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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
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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,
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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.