Music and memory

...or one reason why the holidays can be so difficult

Every December, I battle with my nervous system. My muscles ache. My fingertips vibrate. My eye twitches. I don’t sleep well. I am exhausted and weepy and antisocial. It doesn’t matter if my life is currently going well, if everyone I know is healthy and happy. November 30th I may feel amazing. But by December 3rd, 4th, 5th, something just feels off, like I’m underwater or trapped behind a pane of glass. I have joked that I’d like to be put into a mild, harmless little coma for a few weeks. Power me down. Wake me up in January.

It’s as if the turn of the calendar page sends my body into chaos. I know my nervous system holds onto old, painful memories from Decembers past, even while I create so many more joyful memories in the present with Kris and my kids. I’ve done a lot of work in therapy to process those memories. Still, the emotional residue surfaces every year.

Recently, Kris asked me if it had something to do with music. Does hearing holiday songs flip a switch in my brain? Maybe. In FORCES OF NATURE, I share how my brother Alan was obsessed with Christmas all year. He walked around the house with a Sony Walkman clipped to his belt and a fanny pack full of cassette tapes — all classic Christmas music. Bing Crosby. Nat King Cole. Elvis. Johnny Cash. He’d sing, though singing for Alan sounded a lot like shouting. He’d shout-sing Christmas songs so loudly that neighbors walking their dogs outside would stop and stare at our house.

Alan was happiest when he was singing, so we never told him to stop. His joy, when it appeared, was uninhibited. I didn’t fully understand until years later that Alan didn’t have an inner critic. He never internalized “should” and “shouldn’t” the way the rest of us do. It was an unexpected gift of his condition, the freedom to be fully himself.

And so, it made sense that his funeral in August 2016 featured many Christmas themes, including several Christmas carols that played during the viewing and procession. It was bittersweet, if a bit disorienting. But it honored Alan.

Kris’s question got me thinking (and researching). Of course, I know music is tied to memory, just as certain smells, sights and physical sensations are. Music allows us to time travel. This is the paradox, and perhaps one reason my body gets confused: Upbeat Christmas songs transport me to a very sad day, saying goodbye to my brother.

Neuroscientists call this associative memory, when a specific event is inextricably linked to other neurological information or sensory input. So, one element (a smell, a sound) recalls the other, like launching an emotional template in your nervous system, a biological if/then code.

As complicated as my memories of Alan and Christmas are, I don’t want to forget them or overwrite them. But perhaps I can make room for some new associations? Maybe the neurological playlist can include some unconventional holiday songs that are more congruent with my mood this time of year. For instance…

(Incidentally, Adam Duritz told Rolling Stone that “A Long December” is indeed a Christmas song in the same way “Die Hard” is a Christmas movie.)

…Or maybe this more upbeat favorite from Dar Williams?

A few other songs I’m drawn to this time of year:

• Matt Corby’s Winter

• Sara Bareilles & Ingrid Michealson’s Winter Song

• Joni Mitchell’s River

• Fleet Foxes White Winter Hymnal

What about you? If you had to make a more honest holiday playlist, one that captures the full spectrum of emotions this season, what songs would you include?