Melodies and Words by Heart

I am a huge fan of memorization. In Mrs. Greenland’s fifth grade class, we memorized poetry and the Gettysburg address. I loved it and discovered I was good at something, better even than the smarter kids in class.

The words and phrases learned then have stuck with me, not with the clarity and sureness I had at 10, but close enough so that when I’m in a tight spot I can repeat “Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation,” and so on until I hit the trickier spots and go around in circles.

My elementary school was named after Eugene Field, the poet. I wondered if that was why we got to memorize poetry. I knew that other schools were named after famous politicians or war heroes. What would they memorize, if anything?

Later, at UCLA in my third year of French classes, I got to memorize French poetry, songs, and plays. Speaking the phrases written by men (no women, c’est dommage) helped me speak with the rhythm and almost the speed of a real French person. I couldn’t express how I felt about a lot of things, but I could quote Paul Verlaine, “Le ciel est, par dessus le toit, ci bleu, ci calme.” Rolling the words in my mouth and savoring their rhythm was delicious.

On our 1961 trip, Mary and I hitchhiked from Austria into Italy squished into the back seat of a sports car. The guys left us off at a bus station in a small city. It was night. We needed to find a hotel. Into our lives sauntered a young man, maybe 17, whose English came from memorizing rock songs! My Italian came from memorizing opera arias. Mary had studied Italian, so what a trio we were! We laughed our way through a snack at a late-night café, and then he helped us find a place to stay.

It’s nice to have the words of others in one’s head. I remember reading a book by a Holocaust survivor, a musician, who had memorized enough classical music to keep him sane during the ghastly horrors he faced.

Mrs. Greenland had the right idea. Did she know that the words we learn by heart stay in our hearts for a lifetime? That they comfort us through tough times? They are our best friends when no friends are around.

Today’s students may live in a world that’s too fast for memorization. Their incessant songs whizz by on their ipods, leaving little time for words except via texting in short sentences.

I don’t want to be seen as the old fogey whose voice crackles, “Things were better in my day.” Maybe they weren’t. What I know is that for me, having these melodies and words in my heart is good.