No one I spoke with at the Mansion, including me, believed that Joan could ace the reading2connect workshop booklet written to revive memory in the elderly and give them the confidence and voice to read again. Joan has memory and eyesight issues, and our hope was that this exercise – completing common phrases left blank – would be stimulating for her.

This week, we had our fourth reading lesson, and Joan instantly recalled every phrase but one. I missed three.

It’s time to step up to slightly more challenging and complex tasks.  Joan’s eyesight prevents her from reading alone, but she reads very well with other people and their guidance and prompting. And reading matter is certainly working to stimulate and revive her memory.

You can see that clearly in the evolution of the four videos I posted on You  Tube. Joan remembers these exercises, is waiting for me when I come into the Activity Room carrying the booklets. She had so much fun today she gave me a soft and loving kiss on the cheek when I left.

it isn’t just that she got the answers, she seems grateful that I am taking the time to read to her and with her. There is a part of her that is very hungry for this stimulation and engagement. I’m not sure how far we can go with it, but I do feel we are just setting out together on a journey I would not have thought possible just a few weeks ago.

I asked Joan if she would like to be in one of our skits at “Night Of Four Skits” in April, she hesitated, saying softly but clearly that she doubted she could read in front of people, her eyes weren’t good, and “whatever..” I said I would stand with her and read her lines with her, and she jumped at the chance, as long as she knew she wasn’t being left alone on a stage in a room full of people.

Joan and I are having great fun, this is exciting to her, and  at the beginning of our work today she tried to tell me that it was fun for her, and exciting, and why. She got so excited, in fact, that she struggled to explain her thought process – her brain was literally running ahead of her mouth. She and I can talk to each other easily now, and I was delighted at how engaged she is in this work – everyone at the Mansion can see it.

She is a sweet and creative soul, able to write poems and paint watercolors. She has suffered great trauma, her daughter was killed by a boyfriend many years ago. Her very lovely inner soul shines through.

So come along and take a look at lesson Four. I think it’s time to step up a notch and see what happens.

I’m excited by the reading2connect experiment. It is a shame for the elderly to have to give up on reading. Perhaps it is not necessary. I’m sure going to work hard to find out.

This work is challenging my beliefs and conventional wisdoms. I need to have faith in Joan for Joan to have faith in me. As an author, I have a special feeling about books and reading, but to my surprise, so do these people at the edge of life, who have lost almost everything they ever loved.

How wonderful if they didn’t have to lose reading, and their ability to stretch their imaginations and connections to one another. Come and see how Joan is doing.

 

 

 

 

This week