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My name is Maria Birdseye and I was

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diagnosed with Parkinson’s four years ago

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And I’ve been reading a lot about

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what you can do to

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delay the progress of the disease hopefully.

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So I do a lot of exercise and

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one of the symptoms that can progress

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is that your voice gets softer

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and it’s very hard to hear you yet

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I wanted to participate in and find out if

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there was a way to strengthen my vocal cords

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now and very definitely that’s the case.

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But it’s hard to make yourself be loud [br]

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if you’re not a loud person and

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reading a poem is something that

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I’m comfortable with and so that’s

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probably why I chose to do that today.

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I’m a retired school teacher,

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taught middle school for thirty years

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and am very happily retired though

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Parkinson’s was not in my plans.

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But there it is.

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This poem was read to me in a yoga class

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and it struck a chord with me because

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the poet is trying to get you to challenge

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your situation in life. It makes you think

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it changes your perspective and its one

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of the best things that a poem can do.

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The written word, whether it’s a poem or

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a play or a book or a short story, [br]

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it captures another person’s life for you

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to share and in that respect I think

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literature is wonderful.

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But when you think about it, anybody who

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is willing to share how they feel

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enriches us. It can’t be easy always

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to share private thoughts.