Need Art to Live
I am looking for a better quote than this is a paraphrase but recently I read that while we need food and shelter to survive, we need art to live.
Does anything more need to be said?
Can We Create an Earthquake?
Last week I enjoyed a telephone conversation so much I felt I gained a phone friend. And it’s with the very special Lauren Volkmer of ARTZ (Artists for Alzheimer’s). In this rambling introduction to ourselves we used and then repeated various images to agree that there is something very special happening around creativity and aging and creativity and dementia; it has to be a phenomenom of earthshaking proportions. So many wonderful people are working in so many wonderful ways that have deep connections – and Lauren and I agreed we were part of this. But is it a tidal wave or an earthquake? But does it matter as long as it keeps happening?
But the tidal wave seemed to flow through this week’s newspapers here in Greensboro, North Carolina. The first was Monday in that voicebox of capitalism, The Wall Street Journal. There was an article on pyscho-oncology which piqued my interest: “A New View, After Diagnosis“. It is about making life meaningful in the face of fear, in the face of mortality. And from what I read, being creative is, for many people, part of what helps. In my book, creative living in the face of cancer is creative aging at its best.
Another whisper of making meaning is the ad for a set of lectures by James Hollis, Jungian Analyst and Author. He’ll be here at the Presbyterian Church of the Covenant Friday July 17th and Saturday July 18th for Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life and What Matters Most. I haven’t found a description of these programs but I’ve already fallen in love with their titles.
The next piece that reverberates for me is in Meet the Artist in GoTriad section of The News & Record. It’s on Robert ‘Bob’ Postma and he is a living and breathing tidal wave of…creativity, creative aging, community creation, and everything of great meaning. I’ve got to meet this man!
Summer Reading
I can’t pretend to read only books about aging but I do confess that my reading tastes include fiction that provides insight into the experience of people who are aging. A recent find is Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. It came highly recommended; I borrowed from the library of a reader whose taste were eclectic and refined. I found it engrossing. And not just the story of a young man in the Depression-era travelling circus; the old man yearning to be freed from his family and circumstances (the nursing home). If one purpose of reading is being taken places you’ve never been (but recognize when you arrive) then Gruen is a good guide both to the drama of the circus and the backwater of boredom that all too often must be the province of our seniors. Try it yourself!
It’s the work
Recently I attended a meeting in which the presenter said (and I paraphrase) the best thing is to keep the work, the purpose, in the center of everything you do. It was one of those ”ah-ha” moment…I work hard to keep creativity and aging at the center of what I do…yet maybe I do that to the exclusion of reflecting and sharing it. Maybe returning to this blog after such a period of silence can bring me back to a better balance. Because balance is best.
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