Plasticity

Lyrics

[Intro]

Marian, in your Berkeley lab, 1964,
that mayonnaise jar on the shelf,
holding fragments of Einstein's gray matter.
You carried it like a secret,
believing those folds could whisper genius.

[Verse 1]
I hold this jar now, cool glass against my palm,
feel the weight of what might change.
Donald Hebb, back in Montreal, 1949,
scribbling in the dim light of McGill's psychology wing,
'neurons that fire together, wire together.'
Your words, Donald, like threads in this tissue.
The jar's label faded, Hellmann's mayo from some forgotten lunch,
now vessel for possibility.

[Chorus]
Plasticity, my quiet companion,
you reshape the ridges, the sulci,
in the cool 20 degrees of this room.
Marian, you sliced with the microtome,
stained slides with dyes that smelled of formaldehyde's sharp bite.
Change at any age, you said,
even in this jar, even in me.

[Verse 2]
Late evenings, under the hum of a desk lamp,
you peered through the microscope,
counting cells that thickened with enrichment.
Rats in their cages, exploring toys,
their cortices growing, proof in the tissue.
I address you, jar, relic of 2011 interviews,
when Marian spoke of brains unbound by time.

[Bridge]

The gaps, the unnamed assistants mixing stains,
preparing slides in the background hum.
Lost stories of recovery, patients rewiring in silence.
But here, in this vessel, the strange fact endures:
Einstein's essence, carried in mayo glass,
teaching us to bend, to reform.

[Verse 3]
Feel the cold edge of the slide,
fingertips tracing what environment etched.
Hebb's pen scratching paper in 1940s chill,
associating cells like old friends.
Plasticity, you don't demand perfection,
just repetition, just the will to associate.

[Chorus]
Plasticity, my quiet companion,
you reshape the ridges, the sulci,
in the cool 20 degrees of this room.
Marian, you sliced with the microtome,
stained slides with dyes that smelled of formaldehyde's sharp bite.
Change at any age, you said,
even in this jar, even in me.

[Outro]

Jar, you hold the message:
We are not fixed, not fragile forever.
Marian's voice echoes, 'The brain can change,'
and I believe, holding you close.