It Wasn't Your Fault

John Sheldon and I started collaborating in 2007 when I decided I wanted music in the one-woman show I was creating. My director, Sheryl Stoodley, wasn’t so sure. But after a month of rehearsals, each time I read through a scene about my mother, Sheryl noticed the song, The Water is Wide, playing in her head.

John and I met up for the first time in an Amherst coffee shop. The conversation went quite well, and then he pulled a CD out of his pocket, handing it to me saying, "Here's a sample of my music, and the first song is an instrumental of the song The Water is Wide. My eyebrows went up, I took in a breath, and there the synchronicity began. I played it in my car on the way home becoming certain he was the one I wanted to make the music for my play.

Our years working together performing my play have been deeply satisfying and full of surprises. To start, we collaborated in his studio – me reading my script, he trying out different ways to “play” the characters, back up the scenes, build tension and soften it with his guitar. After three months, we workshopped it for several colleagues. They all agreed we were “good to go.”

My next performance (and only the second time I'd done so) was to be in one month’s time at the Stetson School for boys – a residential facility for boys. And so, our first gig - in Stetson’s gymnasium – would be to one hundred boys, ages 8 to 20, who had sexually abused others. What a beginning! We would return to Stetson seven years in a row.

We’ve done many performances both close to home and far away. And when the pandemic hit, we took the time to produce the film, Telling Is Healing, which closes with his song, It Wasn’t Your Fault. At the film's premiere, a survivor in the audience proclaimed – every survivor entering their healing path should hear this song.

I never tire of listening to it. As a survivor, it tells me someone sees and believes me and my experience, AND it gives everyone else a healthy lesson on how they can do the same.

Enjoy,

Donna