Day: April 8, 2018

Tomorrow I’m bring a “Realistic Baby,” as yet unnamed, to the Mansion to ease some of the anxiety and confusion she has been experiencing. Several of the aides have recommended it for her, and asked me if I could help, and i think I found a good one.

These dolls are extremely human like, in looks and touch, they range in price fro $59 to more than $1,000. The one I got cost $200. It is simple and feels like a baby and has toys, diapers and even her own stuffed bear. I have permission to write about it and use the residents name, but I want to wait first and see if it is something she wants and is drawn to.

This week I am also bringing two “activity” aprons to Mansion residents with some memory issues,  the aprons go into their laps and they can feel, touch and manipulate buttons and compartments and fabrics. But first, the Realistic Baby.

I first saw a “Realistic Baby” three or four years ago when Red and I began our therapy work in a Manchester, Vt., assisted care facility, it was much richer and more lavish than the Mansion, the facility was divided into apartments and had plush carpets and open and airy rooms.

Mary was one of the residents Red and I visited, and she had dementia, I believe, she rarely spoke.

When we met her I saw that she was holding a small baby, so realistic I took it to be human, until I got close. The skin was soft like a babies, and could give her baby water, and it came out into the diapers she kept to change her. Mary gave her baby a bottle regularly, and the staff said the baby had been instrumental in calming Mary, giving her an outlet for love and nature, and making her feel needed and engaged.

She was always with the baby, and held and spoke to it.

Over these past few years I saw about a half-dozen babies, and each time I see one, it is more and more realistic.

Like almost everything in America, the Realistic Babies – they are never called dolls – are sometimes controversial. Although elder care staffers believe they reduce anxiety and calm patients with memory loss, the families of the residents sometimes find them patronizing or demeaning.

I have seen how much these dolls can mean to elderly people with severe memory loss, and I have doubt that they provide love and comfort and a sense of being needed and useful.

But it is difficult for a son or daughter to see their mothers holding a baby and loving it intensely, and sometimes they object. There is a protocol about introducing a Realistic Baby to an elderly resident or patient.

The doll is not ever forced in the patient, it is shown to them and it is up to them to reach out to it and want to hold it.  Some do, some don’t.

Realistic babies usually do not  cry out, as that can be  upsetting to the patients. Some of the new Realistic Babies have electronic heartbeats, but they require replacement batteries and it can be frightening to people if the heart stops. I didn’t choose that option. The baby I got can wet herself, and I got a box of diapers to go with her.

There has only been one known study of the impact of Realistic babies on seniors, and it was in 2007 and was positive, it found that the doll gave the baby’s owner a task, a sense of responsibility and engagement, it usually provoked soothing and happy memories, and it seemed to be comforting.

To me, what is important is the resident’s response. If this is something they will love and nurture, it feels right to me. Let them decide. And if that is not the case, they will simply reject it and turn away. I have no idea what will happen tomorrow.

So we’ll see. I’ll share this experience with you, of course.

I mistrust nostalgia, I think it is often lazy and reflexive. The world changes, and we either change along with it, or live on the margins, out of the great conversation. I can’t embrace everything that is new, I can’t mourn everything that is lost.

For most of my life, I was a book writer, an author, a best-selling one, it was a very honorable thing to be and I loved it. But that world is gone for me, and I do not spend much time mourning. it. It was my time, and I found new and exciting and relevant work to do.

I do love Brattleboro, Vt., an idiosyncratic, artsy bastion of individualism, an anti-corporate town. It has cafes, and people are welcome to sit in them and read, and it even has an old mystery bookstore, one of the last in the country. People still read book sin Brattleboro, there are two big old musty bookstores crammed with thousands of titles.

Along along Main Street, you get the sense you are still in a reading place, it seems that every other window has somebody sitting in the sun reading a book. This cafe/reading culture has vanished in most of the country.

There are few bookstores big enough to accommodate readers, and most people read now by holding cellphones up their faces while they walk or even work. I loved the sight of this man sitting in a cafe window in Brattleboro in the sun reading a book. He knows he is welcome to sit in that window all day, and someone is likely to come up to him and refill his cup, no charge.

The old quilt got to me, blown up onto the roof and frozen into a pile on the lawn. This time, I was more emotional about something that Maria, who has the sensitivity of an artist. She was quite cool about the old quilt, she said she would cut it up this week and use it in some of her other works.

For reasons I cannot even imagine, the quilt got to me. I thought it deserved more dignity and  recognition that to end up frozen on a rooftop and then chopped up. It bothered me to see it frozen and torn up out there. I could  hardly look at it, I urged Maria to bring it into the house quickly and not leave it out there in the wind.

I suggested putting it up on a wall, Maria shrugged. I asked if I could have a chunk of it, and she said maybe, she’d have to see. All of Maria’s fiber work comes from discarded fabric, so it is no big deal to her to chop up an old and tattered quilt and use it anew.

I like the idea very much, but I felt for the quilt. Maria was surprised, she said it was quite unlike me.

I brought it into the house frozen and put it in the bathtub. And then Maria hung it back out on the line where the quilt was blown away, and the next morning, we found that a fresh windstorm had blown it off the line again, but not all the way up onto the roof.

Maria took pity on the quilt and brought it inside to dry out by the wood stove. That made me feel better. Tonight, we talked about the quilt, and I asked when  was the quilt going to be chopped up or executed. Maria smiled and said she had a new idea for the quilt that would not involve chopping it up. She wouldn’t tell me what it was.

A reprieve, I said. No, she said, a  rebirth.

Driving home from Brattleboro this morning, I looked over into a new and used camper dealer and saw my dream camper. Maria was recovering from food poisoning but I asked if I could pull over and take a peek. Sure, she gasped and fell asleep.

I loved this camper and would buy it in a heartbeat if I had any money. And I have to be honest, I have never gone camping, not once in my entire life that I remember (there are reports of my going camping once with my family when I was very young,  legend has it that i hated the bugs, snakes, coyotes and other wild things of the night and refused to go again.)

And Maria is sure that I would hate camping. I don’t like chairs with soft backs, being bitten by bugs, sleeping in confined spaces, eating out of cans I buy at the supermarket. I get cold outside, my back hurts, I have allergies, I hate humidity or getting rained on.

And I’m  not great at socializing with strangers or making small talk. I talk with Maria, a few friends, and some of the people who inhabit my universe online.

Why do I want this camper so badly? Maybe because I can’t afford it, maybe because I know I’ll never buy it, maybe because it stirs up the romantic me – get in the truck with my girl and set out to see the country, just like John Steinbeck and his dog. I like the sound of that.

I do fantasize about saying to Maria, “hey let’s get in the camper and drive to the top of a mountain in Vermont, and bring some wind and pick up some sandwiches and light some candles and wrap ourselves in blankets out under the stars, and sit out talking to the moon all night. Fate and Red can come.”

I told Maria about this fantasy, she replied, amid many groans of discomfort from her food poisoning.

“Really?,” she scoffed, “you would hate it. The truck would be slow,  and need constant repairs you can’t make, the bed is too small for your long legs, the air too dank and musty, the refrigerator too small, there would be bugs all over you, and stifling heat or freezing cold. You would be at the total mercy of the camper lot owner, and there would be lots of noise – people fighting, drinking, kids screaming, dogs barking.  There would be all kinds of strangers eager to talk with you and sit by your fire, and no good food to eat unless we drove to  a restaurant. And after two minutes of looking at the stars, you would be bored out of  your mind and want to go hook up the internet and blog.”

All right, I said, mumbling, “but—”

There are no buts, she said, “you would hate it.”

The woman speaks some truth. I don’t romanticize it…still, if we were flexible, there’s a way to make it work. Like avoiding campgrounds and taking short treks.I peeked inside this truck/camper and it didn’t look too tight for me, the bed was pretty big.

Besides, Maria added, it would cost at least $30,000.” Maybe we could lease it, I suggested. Think of the spontaneity we could have. At any time, we could just jump into the camper and take off.

Maria seems to know about such things.

I was taken aback, it seemed like such a romantic idea, and Maria is a bigger romantic than I am, she never walks away from romantic ideas.

Okay, I said, you’re not feeling well. It wouldn’t hurt to call tomorrow and just get the price, I mumbled. Summer is coming on, and I’d love to see that sweet old camper in my driveway. Just in case we ever did want to go out into the woods and camp.

You never know, I told Maria. I never imagined I’d be living with donkeys and sheep either. Or with somebody like you.

She fell asleep.

We  rushed off Saturday to the very funky and atmospheric Latchis Hotel In Brattleboro, Vt. We just need to get away for one night and clear our heads, we are becoming masters of the one-day and weekend vacation. Brattleboro is always great fun and good food, it just fits us.

We planned to have dinner at our favorite restaurant there, the Shin-La, we are great fans of Mrs. Kim, who has owned the  Korean restaurant for more than 30 years, and her delicious soups and scallion pancakes and rice dishes. Mrs. Kim is usually holed up in the kitchen, and only occasionally ventures out, but we were planning to have dinner at Shin-La and then spend a lazy Sunday morning reading, sleeping, talking and revisiting our favorite brunch place before heading home.

Once or twice, she came out to talk to us and tell her story. We liked her very much.

Out trip started in a neat, we passed the first Hemp products store either of us has ever seen and went inside to check it out. Hemp is not the same thing as marijuana, although classified as a drug in some places. Congress is mulling legislation to remove barriers farmers around the country face when they want to plant hem.

But hemp and hemp products are sold legally in many states.

It has long been used to curb anxiety in dogs, and lately, in people. I got a vial, a small one that dispenses drops. Might help me sleep a bit easier, I am prone to nasty dreams the details of which I usually forget. I’ll let you know.

When we checked into the hotel and walked to Shin-Las, we were surprised to find a note about Mrs. Kim. She slipped on the ice and broke her writes on January 10, and the store has been closed ever since

The sign suggests she will be returning shortly, some of the neighbors were not so sure. In Brattleboro, there are no strangers, almost everyone is welcomed as a friend and the word is she might not be able to come back.

I hope she can.

We found a new restaurant up the road a bit. We like it. I got lightly fried calamari, a basil caesar salad and chicken tacos. Maria got chicken tacos and she also got food poisoning. We got up Sunday and headed home I did the driving.

I’ll spare the details, but she was up all night, and has been asleep and wobbly all day.

The weekend reaffirmed my respect for change and also for life. Change is a constant in our lives, not an interruption.

I believe our ability to function in this world depend  great deal on our ability to change. I have finally internalized and accepted that idea. We got what we wanted – a one-day getaway, a good meal, a change of scenery. It has been intense on the farm.

Perhaps it wasn’t as long or restful as we hoped, but we don’t get to play God, we just have a good time as best we can for as long as we can. When one of us is sick or away, the other gets a lesson in just how difficult it is for a single person to run a farm and all of the chore. The dogs, barn cats, chicken, sheep and donkeys all have to eat, and they almost all eat different things. Firewood has to be hauled in stoves stoked and replenished, dishes washed and dried, belongings unpacked.

As Maria does when I am sick, I ran myself ragged all afternoon. She she was already ragged. I went out and got her some Ginger tea and will offer her some toast.

It is really good to be  home, although it is snowing.  Maria should be better in the morning.

Tomorrow, I’ll I bring a realistic baby doll to one of the Mansion residents, and two “activity aprons” to stimulate the residents who might be bored. We’ll see what happens. By weeks’ end, we might need another small vacation.