The right time to be born, but for whom?

Like 98 per cent of the western population, I experience stuck song syndrome (SSS). On occasion, it can keep me up at night depending on the level of stress or amount of music in my life, but generally I can just shuffle on to the next tune.

According to research led by Dr. Steve Taylor, a professor and clinical psychologist at the University of British Columbia, stuck songs are “catchy tunes, popping up spontaneously or triggered by emotions, associations, or by hearing the melody.”

Unfortunately, there are some people for whom SSS never ends. More popularly known as earworms, for people living with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), they are uninvited intruders, which can become debilitating musical obsessions.

The latest evidence of my own manageable SSS is the earworm on repeat each morning as I rise for several weeks now. Long before I venture near a turntable or a music app, Paul Simon is right there singing and humming to me: “But among the reeds and rushes, a baby girl was found … born at the instant, the church bells chime, and the whole world whispering, born at the right time.”

Being born into the period when Simon was with Garfunkel, and songs like, “I am a Rock,” were listened to on clunky old turntables with built-in speakers, and studied in Grade 9 English classes like mine, provide me with multiple reasons for thinking I was indeed born at the right time.

If one must be saddled with an earworm, I am happy to make room for Simon’s lyrics and welcome “Born at the Right Time” each morning. I much prefer it over other potentially debilitating earworms that go on and on like Celine Dion’s beating organ in the theme from the “Titanic.”

Simon’s words led me to wonder whether this was actually the right time to be born and for whom. That’s one deep earworm.

I don’t know if my birth mother heard church bells or whispering as she brought me into the world. I am grateful for whatever she heard making it possible for her to pass me into the loving arms of my adoptive mom and dad 10 days later. That transfer of love provides me with gracious gratitude at the good fortune of being born at the right time.

But what about the mothers and children and fathers and felines and canines and all living creatures in places of war — in Ukraine, Yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia, Taiwan and more? I doubt there is any room for questioning about whether this is the right time or not. It just is.

For trans and queer people in the U.S., where debates about their rights are underway and recent gains are being dismantled in many states beyond Florida and Texas, how is this possibly the right time?

Asking this question might make one think it is definitely the right time to be queer and trans in Canada. Last week, the first good news story was the release of new census data as this country became the first to break down the gender binary historically limited to male and female. The 2021 census included a question for trans, non-binary and other gender-diverse people to selfidentify.

On the same day that data was released, another story of change made the headlines when Health Canada lifted the decades-long ban on gay men, which had previously prevented them from offering their life-saving blood so that others might live.

When I had the chance to speak with a wise friend, I asked if she thought we were born at the right time. As usual, she put me on the path to a better question.

“This is the time I have to contribute to the world. How can I help the flourishing of everything and everybody?”

If we answer that question instead, we will make it more possible for everyone to feel they were indeed born at the right time.