before the Internet or movies, card-playing was the done thing. “You either played cards or went to bed, and mother rarely went to bed.” For Margaret’s family, the game was Euchre (another four-player battle royale), and sessions would sometimes last well into the morning hours. Now the game is Uno, and games last only an hour or so, but with her daughter’s help, Margaret still carries that fiery passion for a good game of cards with friends and neighbors.

I myself can’t help but smile at the ladies of the corner game, catching snippets of laughter and conversation as I move about my office tasks. Perhaps it’s the mood that the game creates: seeing the life that a simple deck of cards can bring to the residents here is encouraging, and there’s something comforting about the nearness, the familiarity of the lobby ritual. More likely, though, it’s the heavy nostalgia that certain moments of the game bring. For my family it was Scrabble—listening to Judy and Margaret reminisce, I can’t help but think of my own family’s late night-sessions, the laughter, the fierceness, the drama. Does it surprise me, then, that a game of Uno in the afternoon can turn cut throat?  Like I said, for my family, it was Scrabble.