We had our second poetry workshop meeting at the Mansion today, poet Jackie Thorne and me and eight Mansion residents.
We worked on a poem entitled “Second Home,” and we wrote it together, as a class. The themes that emerged from this poem were powerful, they focused on acceptance, ambivalence, safety and gratitude. The class is quiet, they listen, but as the time passed, they became more emotional and open.
We are hoping to explore the process of aging, and living in a community of people at the edge of life. Hopefully, we can publish another book, the first, Tales Of The Manson, is in its 3rd printing.
The poem title the residents proposed was “Second Home,” exploring the idea of a second home and what that experience means.
This is where we are so far:
Second Home
This is not our first home,
we are no longer free to roam.
We miss our dogs, we miss our family.
But we are safe, we are protected,
we are a place for people with nowhere to go.
The food is wonderful, plentiful,
we are never hungry,
we never have to cook.
This is where we live,
it is just home now,
just where we are,
we accept our lives.
We know one another,
we care for each other,
and we are grateful,
our laundry is done for us,
there is always someone to turn to.
This is our life.
If you don’t accept life,
you are up the creek.
This will always be our home now,
our last home.
We are thankful here,
we’ve got everything that’s ordinary.
Some of us have been places
where that is not the truth.
I like this poem, it is honest and powerful. It’s a good first start. They are eager to work on it until it is done.
In two weeks (after our trip to New Mexico, Jackie and I will return to the Mansion and finish this poem, and then begin another, which the residents have titled “Growing Older.” I am looking forward to that. I am supplying each of the workshop attendees with books of contemporary poems.
Note to the Army Of Good. Halloween is coming in a couple of weeks, and decorations for the Mansion Halloween Christmas Party will be much appreciated.
On October 30, we are hosting an October Fest lunch catered by the Round House Cafe for 30 residents an aides. Your letters and messages are much appreciated. I am exploring sending four Mansion residents to see the “Beach Boys” concert at the Proctor Theater in Schenectady, N.Y. on November 14. I will cost about $400.
Your donations would help them get there.
The donations to the Mansion Fund are much appreciated. You can send them to my post office box, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or via Paypal, [email protected].
The current list of Mansion residents who wish to receive messages are Art, Brother Peter, Winnie, Jean, Ellen, Mary, Gerry, Sylvie, Jane, Diane, Alice, Jean, Madeline, Joan, Allan, Bill, John K, Helen, Connie, Bob, Alanna, Barbara, Peggie, Dorothy, Tim, Arthur, Guerda, Brenda, John Z.
Poetry Month got underway at the Mansion this afternoon, poet Jackie Thorne and I began teaching a series of poetry workshops. We both gave a talk, read some poetry, talked about the different forms.
Jackie read from her very beautiful new book of poetry, Gone To Ground. She talked about her writing process, how she gets her ideas, how she puts a poem together. We read from a number of poets, including Mary Oliver.
We are returning for the next few weeks to help the residents write their own poems, maybe even publish a volume or a pamphlet.
We started out writing a poem together with the six or seven residents participating in the workshop.
We titled the first poem “Family Memories,” and emotional and universal subject at the Mansion. We asked each of the residents to offer a single line about their family memories, and perhaps return to finish them individually later.
They were shy and hesitant at first, but then they warmed up to it.
Each offered a line from their own family memories:
Joan: Good people, up to a point.
Alan: I hated them. I don’t have a family. They are just a shadow.
I escaped. I just ran and came away.
Jane: My mother’s boyfriend Frank. I thought, if I were a bird, what would I do?
Madeline: Stabbed in the heart, I’ll never forget the look on my father’s face.
He was a longshoreman.
Ben: My dad was my mentor, he taught me a lot of things.
Bob: My father greased the hinges on the old barn door when I went off to school,
my mother asked him why, and he said I don’t have to listen for Bob to come home so late any more.
Now, I can grease the barn door.
Alice. Love, I guess.
I could see a lot of emotions opening up, so could Jackie. We’ll be back next month.
Red works the outside of the Mansion as well as the inside. He is getting to know Winnie, a farmer most of her life, new to the Mansion. She is a dog lover and Red looks for her when we come outside on a beautiful day. He stands next to her for ten or fifteen minutes, and then we move on.
The Mansion work is ongoing. Connie needs a new lift chair for her very serious back troubles, her knitting has been interrupted.
I am hoping to get some catered special meals into the Mansion over the holidays, between Thanksgiving and Christmas (holiday decorations for the Mansion would be most welcome.) The boat ride on Lake George was a stunning success, so was our “pizza party,” catered by the Round House Cafe.
We are planning a series of outings. I would like to organize a Beach Boys live concert outing in November for five or six of the residents – they love the Beach Boys. The seats would have to be on the ground floor I think, and the cheapest tickets there are $130, the better ones $370 and up. If I could raise $600 OR $700, I think we could do it, I think five residents and two aides.
I was surprised at the interest at the Mansion about the Beach Boys, I think it would be wonderful for them, they are playing at Proctor’s Theater in Schenectady, N.Y. I’d like to try to raise the money.
Art is getting his new glasses this week, I hope to get him some Bible Stories. Bill is struggling to read again, we are talking about ways for him to feel less isolated. He would love to hear from his gay brothers and sisters, the address is Bill, 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.
The cakes, cupcakes and cards were a big hit with him. He says he is still lonely, but he is more optimistic about his life.
The Beach Boys are coming to Troy, N.Y., it would be great to take some of the Mansion residents there. Music lifts them up. I’m also trying to set up an OctoberFest lunch at the end of October.
Our fund is getting on the low side, there is about $1,300 in it, and I hope to renew my refugee work shortly. Donations for good go to both.
If you would care to donate to the work of the Army Of Good – it is more vital than ever – you can do so by sending your donations to The Mansion/Refugee Fund, c/o P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. You can also send donations to the fund via Paypal, [email protected].
You can choose where you would rather your money go, and I will honor your requests. Please mark the donations for “The Mansion” or “The Refugees” or “For Both.”
The Mansion residents love to get your letters. Here is a list of names of people who love to read them: Brother Peter, Art, Winnie, Jean, Ellen, Mary, Gerry, Sylvie, Jane, Diane, Alice, Jean, Madeline, Joan, Allan, Bill, John K., Helen, Connie, Bob, Alanna, Barbara, Peggie, Dottie, Tim, Guerda, Brenda, John Z.
Thanks, your support and compassion has made an enormous difference in the lives of the Mansion residents.
Almost everyone who has spent time in a nursing home or assisted care or a dementia facility knows of it, has heard of it, has experienced it.
As people grow older, their memories fade, they often become confused and forgetful. Part of that is disease, part may be medication, or the experience of being cut off from everything they know and love. As that happens, friends and family often abandon them, melt away, visit infrequently or, over time, not at all.
It is not always a question of callousness or lack of feeling.
It is difficult to talk with people you know and love as they literally lose their minds and memories and their body fades. The threads that connect them to the people they know. have frayed. They no longer have common experiences to share with the outside world.
I marvel at the love and patience of the Mansion staff and other places where I have gone to do therapy work, they are, in many ways, the new family, often the last family.
Modern medicine keeps people alive longer than ever before, and has made medical treatment so complex it can no longer be offered or managed at home. Aging and dying have taken on a life of their own, it simply runs away with itself, no one seems to manage it or think about it.
So many older people are sentenced to a kind of limbo, a twilight zone between life and death. It can last a very long time.
I remember visiting my mother in an assisted care facility where she was living.
She hated being there and desperately wanted to go somewhere else, there was nowhere else to go. For some years, I have visited the elderly in various institutions, I have never found it difficult to speak with them or be with them, even in dementia units. It was almost impossible for me to be near my mother, to witness her fear and confusion and resentment. To see her decline.
It wasn’t an abstract thing, it was intensely personal, and finally, I could not handle it. I can handle it now.
Some families live nearby, some are especially close to their parents at the Mansion. I see them often, they take their mothers or fathers out to dinner, for walks, to doctors.
But much of the time, visits are infrequent, sometimes, not at all. Over time, the space between them gets longer and longer.
People have so many reasons for not coming often. “I am so busy with work and kids and travel,” one anguished son told me, “but I have to be honest, it is just painful sometimes for me to come here. She is declining so fast.”
They are busy, or far away, or have their own issues and problems to worry about. Often, they spent difficult years caring for their declining mothers and fathers, and are almost desperate to turn this responsibility over to someone else. Caretaking is a grinding trauma in itself, it takes a hidden toll on many people.
They have the right to live their lives, we are all here for so short a time.
Visiting is especially difficult when people have severe memory problems. It is difficult to speak with them in normal conversation, it is painful to see them struggle for words and memories, even more painful when they can’t recall shared memories or sometimes, even who the people visiting them are.
I know it is hard to visit sometimes. I think we all think, this could be us, this will be us. That is hard to bear.
I have great empathy for people who can’t visit often or stay long, and great empathy for the people who feel abandoned.
They may forget the details of the experience, but their emotions are very much alive. People intuitively know when they are left behind, I imagine it is a powerful and necessary instinct for human beings over time.
I always feel the people in the Mansion are especially fortunate, they are loved, well cared for, worried about. Help is always close by, they are listened to and engaged. That is not always the case in assisted care, I have visited places that are very different.
In our culture, we have become adept at prolonging life, indifferent and incompetent at keeping it meaningful.
We put people away and cut them off from the normal world, the world they lived in all of their lives, and we are surprised when they become disoriented, even forgetful. We rush them back and forth to hospitals and doctors with a lengthening list of surgeries and procedures, and medications that often stun them and fog their minds and thoughts.
I think remembering is sometimes painful for them, it makes them lonely.
For awhile, friends come and so do neighbors and family members.
But over time, it seems to be difficult. Lots of people talk about it. The Mansion staff is generous with their hugs and touches, people on the edge of life so miss being touched and hugged. They are very much a family, close to the residents, close to one another.
Every day I visit, someone comes up to me and takes my hand, and thanks me for being there with Red.
One resident can never recall my name, but she knows my face. “I want to thank you for coming back,” she says. “Many people don’t come back.”
Two minutes later, meeting me on the way back down the hallway, she says “I want to thank you for coming back. Many people don’t come back.”
I will come back, I say. I will.
The Mansion residents love to get mail. Please be mindful of sending too many gifts. Many of them cannot be used and are not needed. If someone needs help, I try to share that here on the blog.
Here is a list of residents who would like to get mail: art, Brother Peter, Winnie, Jean, Ellen, Mary, Gerry, Sylvie, Jane, Diane, Alice, Jean, Madeline, Joan, Allen, William John K., Helen, Connie, Robert, Alanna, Barbara, Dottie, Tim, Arthur, Guerda, Brenda, John Z.
You can sent the messages and letters to the Mansion, 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. And thanks.
Life moves slowly and deliberately there. It is often quiet, punctuated by the crises of life in assisted care – trips to doctors, to the hospital, to nursing homes. Sometimes people, neighbors, friends, return, sometimes not. Sometimes they come back, and are different.
At meals, the dining room is quiet, there is little conversation.
The days revolve around meals and medical issues, most people move slowly and deliberately, almost in slow motion. Food is important.
The activity room is always open, the TV is almost always on. There is an activity every day, arts, crafts, talks, drawing, sketching, painting, puzzles. The residents sit around a small table and work together, others nap on the big sofas.
The staff is always circulating, always moving, checking, laughing and cajoling or consoling. There are many needs to meet. They say that as people get older, some get more childlike, the circle turns. I see that sometimes.
This Thursday, Maria will teach a crafts class to Mansion residents at Bedlam Farm, and next week I will teach a poetry workshop at the Mansion along with Jackie Thorne, a local poet.
I ordered six beginner books of poetry and will get some more at Battenkill Books.
At the Mansion, Alice has lunch, rests, and then in late afternoon, she goes to the Great Room and sorts through a pile of magazines. She says it doesn’t really matter what they are about, she just likes to browse through them. When I came up to her with my camera, she laughed shyly, as she always does.
Alice moves very carefully, very slowly, her balance always an issue. When I see her, I always take her hand and walk with her.
“You take a lot of photographs,” she said, “what do you do with them all?” Alice has heard about the blog, but not actually read it, she doesn’t go online, or use a computer. She loves the letters she gets (11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y. 12816).
She is coming to visit the farm in a week with a group of the Mansion residents. They are going to make something with Maria. And she is my date when we go to a play in November. My sense of Alice is that she is at peace, at home with herself, most of the fights of life behind.
She has an easy smile, and a quiet way.
I told her about the blog, and the Army of Good, and her eyes widened. “They must be such nice people,” she said, “to care about us.” They are.
At the Mansion, a sense of the now. Yesterdays crop up now and them, but mostly fade, or are recalled in private. Few people talk about the future, it feels sometimes like a dark and empty place.
There is laughter at the Mansion, and love and memory, and as with people anywhere, gossip and intrigue. Some quarrels. Everyone misses their family, living and gone. There is much talk of who visits and who can’t or won’t. I am shocked by how many of the residents have not heard from their family members or seen them in a long time.
I should not be surprised, I suppose, or judge anyone. I ran away from my family a long time ago and have rarely seen any of them. Several residents have told me that they have no idea where their children live, they can’t find them and never hear from them.
Memory is a fragile thing here, for some it is beyond reach, for others something that can sometimes be retrieved.
I love drifting through the Mansion in the late afternoon with my camera, there is always life to capture there.
There is also a sense of relief, of release, nothing to prove, just a sense of letting go of so many of the burdens of life. Some of the good genes die as we get older, some of the bad ones too, I think.
Time is different there, but sometimes sweeter. Life moves slowly, like a late summer stream, but still beautifully.
If you want to contribute to the work at the Mansion, you can send a check to P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or to paypal, [email protected]. Please note the money is for the Mansion. Thanks.
Here is a list of Mansion residents who wish to receive mail or gifts or messages: Brother Peter, Winnie, Jean, Ellen, Mary, Gerry, Sylvia, Jane, Diane, Alice, Jean, Madeline, Joan, Allan, William, John K, Helen, Connie, Bob, Alanna, Barbara, Peggie, Dorothy, Tim, Arthur, Guerda, Brenda, John Z.
