Collaboration
“To work together with others to achieve a common purpose” (so says Wikipedia), literally “with work” from Late Latin via French. The word now has an odd whiff, for it acquired the sense of treasonous involvement with the enemy during World War Two.
On the other hand, I’ve been having many collaborative experience recently and am being reminded of the incredible power collaboration usually generates. Perhaps in my continuing thoughts about the good, challenging Group-Stitching Mantra workshop are really as much about the power of collaboration as anything else. Something special happens when people make ‘common cause’ and work together. My grandmother would say ‘many hands make light work’ and that’s true. But more than that many hands make magic. Honestly one person stitching while reciting a mantra aloud seems foolish; when many do it, it’s powerful.
A common goal, through different languages
I follow British affairs through the wonders of the web. No longer do I have to purchase a ticket and endure international air travel to read The Daily Telegraph or the The Times. And it is food for thought how the same event is reflected in the differing news sources.
What caught my eye today is the announcement of the death of Harry Patch. Mr Patch was the last veteran of the British Army who fought in the Great War (World War I). He died early Saturday morning in England at the age of 111. It is truly the passing of an era and that means much (at least to me for I have studied the war, its causes, circumstances, and effects for all of my adult life). But my ear caught different phrases in the obituaries published in the national press of these two countries who “are separated by a common language”. The British press, and any quotations from his fellow residents of the British Isles, mentioned that he died surrounded by his friends and ”carers” (his two sons died before him). But Americans don’t say “carers” we say “caregivers”.
Is there a difference and if so, do we care? My copy of the venerable Chambers Dictionary gives “a person who cares” as the first definition of a carer and “a person who takes responsibility for another, dependent person” as the second. That’s interesting. A carer can be someone who is “concerned with…or has affection for” another and that emotion does not have to made manifest through action. Caregiver, on the other hand, is someone who gives care.
Which are you? Which am I? Or which in which circumstance?
The Brain
LXXXII. The Brain
The brain is wider than the sky,
For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include
With ease, and you beside.
The brain is deeper than the sea,
For, hold them, blue to blue,
The one the other will absorb,
As sponges, buckets do.
The brain is just the weight of God,
For, lift them, pound for pound,
And they will differ, if they do,
As syllable from sound.
—Emily Dickinson
The bumperstickers of life
If I won the lottery (improbable because I don’t play) I would use the money to buy a machine to make bumperstickers. Pithy statements appeal to me. I am likely to compose bumperstickers when I feel something, notice something and don’t know what to do about it. Here are my current bumperstickers:
Small Matters.
Cultivate Interdependence
I am unable at the moment to use type and color to make art (or more sense?) from my stickers…but you aren’t reading them on a moving vehicle either!
A view from the gutter
I had occasion recently to walk in the gutter of a busy city street. A construction site forced pedestrians to walk into this tunnel of wood and plastic. I noticed a stream of water, muddy and turbulent, coursed closest to the sidewalk’s edge. I walked along wondering about waste and muttering Mother Earth thoughts, silently condemning developers and construction men alike. Then I noticed the water was no longer in the gutter but that the curb was wet. The volume of water in the gutter was invisible on the broad lip of the curb. And that made me think of change. Change is like that water on the curbstone. It is visible not necessarily in itself but because something is different – the difference between wet and dry is noticed, even by the inobservant eye – but the volume of water is only noticeable when it flows in the gutter. Small things are different every day, small things make a difference every day but change is noticed when a sufficient volume of small things, such as water droplets, form a flood in the edges of our world. Maybe there is justice in that. Small matters!
A synergistic moment
I know I may pay a bit more attention to Alzheimer’s and dementia than most people but it seems the world may be catching up with me! If the world is defined as central North Carolina, any way. It isn’t just that some recent events in town have spotlighted the perspective of people with dementia (through some of the events in the Center for Creative Aging – North Carolina‘s own Create & Celebrate) but then the local powerhouse research university, UNCG, has announced a conference for later this summer: Living Well with Memory Loss: Finding the Balance. If this isn’t enough to think that dementia is finally getting its due then consider the world of fiction. Not one but two books tackle this difficult subject: Still Alice by Lisa Genova and Samantha Harvey‘s The Wilderness. I rave about Still Alice every chance I get and now I’m eagerly awaiting my experience with Jake, the main character in Harvey’s novel. A recent book review in Books & Culture alerted me to Harvey’s book (thank you David Brooks for introducing me to them through your column!).
Surprised by Poetry
Greensboro was a better place last week when the poet, raconteur, and all-around inspiration Gary Glazner was in town. He came to teach us the ways of his Alzheimer’s Poetry Project but he found as much to learn as he had to teach. His partnership was with Poetry GSO, the marvellous program sponsored by the Greensboro Public Library but he was connected to LifeVerse, that fantastic outreach poetry program for seniors. Many of the important players in the local creative aging scene were there so here’s to hoping that an Alzheimer’s Poetry Project GSO is sprouting somewhere near here already! Sandra Redding wrote Poet delights Alzheimer’s patients in the News & Record.
“We Grieve Too”
“We grieve too” said the profesional from the Alzheimer’s Association (to the professional from Hospice). How true. We grieve at a loss because we have allowed ourselves to feel, to be humanly engaged with another. Aging, creative or otherwise, can mean walling ourselves off from feeling, so we feel no loss but then we lose so much.
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