I Will Survive

Lyrics

[Intro]

Barbara, in that Toronto winter of 2005,
your kitchen clock ticking on the Formica counter,
face lit by the fluorescent hum at 9 PM.

[Verse 1]
You stared at its hands, Norman Doidge's book open beside you,
pages dog-eared at chapter seven, the one about the brain's open system.
That plastic model from the university lab, split cortex gleaming under desk lamp,
you traced its folds with a pencil, graphing new pathways on yellowed paper.
The chill of 5°C seeping through the window, your breath fogging the glass,
rewiring what was broken, one timed exercise at a time.

[Chorus]
I will survive, this neural storm,
like Arrowsmith-Young with her rusty bicycle parked outside,
riding to sessions at the Arrowsmith School, snow crunching under tires.
The brain changes itself, Penguin Books 2007 edition whispered,
from prisoners to architects, in the musty smell of old papers.

[Verse 2]
Midnight in the cluttered lab, EEG wires tangled like synaptic tendrils,
beeps tracking waves, a half-eaten granola bar fueling the fight.
You, Barbara, overcoming the spatial fog, kitchen clock as your tool,
timing directions, turning disability into strength, one tick at a time.
The faint antiseptic scent in the therapy room, beige walls closing in,
but you pushed back, reshaping the fortress.

[Bridge]

And the gaps, those unnamed patients from the 1980s,
initials in academic papers, their families unseen,
holding the weight of daily exercises, emotional toll unwritten.
Yet here, in this quiet survival, the brain's plasticity sings.

[Chorus]
I will survive, this neural storm,
like Arrowsmith-Young with her rusty bicycle parked outside,
riding to sessions at the Arrowsmith School, snow crunching under tires.
The brain changes itself, Penguin Books 2007 edition whispered,
from prisoners to architects, in the musty smell of old papers.

[Outro]

The kitchen clock still ticks, Barbara,
in that Toronto evening, your victory etched in every rewired path.
I will survive.