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Endless Possibility
24 November 2009
Some personal thoughts on the experience of being revivified by the Queens University / Arts Council inspired collaboration to awaken - or reawaken - folk with dementia to the endless vista of possibility already in their lives if they will only look for it. Let me as a person with dementia be an example of this.
The course began in Sydenham Court, I think on 20th October, though it may have been earlier, it is listed in my calendar (diary) as “Arts/Drama Event preparation“; it included “golden” nuggets, of experience of one medium, or another, (for example painting by a group, of movement (dance), of drama, of music including the playing of an accordion) and of what I would call transliteration - transferring thought from one medium to another as in transferring the thought of the sound of rain into it’s equivalent in a musical instrument, in this case chime bars. Or playing the sound of the colour ‘brown’, or any other word. And so on ... The course lasted only five or six weeks and was thoroughly enjoyed by all those five or six residents and two or three members of staff attending from Mullan Mews. But I would have to say it was nearly all in the teaching; the students were willing and eager but also inexperienced.
It led me, shortly afterwards to telling a funny story called ‘Dear God‘, which I had received in an email, to a small group of people with dementia. over lunch. I expected that to be greeted by a wall of silence; in fact there was a resounding outbreak of convulsive laughter. The individuals most affected were, I was later told, capable of being positively and deeply affected by humour.
(I recognized this depth of convulsive laughter from earlier experiences of role playing as an actor, in school plays, when I successfully played the lead in comic parts, twice a year for three or four years - I had enjoyed that role immensely!)
So, now among other things that I will do, my possibility is to investigate the role of humor in managing dementia.
Don’t you think that is at least gently funny?
Well of course it is and that is only some of the possibility I see is now facing me. Another is writing a little skit about folk like me who live in that world. And with collaboration that too can be done!
So well done the person who came up with the concept which turned into the thoughts which structured that course! And I hope that’s not as confusing a statement for you as it might be for me.
Paul Riordan, Tenant of Mullan Mews |
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Paul - Endless Possibilities |
Queens - 'Forever Growing' |
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David Grant visiting Mullan Mews |
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