This connection between personal story and universal themes
is what gives writing its power.
~ Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew

Happy 100th Birthday, Naomi

Regular readers of this Blog will recognize my cherished friend, Naomi Wingfield, and join me in celebrating her 100 years!

My poem in the latest issue of Tower Poetry is dedicated to Naomi:
Ryan-Now I Notice Sea Shells

CIVIC ENGAGEMENT SERIES — WRITERS’ TIP

When a group needs to discuss a problem to generate creative solutions, brainstorming is often a technique of choice.  A more effective way to kick start the process may be first to allow each individual to work alone and then pool the ideas.

Writers can suggest that some group discussions begin only after each person spends 10 minutes writing down possibilities.

Message to READERS: Your suggestions about how writers can provide community service are welcome.

NEWS – From Illiteracy to Author in Tenth Decade

James Arruda Henry was in his mid-nineties when he began to learn to read and write. For over nine decades he had lived successfully without being able to sign his own name. He drew inspiration from a book written by a centenarian who had also lived long without literacy.  Life Is So Good: One Man’s Extraordinary Journey Through the 20th Century and How He Learned to Read at Age 98 was published [with a co-author] by George Dawson, 103-year-old grandson of a slave.

James Arruda Henry spent hours practicing his signature at the dining room table in his mid-90s and  then went on to hand write his first book  – A Fisherman’s Language. From earliest recollections of his grandfather’s farm in the Azores to a snippet of his daily life today, James shows how a life powered by commitment, hard work and determination can redefine a person at any age.   READ MORE>>

Writing Exercise

Proverbs can serve as starters for fast writing. Here are some to start with:

There are two sides to every question.
Honesty is the best policy.
Hope springs eternal.
Genius is an infinite capacity to take pains.
Live and learn.
Diligence is the mother of good luck.
A word to the wise is enough.
Experience is the best teacher.
The longest journey begins with a single step.

BOOK REVIEW by Zainab Furqan

It Is Well with My Soul: The Extraordinary Life of a 106-Year-Old Woman
Ella Mae Cheeks Johnson with Patricia Mulcahy.      New York: Penguin, 2010.

It is Well with my Soul is an autobiography by Ella Mae Cheeks Johnson, a woman who celebrated her 106th birthday just before the book was published. From the beginning, I found the most captivating aspect of the book to be its conversational tone, which made me feel as if I was sitting across Ella Mae in front of a fireplace, hands wrapped around a warm cup of tea, listening. 

READ MORE> BOOK REVIEW -Centenarian-It is well with my soul-Johnson

QUOTATIONS

Listen to your life.
See it for the fathomless mystery that it is.
In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and the gladness
touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it,
because, in the last analysis, all moments are key moments and life itself is grace.
~ Frederich Buechner

Write about what truly matters to you –
not just things to catch the eye of the world
but things to touch the quick of the world
the way they touched you to the quick
which is why you are writing about them.
~ Frederick Buechner

Until next time, I say adieu with this shadow photograph taken on the shore of Lake Superior,

Ellen

March of Generations

This week our daughter’s daughter was born. Today, April 1st, is the 99th anniversary of her great great grandparents’ wedding in St. Ours, Quebec. Angela’s March arrival marks five generations with March birthdays – preceded by Mémère Morin (the 1913 bride), Mom, my brother Bob, and then my son Dennis.

Late life spirituality of ten widens our perspectives. We come to see our lives in the context of the generations, from the past into the future, as lines branching among all humankind. Like Margaret Mead, I feel the wingspan of those generations.

With regard to writing, it is interesting to note that two best-selling novels were completed by aged grandmother authors with the help of their granddaughters – Hortense Calisher’s Sunday Jews and Mary Ann Shaffer’s The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

Within the Writing Down Our Years book series, I edited two collections of grandparent/grandchild stories and poems:

From Me to You: Intergenerational Connections Through Storytelling
Exchanges Between Us: More Intergenerational Connections

For more information  > READ MORE

Selected Intergenerational Writing from the Series:

Life Marks
Pooh Sticks
Summer Memories
Precious Pirates
A Grandmother’s Lament
First Grandchild

WRITING EXERCISE — INTERGENERATIONAL REMEMBERING

Most of us have memories of spending time with grandparents. Even more of us remember  tales told to us about our grandparents. Write about a special time with a grandparent – for example, describe an incident in which you learned values from one of your grandparents. Or, write down a story often repeated within the family of when your grandparents were your age or younger. Alternatively, you could write to a deceased grandparent asking the questions you wish you had asked earlier.

BOOKS ON GRANDPARENTING & GRANDPARENTS

Boucher, Therese M.  Spiritual Grandparenting: Bringing our Grandchildren to God. New York: Crossroad Publishing Co., 1991.
Graham, Barbara (Ed).  Eye of My Heart: 27 Writers Reveal the Hidden Pleasures and Perils of Being a Grandmother. New York: HarperCollins, 2010.
Kornhaber, Arthur. The Grandparent Guide. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002.
Lanese, J. (1996). Grandmothers are Like Snowflakes: No Two are Alike. New York: Dell.
Marshall III, J. M.  Walking with Grandfather: The Wisdom of Lakota Elders. Boulder CO: Sounds True, 2005.
Valle, Gina (Ed.). Our Grandmothers, Ourselves: Reflections of Canadian Women. Vancouver: Raincoast, 1999.

WEBSITES ON GRANDPARENTING

Foundation for Grandparenting (Arthur Kornhaber, MD)
AARP Grandparenting
Cyberparent Grandparent – Stay in Touch
Grandparents. About.Com
Grandparents.Com
Grandparent World Third Age-Grandparenting

NEWS — World Health Day 2012: : “Aging and Health” – April 7th

The theme Aging and Health for World Health Day provides an opportunity for organizations and individuals worldwide to showcase solutions to population ageing, putting health at the core. The focus is “Good health adds life to years”.

On World Health Day 2012, the WHO recommends three calls to action:
1.    Promote and live a healthy lifestyle across the life-course
2.    Create age-friendly environments and policies to engage older men and women
3.     Make primary health care age-friendly.

Related to this international focus on aging, HelpAge International, the only global organization with a singular focus on providing assistance to and advocating for disadvantaged older people, has recently been awarded the 2012 Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize of $1.5 million.

To sign up for e-news from the International Federation on Ageing, click here.

CIVIC ENGAGEMENT – ROLES FOR OLDER WRITERS

Service Opportunity #3 – Helping Elders to Record Their Stories

Writers can help frail elders record their stories -  by talking with them about their stories, by encouraging them to write and providing constructive feedback, by writing the stories down, or by audio/video-recording storytelling.  Volunteers can also assist those in hospital, long-term care, or housebound to write letters or email messages to family and friends.

One way to put together stories quickly is to gather key photographs and record a brief story for each one. A grandparent might choose to send one such photo/story with each birthday card to grandchildren.The photos can focus not only on generations of family members but also homes, places visited, or objects of significance (e.g., heirloom violin or rocking chair).  Such a collection of photos and stories can be collected from all the family members for a special anniversary or birthday.

An important advantage of written stories is the possibility of translation for families where the grandchildren favour English but the older generations think and write in a different mother tongue. Elders can write or tell their stories in their comfortable language. Through translation, the grandchildren and future generations can then enjoy the stories in their own comfortable language.  The plot of Amy Tan’s novel The Bonesetter’s Daughter derives from a life story written in Chinese by an aged mother beginning to decline with dementia. When the daughter later finds the manuscript, she hires a translator — who falls in love with the narrator, then and now.

Reader Input

It was great to hear this month from Sheryl-Elaine Brazeau, who wrote about her involvement with the early literacy program in her neighbourhood school, a book club and creative sanctuary groups. TO READ MORE:  ReaderCommentMarch 13th

BOOK REVIEW

My Grandfather’s Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging.
Rachel Naomi Remen      New York: Riverhead Books. 2000.

This is one of my favourite books — powerful legacy story of a grandfather shaping the primary lifelong values of his granddaughter even though he died before her 8th birthday.

Remen is the wounded healer author of Kitchen Table Wisdom and The Will to Live and Other Mysteries. A physician coping with early onset Crohn’s disease, Remen is Co-Founder and Medical Director of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program. She is also a nationally recognized medical reformer and educator who sees the practice of medicine as a spiritual path.

Spending her earliest days after school with her Rabbi grandfather, Rachel Remen learned an attitude toward life which has enabled her to see beyond her own medical training on disease and beyond her own suffering with illness.  He emphasized that none of us are only the way we seem — the acorn holds the potential for an oak tree, a weak old man holds the past of being strong as an ox.  The elder restricted to a rocking chair can become the enchanting teller of family stories and cultural history. Also, we are all more than our disabilities: a blind person can see what others do not, a cognitively impaired person can often sense emotions missed by others.  Blessing others recognizes them as persons, each yearning for wholeness within, thereby inviting them to be all that they can be.

Remen reports that life had burnished her grandfather, enabling him to be with others, offering real presence through his listening. He also taught that serving the wholeness in you helps me find the wholeness in me. Through the many stories of life with her grandfather as well as serving her patients, it is clear that Dr. Remen learned these lessons from her grandfather very well.

QUOTATION

Grandpa Albert had a habit of stopping now and then and looking back down the trail. Frequently, he would take me by the shoulders and ask me to look back at the way we had come. `Remember the trail,’ he said, `because one of these times I will send you back alone. If you don’t remember the way you have come, you will be lost.’
~ J M Marshall III

Until next time, I will say ‘Adieu’ with my grandparenting shadow photograph.

Ellen

PROFILE

Elizabeth ‘Grandma’ Layton (1910-1993) was a small town Kansas woman whose life was changed with one contour drawing art class at the age of 68 and who changed many other lives with her art.  Her talent blossoming quickly, she created many works for good causes from 1977-1991.

Moreover, she used her artistic creativity to cope for the first time with her lifelong battle with periodic depressions.  Standing in front of a mirror hour after hour drawing herself she was able to come to terms with the big spiritual questions: who am I and why am I here.

Her paintings include:

Old Age Advocates
All Dressed Up
Masks
I’m into Walking
Stroke

CIVIC ENGAGEMENT – ROLES FOR OLDER WRITERS

Service Opportunity #2 – Start a Writing Group

To continue our monthly discussion about volunteer roles for older writers, let me tell you about my experience with writing groups.  Writing regularly with a group of 4-14 members usually involves periods of fast writing, with prompts ranging from one word (e.g., morning, treasures, dreams) to phrases (“The first time”, “I remember…I don’t remember”) to lines from poems or novels.  The energy in the room during such writing brings out more – both words and depth – than solitary writing.  The spirit of creativity and connection is enhanced as we members choose to read aloud in a nonjudgmental, confidential setting.  Some groups focus on generating bursts of creativity while others offer time for constructive critiques of almost-finished poems, memoirs, stories, or essays.

To contribute to the stimulation and creativity of others in the community, some older writers start writing groups in senior centres or assisted living centres, or with teenagers or even in prisons. I find it very rewarding to help start new writing groups. Organizing and participating in book clubs to encourage reading are also important ways for lovers of language to contribute to their community. See this recent article on reading clubs for prison inmates in Ontario.

Reader Input

It was great to hear from Ann Carson [in the Comments to the February Blog] about her active schedule of poetry readings for various community events. Why don’t you write to tell us about your community activities specifically related to love of language and writing?

WRITING TIPS – On Haiku

Haiku, an ancient Japanese poetic form, can make nature a spiritual path. Walking or sitting in nature in quiet contemplation is excellent preparation for writing three lines based on images from nature. Focused attention to the moment is holy; capturing the moment in words can take us deep.

Although there are many variations for haiku in English, common practices include: three lines, of up to 17 syllables; a season or nature word; a cut or kire (sometimes indicated by a punctuation mark) to compare two images implicitly.  Note the use of nature images to allude to human aging in these translations of Japanese haiku by three of the most famous Japanese haiku masters.  See also Naomi Wingfield’s contemporary haiku on this page.

Resources on Haiku

Books

Hass, R. (1995). Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Duson, and Issa. St. Louis MO: Turtleback Books/Sanval.
Reichhold, J. (2010). Writing and Enjoying Haiku: A Hands-on Guide. 25th Anniversary Edition. London UK: Kodansha International.
Strand, C. (1998). Seeds from a Birch Tree: Writing Haiku and the Spiritual Journey. New York: Hyperion.

Websites

Aha! Poetry – Jane Reichhold
Robert Haas on Haiku
Haiku Spirit

BOOK REVIEW

The Grace in Dying: A Message of Hope, Comfort and Spiritual Transformation.

Kathleen Dowling Singh.  San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998.

When preparing for a talk on the spirituality of dying recently, I found this graceful book by Kathleen Dowling Singh to be of great use.  She argues that death to ego (our separate self) is death to our sense of control over our lives. This sense of control is peeled away over our lifetime, expedited by crises, by spiritual practice, and by accompanying persons who are dying.  Thus, a relationship with death is developed inevitably with experiences of loss and uncertainty. That relationship can be further fostered by reaching higher levels of consciousness through contemplation and by sitting with individuals with terminal diagnoses.

I felt an aha! moment when I read the Thich Nhat Hanh quotation introducing this blog: “Enlightenment for a wave is the moment the wave realizes that it is water. At that moment, all fear of death disappears.” Throughout the book I experienced other moments where Singh gave words to the truth I had somehow known.  What I like best was her assurance in the introduction that ‘dying is safe’. The book is an elaboration of how we can learn to accept death and to facilitate the grace of dying for the person we accompany as well as for ourselves.             FOR THE REST OF BOOK REVIEW >> SinghKDowling_GraceinDying_BookReview

Poem

Wingfield-BeyondDeath

Until next time, I will say ‘Adieu’ with one of my Reflection photographs,

Ellen

PROFILE

Huston Smith celebrated his 90th birthday in 2009 by publishing his autobiography –  Tales of Wonder: Adventures Chasing the Divine. Born of Christian missionary parents in China, this authority on the world’s religions has spent a lifetime practicing, savoring, and teaching them. He has been professor of religion and philosophy at Syracuse University and California-Berkeley.

Smith has written 15 books, most notable of which are his bestselling The World’s Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions (two million copies sold, 60 reprintings) and prize-winning Why Religion Matters. He calls himself a Christian who has learned much from the other wisdom traditions. His driving conviction is that “the single destination of sanctity could admit of so many different avenues leading to it.”

Now, residing in assisted living, Smith continues to practice the morning discipline of reading scripture, doing yoga, expressing gratitude, praying for others and himself, and meditating. He affirms that: “We are born in mystery, we live in mystery, and we die in mystery.”

Huston Smith Quotations

In order to live, man must believe in that which he lives.

The most powerful moral influence is example.

Religion teaches us that our lives here on earth are to be used for transformation.

Institutions are not pretty. Show me a pretty government. Healing is wonderful, but the American Medical Association? Learning is wonderful, but universities? The same is true for religion… religion is institutionalized spirituality.

If we take the world’s enduring religions at their best, we discover the distilled wisdom of the human race.

Understanding, then, can lead to love. But the reverse is also true. Love brings understanding; the two are reciprocal. So we must listen to understand, but we must also listen to put into play the compassion that the wisdom traditions all enjoin, for it is impossible to love another without hearing that other. If we are to be true to these religions, we must attend to others as deeply and as alertly as we hope that they will attend to us.

CIVIC ENGAGEMENT – ROLES FOR OLDER WRITERS

Prologue

How can we language lovers contribute to our communities?  This is the first article of a regular column on this topic.

Let me begin by reflecting on my own activities.  Continuing my professional work in partial retirement, I give talks and write articles on communication and aging. Maintaining this website and writing the monthly blog enable me to reach a broader audience of writers and potential writers. Featuring older writers is central to my talks and writings, as well as to the Writing Down Our Years Series of publications.

Service Opportunity #1 – Visiting Library Services

As an avid reader, I take library materials to homebound seniors and residents in long-term care through Visiting Library Services.   Large print books are popular, but some readers need alternate formats.  I especially enjoy the patrons who listen to talking books. With vision loss, they are particularly grateful for the service and more likely to be engrossed in their ‘books’ any hour of the day. What surprised me most about this service is that some patrons are unable to hold books – they can read magazines or listen in audio format.  Through an initial checklist, the library selects materials for patrons. However, the volunteer often passes along preferences for specific titles, authors, and topics.  Patrons who wish may make their selections via the Internet.  Some of the interactions when delivering and collecting books are brief and businesslike – others become warm, mutually rewarding conversations between book lovers.

Invitation to Tell Your Story

I would appreciate hearing from you about community activities specifically related to love of language.

FOLLOWING OUR PASSIONS

Lifespan research demonstrates that engagement with life, or living on purpose, is central to longevity and aging with spirit.  Engaging in activities we enjoy and give meaning is key.  Very often, identifying such activities is a primary part of adjustment to retirement. Spiritual writers call us to choose both inner work and service to others. For life on purpose, they also urge us to find those activities which fit us specifically, rather than be drawn in to doing what others expect.

The psychological research of Robert Vallerand of the University of Quebec at Montreal adds another consideration. Older adults, like young adults, show higher subjective well-being for harmonious passionate activities but lower subjective well-being when engaging in obsessive passions.  Although some activities are more likely to become obsessions (e.g., gambling), other passions such as physical exercise, basketball, music, or genealogy can be either harmonious or obsessive for an individual at a particular time.

Passion for living, then, depends on regular self-reflection – a good reason for writing in a journal.

WEBSITES:  AGING ON PURPOSE

The Sage-ing™ Guild
Second Journey
The Center for Conscious Eldering
Life Planning Network
Eldering & Wisdom in Action

WRITING EXERCISE TO TRY

The exercise, known as Searching for Pittsburgh, involves two steps: first making a list of 4-8 places you might search for; second, writing for 10 minutes about searching for your chosen place.  Write quickly, keeping your pen moving. Whenever your thought ends, begin again with the same ’searching for’ phrase.  Another time, you might write about one of the other places on your list.

Here is my poem – crafted from fast writing just before my trip to Japan and inspired by the famous haiku by Basho.

Searching for Kyoto

QUOTATIONS

The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
~ William James

I think the act of writing can change lives and save souls.
I’ve seen it happen.
~ Elaine Farris Hughes

As I write I create myself again and again.
~ Joy Harjo

Until next time, I will say ‘Adieu’ with a sunrise photograph from our mid-winter interlude by the ocean,

Ellen

PROFILE

Sister Joan Chittister writes prolifically and speaks to power around the world on spirituality, social justice, feminism, hospitality, and aging.   Her voice flows from deep roots in Benedictine spirituality, social activism, and interfaith outreach.  In her weekly blog and her 45 books, she engages the reader with a humble, inclusive conversational tone.

Current books of special interest include:

The Gift of Years – To Read my book review
Monastery of the Heart
Happiness
Welcome to the Wisdom of the World
Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir
Uncommon Gratitude with Archbishop Rowan Williams.

I am drawn to her vision of spirituality:

Go from here with gratitude for many blessings and confidence in the love of God;
Go forward with hospitality, openness, and creative action;
Find or create community for loving action.

Sr. Joan’s commitment to community is evidenced in the many organizations she has founded and/or led to bring seekers together for action: Global Peace Initiative for Women, Network of Spiritual Progressives, Leadership Conference of Women Religious and Spiritual Leaders, The Rising Great Compassion, and  International Committee for the Peace Council.  She is a board member for Council of the Conscience for the Charter of Compassion.

Quotations on Spirituality

Find the thing that stirs your heart and make room for it<

Every question in life is an invitation to live with a touch more depth, a breath more meaning.

Every word, every action, every effort of our lives has a ripple effect.

Hospitality means we take people into the space that is ourselves. . . . It is the first step toward dismantling the barriers of the world. Hospitality is the way we turn a prejudiced world around one heart at a time.

Unity is more than solidarity and more than uniformity. Unity, ironically, is a commitment to becoming one people who speak in a thousand voices. Rather than one message repeated by a thousand voices, unity is one message shaped by a thousand minds.

Quotations on Aging

A blessing of these years is to have the opportunity to take on the role of thinker, of philosopher, of disputant, of interrogator, or spiritual guide in a world racing to nowhere, with no true human goal and no lived wisdom in sight.

These are the capstone years [old age], the time in which a whole new life is in the making again. But the gift of these years is not merely being alive – it is the gift of becoming more fully alive than ever.

The young hear memory in the voice of their elders and, delighted by these voices from the past or bored by them, too often miss the content behind the content. Memory is not about what went on in the past. It is about what is going on inside of us right this moment. It is never idle. It never lets us alone. It is made up of the stuff of life in the process of becoming the grist of the soul.

To sit and listen to a person wander through the storied fragments of their lives is to come to know what worries them, what delights them, what love did to them, what rejection dampened in them, and what is left to deal with now if the press of past failures, the loss of past loves are ever to be stitched into a healthy whole in the here and now.

TIPS TO KEEP YOUR NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION TO WRITE

Many of us have resolved to take steps in this new year to fulfill our dreams of writing.  Here are a few tips:

1-    Write Morning Pages – three pages everyday, just keep your pen moving
2-    Make appointments to write with a buddy
3-    Explore websites with writing prompts
4-    Join a writing group
5-    Try an online writing workshop or course

CREATIVITY AND AGING

The Creativity and Aging project is a website offering a great educational resource on aging with film clips expertly selected and excerpted:

Theme 1: Creativity in Mentoring (e.g. Il Postino)
Theme 2: Creativity in Music  (e.g.,  Young @ Heart; Buena Vista Social Club)
Theme 3: Creativity in Preserving Cultural Tradition (e.g.,  Karate Kid)
Theme 4: Creativity in Relationship (e.g.,   Surfing for Life)
Theme 5: Creativity in Service (e.g., Pete Seeger; Gandhi).

For each theme a Discussion Guide and Student Reading/Handout are provided so that the clips can be used with students of any age.

BOOK REVIEW by Tanya Bechard

The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind

Barbara Strauch. New York: Penguin Group, 2010

The brain, like a good wine, will get better with age. That’s the message this provocative text aims to elicit while taking a detailed look at new research on the complex workings of the middle-aged brain. The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain endeavours to provide insight into the talents of the middle-aged brain in a compelling way that has the reader excited to turn the next page. Throughout the text the reader will meet neuroscientists and psychologists who have shown how the middle-aged brain has been greatly underestimated.

Through a series of chapters on different aspects of the aging brain, Strauch unfolds a new perspective on aging.  She uses a delightfully humorous writing style with illuminating anecdotes to explain how the brain—as opposed to the rest of the body—can actually improve with age and how the human brain will hit its prime between the ages of 40 and 60 which is much later than previously believed. Although Strauch admits that as we age we become forgetful, she explains that the important stuff is not forgotten.

One longitudinal study that has major significance examined the test scores of people aged forty to sixty-five and compared their scores with the scores earned by the same group of people when they were in their twenties. It was found that the older subjects scored higher in four out of the six areas tested, leading the researcher to conclude that peak performance is not during young adulthood but rather is reached during middle-age. One reason Strauch gives for this finding is that humans begin to use more of their brain as they age—a process called bilateralization.

One example of bilateralization is explained through a study involving volunteers learning pairs of words.  Strauch explains that, contrary to the long-held view that older people use less of their brain, this study found that younger adults only used their right frontal lobes while recalling the word pairs, while older adults used both the left and the right side of their brain. According to Strauch this is “much like using two arms instead of one to pick up a heavy chair, which is not only a better way to lift the chair but may also be a more efficient way to use a brain.”  Additionally, researchers found that the amount of myelin that insulates the nerve fibres will actually continue to increase during middle-age leading to an improved processing capacity that “increases bandwidth” and puts people “online” allowing a “more integrated and comprehensive view of the world”.

Strauch’s book paints a radically different picture of the brain and middle-age than past research. Not all age-related losses can be compensated for, but most middle-aged people have accepted changes in their bodies. The middle-aged brain loses processing speed and what is termed “episodic memory,” but it compensates with increased power in other areas, such as the ability to “de-accentuate the negative.” Strauch explains that middle-aged people who find themselves “on the foggy planet of lost keys and misplaced thoughts” may have to learn new ways of coping, such as list-making, but they are rewarded with minds that have the ability to see the big picture and that are capable of flashes of insight that can solve problems of immense complexity. Forgetfulness may just be a small price to pay. So instead of viewing the middle-aged brain as “diminished, declining, and depressed,” we should acknowledge and appreciate “the surprising talents of the middle-aged brain.”

QUOTATIONS

If you are mindful that old age has wisdom for its food,
you will so exert yourself in youth that your old age will not lack sustenance.
~ Leonardo DaVinci

Like the corn, we have hidden
deep within our living process
a wisdom that reaches
back to all knowledge
and beyond to all possibilities.
~ Anne Wilson Schaef

Until next time, I will say Adieu with another of my shadow photos,

Ellen

PROFILE

Dr. Maya Angelou, age 83, excels in many genres of writing, including memoir, poetry, plays, composing, and film.  After her friend Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968, she dealt with her personal grief (and a nation’s) by writing her first of six memoirs – the best-selling I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Bill Clinton invited Angelou to recite her poem On the Pulse of Morning at his 1993 presidential inauguration.  Recipient of more than 30 honorary degrees, she has been Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in North Carolina for 20 years. She continues to maintain a schedule of more than 80 public appearances a year – touching lives with words and her vibrant voice.

At the age of seventy, Maya Angelou was the first African American woman to direct a major motion picture, Down in the Delta. This film includes one of my favourite aging scenes, in which a minister responds creatively when a parishioner with dementia stands up to sing in the midst of his sermon.  He asks everyone to rise to sing the hymn, after which he calmly resumes speaking. You can imagine how heartfelt the thanks when the husband shakes hands with his minister after the service.

Maya Angelou quotations:

A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.

I make writing as much a part of my life as I do eating or listening to music.

The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.

Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.

Poems by Maya Angelou

Still I Rise
Alone
Phenomenal Woman

REVIEW OF RESOURCE FOR REMINISCING

LifeTimes The Game Of Reminiscence · 1950s Edition

Carol and Mary Jane McPhee      Available via the website:  lifetimesthegame

Two sisters developed this reminiscing game after learning that their mother, in the early stages of dementia, was happiest when talking about her early life and the years of their young family.  Retired teachers, Carol and Mary Jane McPhee have fashioned an attractive box of 125 cards with 500 questions and prompts in five categories.  Printed on good card stock in an engaging, readable style,  each 8″ x 3.5″ card has two nostalgic family photos and five memory questions/prompts.

The game was designed especially for reminiscing conversations, either for family members with shared memories or for people with different family experiences.  An individual can also enjoy selecting a few appealing cards to revisit fond memories.  In using the cards with my family, I have learned about my older brother being allowed to drive the family car to the backyard for washing at age 15 and about my husband’s earliest baseball experiences.  My own memories, too, came suddenly to the fore while thinking of my earliest years and checking them with my brother.

The set of cards can be very useful as writing prompts for an individual or for a writing group.  One can pass around the box and ask members to choose six cards. The simplest task would be to find a theme or a memory prompt for writing. More complicated applications could include working something from each of the cards into the writing about one of the themes. Taking advantage of serendipity in card combinations can take one down memory lane with a creative difference.

The authors are planning to develop other versions of the game – for example, the 40s or the 60s.  The current 50s version has some categories of broad interest: family life, leisure, love and romance. The two other categories would appeal mainly to certain women: food/recipes and fashion.  Men, and women too, would appreciate more emphasis on work life, sports, and current events. Writers can, of course, join in the game of writing new memory prompts for new categories.

BOOKS ON WRITING MEMOIR

Goldberg, N. (2007). Old friend from far away: The practice of writing memoir. New York: Free Press.

Thomas, A. (2008). Thinking about memoir: Everyone has a story to tell. New York: AARP/Sterling.

Thomas, F. P. (1984). How to write the story of your life. Writer’s Digest Books: Cincinnati OH.

TO READ MORE >> Books on Writing Memoir

WEBSITES ON MEMOIR

Storylines
Guided Autobiography National Association of Memoir Writers
The Legacy Project
LifeBio
StoryCatcher
International Institute for Reminiscence and Life Review
The Association of Personal Historians
Memoir Projects  – Boston

QUOTATIONS – Writing Memoir

Looking back, I see how the writer of a memoir is a kind of weaver. And I remember how, before I left for China, a bolt of cloth grew in my hands, strand by strand by patient strand, each pass of the bobbin a small advancement of the pattern, the finished cloth not unlike a story one might tell – the combination of the warp and weft of different threads.
~ Julie Checkoway

What’s difficult and exhausting about writing as honest a memoir as you can, I think, is going back as a historian and, instead of just weltering in all those emotions, trying to think, “Why did it happen that way? What was really going on?” All the things you took as a given when you were a child you now have to reconstruct and experience from the point of view of many other people.
~ Jill Ker Conway

The interior life is in constant vertical motion; consciousness runs up and down the scales every hour like a slide trombone. It dreams down below; it notices up above; and it notices itself, too, and its own alertness. The vertical motion of consciousness, from inside to outside, interests me.
~ Annie Dillard

When pestered with questions, memory is like an onion that wishes to be peeled so we can read what is laid bare letter by letter.  It is seldom unambiguous and often in mirror-writing… Beneath its dry crackly outer skin, we find another, more moist layer… and each skin sweats words too long muffled.
~  Gunter Grass

Nothing has really happened until it has been recorded.
~ Virginia Woolf

Memoir is how we try to make sense of who we are, who we once were, and what values and heritage shaped us. If a writer seriously embarks on that quest, readers will be nourished by the journey, bringing along many associations with quests of their own.
~ William Zensser

Until next time and with best wishes for the holidays, I will say Adieu with one of my shadow photos,

Ellen

PROFILE

A retired physician, Sterling Haynes practiced family medicine for almost four decades in Alberta, British Columbia and Alabama, delivering over 3000 babies. Based now in British Columbia, he writes non-fiction, humour, and poetry. He has published in the Medical Post, The Canadian Journal of Rural Medicine, the B.C. Medical Journal, the Harvard Medical Alumni Journal, Okanagan Life, B.C. History and The New Quarterly. He is the winner of the B.C. Joyce Dunn award for creative nonfiction, the Naji Naaman literary prize, and had a poem shortlisted by Descant magazine for the best poems written in Canada. Haynes has published twomemoirs on the doctoring life with Caitlin Press: Bloody Practice: Doctoring in the Cariboo and Around the World and Wake Up Call: Tales from a Frontier Doctor.

It was after a left-sided stroke that Dr. Haynes began to write humour and poetry.

I was left with a partially paralysed right foot but a writer’s creative right brain.

Laughter has helped me through many difficult times in life and medicine.

For our anthology Celebrating Poets over 70, Haynes pokes fun at negative aging stereotypes.

TO READ THE COMPLETE POEM >>

FAMILY CAREGIVING

Caitlin Humick and I presented a poster at the recent annual meeting of the Canadian Association on Aging, entitled Role Transitions in Adult Daughters Providing Care to Mothers Living with Alzheimer’s Disease.

Three recent caregiving memoirs published by daughters with close relationships with their mothers were analyzed:

Cathie Borrie’s (2010) The Long Hello: The Other Side of Alzheimer’s
Barbara Pursley’s (2010) Embracing the Moment: An Alzheimer’s Memoir
Virginia Stem Owens’ (2007) Caring for Mother: A Daughter’s Long Goodbye.
TO READ THE ABSTRACT: HumickRyanCAG Daughter-Mother Caregiving Alzheimer’s

BOOK REVIEW

SPIRITUALITY AND AGING.
Robert Atchley.  Baltimore MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.

A recognized North American leader in the area of Aging and Spirituality, Bob Atchley has conducted a 20-year longitudinal study of aging and adaptation.  Learning from elders along his own spiritual journey has also shaped his view of spiritual development across the life span.

Atchley provides a framework and resources to consider how spirituality develops in later life – concepts which apply to aging individuals from diverse religious and non-religious backgrounds.  Qualities of spiritual experience identified by older research participants include stillness, peace, mystery, clarity of seeing, meaning, universal love in the face of suffering, connection with the ground of being, wonder, trust, transformation, call to serve, and desire to pursue a spiritual journey. Spiritual development can occur both naturally and consciously as one ages and represents the higher possibilities of adult development.  The spiritual narrative is particularly valuable for looking at how spiritual identity emerges with life experiences over a lifetime.  TO READ MORE:Atchley09Spirituality&AgingReview

QUOTATIONS

Character is refined in the laboratory of aging.
~ James Hillman

We deem those happy who from the experience of life
have learnt to bear its ills without being overcome by them.
~ Carl Jung

The only thing that can save us as a species is seeing how
we’re not thinking about future generations in the way we live.
What’s lacking is generativity, a generativity that will promote
positive values in the lives of the next generation.
~ Erik H. Erikson

Until next time,

Ellen

PROFILE

Mary Oliver with Maria Shriver Oprah Magazine 2011

MARY OLIVER

Pulitzer prize-winner Mary Oliver, age 76, has been described as the best-selling poet in North America. Her lifelong calling to write poetry has brought many of us ‘up close and personal’ to small living things (e.g. grasshopper, bee, mockingbird, sweetgrass, and blue iris). As well, she has taught us that this attentiveness is prayer.

Maria Shriver was able to interview Mary Oliver earlier this year. One of the best quotations from Shriver’s interview is:  “They say if Mary is taking a walk, and she begins to walk slower and slower, and finally she’s standing still scribbling, you know it was a successful walk.”

On the Internet you may view the interview video and transcript of Shriver’s interview, and you may listen to Mary Oliver reading Wild Geese and The Fish.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

I have a notion that if you are going to be spiritually curious,
you better not get cluttered up with too many material things.

So this is how you swim inward.
So this is how you flow outwards.
So this is how you pray.

When it’s over, I want to say:
all my life I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom,taking the world into my arms.
Listen, are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?

NEWS: Creativity & Aging Through the Lens of Film

Here is a great website which presents video clips on various aspects of aging: Creativity & Aging

I just watched my favourite excerpt from Il Postino – illustrating generativity and mentoring.

You might enjoy looking at this website which presents a project organizing video clips around 5 themes of aging and creativity.

NEWS: Can Exercise Keep You Young?

We all know that physical activity is beneficial in countless ways, but even so, Dr. Mark Tarnopolsky of McMaster University was startled to discover that exercise reduced the many signs of aging in mice: loss of muscle size, mobility, hair, and even brain volume.  TO READ MORE>>

RESEARCHER’S TIP:  On Communicating with a Hearing Loss

Older adults who have a hearing loss experience a great deal of frustration when other people do not make an effort to speak clearly to them and to look at them when they speak.  Of course, the difficulty with hearing loss is that the speaker will probably not realize that the listener has a hearing loss. We encourage older adults with hearing loss to be assertive and to let other people know what help they need e.g., “I have a hearing loss. I can hear you if you look at me when you speak.

~ Louise Hickson, University of Queensland, author of Active Communication Education (ACE): A Program for Older People with Hearing Impairment (2007) and Communication Disability in Aging: Prevention to Intervention (2003).

BOOK REVIEW by Kate Ducak

Montessori Methods for Dementia™: Focusing on the Person and the Prepared Environment
Gail Elliot. Hamilton, ON: McMaster University, 2011.

Montessori methods are a way to increase the confidence and abilities of persons with dementia.  They are based on learning principles created by Maria Montessori and further developed by Cameron Camp to enable persons with dementia to participate in various activities and maintain their social roles.  The main Montessori principles include task breakdown, guided repetition, progressive and modifiable difficulty, and matching the demands of the activity to the abilities of the person.

Montessori activities are designed to make the most of the person’s learning and cognitive abilities, while minimizing language demands by placing external cues in the person’s environment.  The Montessori activity sequence typically includes inviting the person to participate in a meaningful activity based on her/his skills and interests, using familiar objects or materials, demonstrating how to complete the activity by breaking it down into simple steps, providing time and encouragement for the person to complete the activity, and ending by asking if s/he would like to do the activity again another time.

The Montessori Methods for Dementia™ program was developed by Gail Elliot at the Gilbrea Centre for Studies in Aging at McMaster University in conjunction with Dr. Camp and is delivered in a two-day workshop.  The book provides a wealth of easy-to-use information on dementia, dementia care, and Montessori principles for dementia with numerous activities, programs, forms, tools, templates, and examples.  One of the messages in the book is that Montessori Methods for Dementia™ are simple and inexpensive to implement with beneficial results for everyone involved.

This book can be used by family caregivers to learn more about the disease, Montessori principles, and how to create routines and meaningful activities for their loved one with dementia.  For instance, it has guidelines on how to create a schedule for daily routines with a sample included, and examples of activities such as arranging flowers, games, and puzzles.  Family caregivers could also recommend this book to staff who assist with the care of their loved one with dementia in adult day programs, retirement homes, or long-term care homes because of its practical information, templates and case examples as well as a model for programming.

QUOTATIONS

Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done…
‘T is not too late to seek a newer world.
~  Alfred Lord Tennyson

Spirit can be said to be the driving force behind the motive to serve.
And the ultimate test for spirit in one’s old age is, I believe,
can one look back at one’s active life
and achieve serenity from the knowledge
that one has, according to one’s lights, served?
~ Robert K. Greenleaf

Until next time,

Ellen

PROFILE

Ann Elizabeth Carson, age 82, is an active poet, writer, artist, feminist and psychotherapist.  A resident of Toronto, she summers on Manitoulin Island, a source of inspiration for her nature poetry and sculpture. She has always written poetry, but began publishing later in life, in her 70s.

Her life story drives her prose and poetry [as well as her sculpture]. For example, the story of her grandmother’s hair is central to her own life story as well as to the culture and times.  Harvesting the lessons of this story has yielded a rich set of prose writings and poems — a book as well as a section in another book about how people responded to her telling the story.

In the title poem of the book The Risks of Remembrance, Ann Carson asks “Can I inhabit the risks of remembrance?” and comments “speechlessness collides with wanting to tell you”.  She models for us how to remember the emotions of our lives through all the senses so that we can learn from them and even make choices about what to forget. Our stories never leave our bodies, she tells us.

A principal theme of Ann Carson’s life and writing life has been broad-based and intense questioning, this pattern having developed in a childhood where family problems were dealt with in silence.  Her poems are filled with questions and include the comment “there are no one-answer questions”.

Ann’s upcoming book presents conversations with 12 people about the experience of being old:  We All Become Stories, Make Yours a Good One [submitted for publication].

Poems

Morning Is Always Young

Ann Carson Poem of the Month

Sept/Oct Readings – For updates and details, see Ann Carson’s website

Sept 11—Poetry Reading, with other members of the Manitoulin Writer’s Circle, Gore Bay Museum

Sept 24-26th—Poetry Reading, Global Commfest Community Film Festival, Rainbow Cinema, 80 Front St E, Toronto.

Oct 30—Salon 3×3. Three writers and three painters engage each other in painting/poetry conversations.  2:30-5:00 PM, The Merchant’s of Green Coffee House and Cafe, 2 Matilda St, Toronto.

A MORAL INHERITANCE  – JACK LAYTON’S ETHICAL WILL

Love is better than anger.
Hope is better than fear.
Optimism is better than despair.

Two weeks ago, Jack Layton, the 61-year-old head of the official opposition in Canada’s Parliament, passed away from cancer at the pinnacle of his career. In the words of lifespan development expert Erik Erikson, Jack Layton carried out a major responsibility of older people – expressing “a generativity that will promote positive values in the lives of the next generation.”  Only two days before he died, he completed a letter to be made public upon his death.

Jack Layton’s writing of this last message draws attention to his deepest ideals and invites all, especially the young, to come forward to strive for shared values.  As such, the letter exemplifies the best of what we might do by writing an ethical will for our loved ones.

To Young Canadians: As my time in political life draws to a close I want to share with you my belief in your power to change this country and this world. There are great challenges before you, from the overwhelming nature of climate change to the unfairness of an economy that excludes so many from our collective wealth, and the changes necessary to build a more inclusive and generous Canada. I believe in you. Your energy, your vision, your passion for justice are exactly what this country needs today.

Zainab Furqan, a McMaster University student, offers this response to Layton’s legacy:

Every day, my newsfeed has shown me dozens of university students grieving the loss of this man, acknowledging his contributions and committing to uphold his ideals. These are the same university students to whom many politicians don’t bother listening.

He believed in us and valued our contributions- reading his letter reminded me of that and touched me profoundly. It inspired me to live up to his belief in me and I think it has had a similar effect on many, many others.

NEWS ITEM: Japanese woman is bestselling poet at age 99

Toyo Shibata’s self-published anthology, Don’t Lose Heart, has sold 1.5m copies in a market where 10,000 is seen as a success.   TO READ MORE>>

BOOK REVIEW

If I live to be 100: Lessons from the centenarians   
Neenah Ellis. (2004).   New York: Three Rivers Press, 2004.

Neenah Ellis interviewed centenarians for the National Public Radio series One Hundred Years of Stories. She presents these engaging interviews (stories about the past and comments on the present) intertwined with her own impressions of personality, circumstance, and ways of adjusting.  She began looking for the history but soon shifted to a personal search for the meaning of long life and lessons for her/our own old age.

TO READ THE FULL BOOK REVIEW:  Book Review Ellis – If I live to be 100

Quotations

Poetry is the voice of the soul,
whispering, celebrating, singing even.
~  Carolyn Forche

I don’t create poetry;
I create myself, for my poems are a way to me
~ Edith Sodergran

Until next time,

Ellen

IN THIS BLOG

Profile: Kathleen Banchoff
Book & Website Review: McFadden & McFadden, Aging Together …
Caregiving Websites

PROFILE

Kathleen M. Banchoff is a writer living in Providence, Rhode Island. She is active as a family support volunteer for Home & Hospice Care – Rhode Island.

There were many blessings to be had in that company and time,
and finding the stories to tell about us returns me to the laughter and joy of it.
It seemed like the hardest thing I’ve ever done effortlessly,
and that is the grace I want to pass on.
This is the book I promised Skip I would write.
~ Kathleen M. Banchoff, 2006

Banchoff and I have enjoyed a fruitful collaboration concerning Communication, Aging and Caregiving.  Inspired by family caregivers she encountered in our Victorian Order of Nursing workshops in Hamilton, she published a book of teaching stories from her own caregiving experiences in 2006 (Passing on the Blessing ) and edited the stories and poems of family caregivers responding to her call for submissions in 2009 (This Little Light ). Now, she continues to seek caregiving lessons by offering workshops she calls, Finding the Smile: Asking for Help Through Stories.

Together Banchoff and I have edited Gathering Inspiration: Reflections on the Spirituality of Caregiving — a book of poems, prayers, and quotations to support the spirits of family caregivers as they support the spirits of their loved ones. Click here to order this book:  GatheringInspirationOrderForm.

We have also collaborated on 4 learning modules for Your Health Marketplace on the website of the Sheridan Elder Research Centre:
Learning about … Caregiving from Family Caregivers.
Learning about … Writing Your Life Story
Learning about … Spirituality and Health.
Learning about … Self-Advocacy.

Here are some samples of Kathleen Banchoff’s teaching stories

Banchoff#7-BlessMe
Banchoff#7-Road Tripping
Banchoff#7-A Cousins Counsel

Below you can sample family caregiver narratives from This Little Light of Mine.  Each illness narrative shows the particular challenges and lessons learned through caring for family members or those who have become like family. People change, or fail to change, in ways that defy the boundaries set by the physical limitations of the caregiver and the medical realities of the cared-for. Emotions are often mixed, and surge as well as ebb. As in the experience of caregiving, these stories and poems reveal bewilderment, distress, and grief, but also tribute, joy and laughter.

Banchoff#9-1-Introduction-LittleLight
Banchoff#9-Griebling-Tulips
Banchoff#9-RyanDadsVigil
Banchoff#9-PitkeathlyHope
Banchoff#9-Ince-Lunacy

WEBSITE & BOOK REVIEW

Aging Together: Dementia, Friendship, and Flourishing Communities
Susan McFadden and John McFadden   Baltimore MD: Johns Hopkins University, 2011

Aging Together Blogspot

My husband and I thoroughly enjoyed visiting with Susan and John McFadden in Wisconsin last summer.  I had known Susan for some years – we usually met for coffee during aging conferences. Susan’s work in the psychology of religion and aging and her friendship with colleague Anne Basting had brought her to consider issues of personhood in dementia, a topic close to my heart. [See November blog on Writing to Reclaim Identity in Dementia ].

What I learned during our visit was that John, a retired pastor, also has been drawn into reflecting upon the spirituality of dementia – for the person living with dementia and loved ones who care for this person.

Through both the book and website, Aging Together, the McFaddens offer a vision of relationships filled with love, joy, and hope in the face of a condition that all too often elicits anxiety, hopelessness, and despair.  Taking a community perspective, they remind us that we are all living with dementia – in our families, our friends, and perhaps our futures. As well, one person’s forgetting is not so bad if those around the person continue to support, honor, include, and befriend.  Moreover, they argue persuasively with Anne Basting [Forget Memory] that exaggerated stereotypes of dementia needlessly deny the hope and meanings that many individuals and families with dementia are finding, especially with help from others. “We must accomplish through living joyous friendship within flourishing communities what medical science cannot.”

They promote excellent examples of communities of care for persons living with dementia. On their website this summer, they have been writing about visiting Memory Cafés in the UK : A memory café is somewhere where people with dementia and their caregivers can visit to support each other and share information. The groups usually offer refreshments and reminiscence-based activities, sometimes artists visit. Health and social care professionals are also on hand to answer questions and offer advice in an informal setting. Volunteers are often from a local community organization, such as the Rotary Club. “Memory Cafes recognize that we are ALL living with the reality of dementia, and the most appropriate and essential response is to create hospitable spaces in our communities where friendship, love and laughter can be shared by all.”

WEB RESOURCES ON FAMILY CAREGIVING

The Thoughtful Caregiver
Pioneer  Network
Caregiving
Elder Care Online
TransitionalKeys
Family Caregiver Alliance (USA)
Dr. Amy Caregiving
Caring Bridge
ElderPost

QUOTATIONS

There are four kinds of people in the world;
those who have been caregivers;
those who are currently caregivers;
those who will be caregivers;
and those who will need caregivers.
~ Rosalynn Carter

There will be times in your caregiving when
however tired you are, you’re ever so alive;
however separate you are, you’re ever so connected;
whatever brokenness you’ve experienced, you’ve never felt more whole.
~ James E. Miller

Until next time,

Ellen