Esther's Writing Works ~ for memory, healing & art's sake

2012-01-03T17:01:00.000-08:00

Witnessing Alzheimer's: A Caregivier's View - January 2012 update

It's been a long time since I've posted here. I've been putting most of my blogging energies into my Seattle P.I. blog "Witnessing Alzheimer's: A Caregiver's View" and, then, forgetting, or not having the energy, to post the blog entries here as well. Today I'm catching up. After Abe died I thought I'd stop the P.I. blog; but it's taken on a life of its own, so I continue. Alzheimer's has become a way of life in the modern world and people need as much information as they can get -- to help with understanding the disease and, most important, to develop a support system to help them care for their loved ones.

"Witnessing Alzheimer's: A Caregiver's View," which I began in 2008, a year and a half before Abe's death, is a blog entwined with the grief process. There are occasional reports on research here, and announcements of books and events; but this blog is primarily personal and idiosyncratic. Journal entries, poems, essays and fragments reflect the emotional and spiritual depth of my relationship to my husband, as I continue to experience the Alzheimer's years and his death. The blog functions as a place for me to explore dementia's impact, all the while it reflects my determination to re-discover myself through work, play and relationships, both new and long-term.

What follows here are my last two entries.

Happy New Year,

Esther

Aging in the Digital Age, January 2, 2012

When Abe retired in 1996, he spoke about getting a Macintosh. That’s what we called Macs in the old days. I reverted to the original term recently when I bought myself a 13” Mac Air. My daughter laughed: “I haven’t heard MACs called that in a long time,” she said. Probably not since 1997 when Steve Jobs developed the MAC OS 8 and certainly not since 1998 when the IMAC came on the market. Nonetheless, I reverted to Macintosh and recalled the day when Abe and I went into the Apple store to begin his search for the just-right-computer. I had been using a PC since 1985 and wasn’t interested in going over to Apple, which didn’t happen until last month; but I was anxious, at the time, to see Abe put one into action. read more... AGING IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Let There Be Light & A Little Less Confusion Here , December 27, 2011

I don’t come from a religious family. My parents were Leftists, and as conflicted as that segment of the Jewish population is, they sent me and my sister to an Orthodox Sunday school – Shaarei Zion, in Lower Park Heights, Baltimore. My brother fared less well (or better); he had to go kicking and screaming to a real Hebrew School three times a week. read more ... LET THERE BE LIGHT

Found poem

2011-09-23T16:52:00.001-07:00

http://blog.seattlepi.com/witnessingalzheimers/2011/09/23/found-nursing-home-note-circa-2007/

Meeting a blog-reader in a California book store

2011-09-07T14:45:00.000-07:00

I don’t study site stats. I write because I need to and try not to let numbers interfere with my work. Whatever I’m doing, whether earning a BA, MA, or Ph.D. while raising my children, whether I’m working at Sears or a social service agency, or teaching, or being Grandma, I write because my mind goes to the page. It lands there — in someone else’s words or in my own. I don’t know who reads my writing.

So I was pleasantly surprised this weekend when I met a woman who actually reads my blog. Both her parents have Alzheimer’s. She found my site a couple years ago while looking for on-line resources. We became face book friends and discovered that she lives in the same town as my son; and, eerier still, she and Ian had worked together in a teachers’ summer writing institute.read more

Poeming the Silence at Greenwood Senior Center

2011-08-21T20:33:00.000-07:00

I have added a second "Poeming the Silence" writing class for women at the Greenwood Senior Center Thur. Oct 13-Nov 17, 10 am-noon. Hope to see you there!

To register, call the center at 206.297.0875.

Of Yoga, Poetry, & Alzheimer's

2011-08-04T21:01:00.000-07:00

This morning I did some yoga with my friend, Andrea. With her, the process of breathing the silence of self led me back to poetry, to the quiet between words that allows me relaxation and thinking time. To writing in poem.

The ending in this poem surprised me. I thought that when Abe’s arms reached out to me, I would return home to where I am actually living, but then the ground swelled up – with the connotation that I was going “home” (to the grave with him), certainly not a conscious thought. Perhaps other widows and widowers, and grievers in general, contain such feeling somewhere in their beings.

Grief counselors as metaphor

2011-05-12T11:11:00.000-07:00

Witnessing Alzheimer's: A Caregiver's View update: I've been posting to the Alzheimer's blog sporadically. There are a few more entries since I was here last, including:

Grief Counselors: I hate when you tell me he’s not dead

Of foot rubs, graduate school and dreams

2011-02-27T11:30:00.000-08:00

I thought I was finished with the topic of Alzheimer’s but obviously it’s not finished with me. So much for thinking I have a will to write what I want. Not that I ever have. In every phase of my academic life, WRITING – in reality or in my head – held me back. In both college and in graduate school, all the while I was supposed to be writing “papers” I was scrawling in my journal. I got my Masters degree because Abe stayed up all night with me so I would finish a sole paragraph on what my thesis was about. He sent it to my graduate advisor by special delivery at 4 am.
Read more

The 36-hour day revisited

2011-02-25T20:56:00.000-08:00

by Esther Altshul Helfgott

Why it took me eight months to realize I was re-experiencing the 36-hour day* is beyond me. For some reason I thought that after a few months of rest I would be able to hop back into the world as if nothing had happened. My body knew better. I may not be Witnessing Alzheimer’s anymore but my psyche sure is, which tells me I need to cultivate a better understanding of what the I is, what the Self is. At least my I and my Self.

As those of you who have followed me here know, I have gone back and forth with this medium. Read more

Reading with Esther and Ann

2011-01-28T17:53:00.000-08:00

RASP 7:00 pm. in Room 105
At the Old Redmond Schoolhouse Community Center (ORSCC) at 16600 NE 80th Street, Redmond, WA 98052

Jan 28, 2011

Esther's updates - Feminism & Work

2010-12-20T13:08:00.000-08:00

Writing, Second-Wave Feminism, & Alzheimer's, Dec. 16, 2010

The Poetry of Work, Dec. 11, 2010

Caregiver update - They keep calling him

2010-11-27T23:32:00.000-08:00

First thing this morning after Thanksgiving (which was very nice - thank you guests), the ACLU calls for Abe to give another donation. If it's not the ACLU, it's NARAL or Planned Parenthood, or the Democratic Party or the Simon Wiesenthal Center or Cornell Alumni, or Doctors Without Borders or a Native American Indian Center or an ambulance service in Israel, or or or. He wrote checks to everybody.

A reader wrote: "Since my dad's death I can't wait to throw away any fund-raising requests or newsletters I get in the mail about Alzheimers." Amen! Read more

Witnessing Alzheimer's update

2010-11-21T17:23:00.000-08:00

Small steps
It's five months since Abe died and little by little I'm finding a new routine. It's not easy, and my steps are small. I think of the nursing-home vigil pretty much every day; and at times it seems my body longs to go back to that scenario, to mingle with patients and staff in the dining room and wander the halls waiting for this social worker or that. I went back a couple of times and will go again this holiday season; but, for the most part, I'm scared of the place. Scared I'll end up there myself. I wonder how many caregivers of Alzheimer's patients come away from the caregiving experience feeling the same. read more

Sitting In Front of Picasso's "Self-Portrait in Straw Hat," While Writing a Letter to Abe

2010-10-19T21:24:00.000-07:00

Witnessing Alzheimer's: A Caregiver's View update, October 19, 2010

NOTE:
Jack Straw Productions curates SAM WORD, October 21, 2010, 7:30 - 8:30 pm, third floor galleries. I will be reading, along with Tara Roth and Denise Calvetti Michaels. Please join us in the third floor galleries.

J.W. Marshall & the Poetry of Illness

2010-10-12T09:25:00.000-07:00

by Esther Altshul Helfgott

Of the mountain of books I have used to help me manage my life during Abe's illness, J.W. Marshall's Meaning A Cloud sits at the top. Marshall's first full-length collection of poetry, Meaning A Cloud carries us from the accident-site where he was struck by a car, to his Seattle neighborhood and, finally, through his mother's stroke and subsequent death in a nursing home. Read more

Witnessing Alzheimer's: A Caregiver's View - Our Parents: Mourning & Families of Origin

2010-08-23T16:49:00.000-07:00

UPDATE

Alzheimer's resources

It's About Time Writers Reading Series #250

2010-06-09T20:39:00.000-07:00

It's About Time Writers Reading Series #250
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Time: 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Location: Ballard Branch, Seattle Public Library
Street: 5614 22nd Ave. N.W.
City/Town: Seattle, WA

Thurs. June 10, 2010 #250 Selene David, Bruce Taylor, Anne Sweet
+Terry Grabstein on The Writer's Craft

Terry Grabstein earned a Certificate in Nonfiction Writing and a Certificate in Literary Fiction Writing from the University of Washington. She has contributed work to Writers in Performance Anthology, Mercer Island Reporter, The Leaflet, and Between the Lines. Silken Water, (Finishing Line Press, 2009), is her first poetry collection.

Selene David was raised in Virginia and wrote her first poem when she was 9 years old. She has been employed as a therapist for 23 years and continues to love writing poetry. Two of her poems were included in The Poet Within, edited by Diane Tait. Selene says she writes about everything she loves: family, friends, nature, spiritual practice, and love itself.

Bruce Taylor, aka “Mr. Magic Realism,” currently has a magic realist novella ”13 Miles to Paradise” in the collection Alembical. His other recent work, Edward: Dancing on the Edge of Infinity, (Redjack Press, introduction by Jay Lake) took eighteen years to get published. Bruce has his first of the Kafka’s Uncle series published by Afterbirth Books (nominated for the &NOW AWARD FOR INNOVATIVE WRITING (SUNY, NY, 2009) and with introduction by Brian Herbert) and has the other two (Kafka’s Uncle: the Unfortunate Sequel and Other Insults to the Morally Perfect and Kafka’s Uncle: The Ghastly Prequel and Other Tales of Love and Pathos from the World’s Most Powerful, Third-World Banana Republic out to various editors.
http://www.brucebtaylor.com/

M. Anne Sweet is a poet and artist. Her poetry collection, Nailed to the Sky, is out from Gazoobi Tales. She has read extensively throughout the Puget Sound area, and her poetry has appeared in many print and online literary journals. She is a past winner of the Bart Baxter Poetry in Performance Award. For more information, visit http://www.facebook.com/l/98e59;www.studiosixeight.com

March 2010 update

2010-03-23T15:04:00.000-07:00

from Witnessing Alzheimer's: A Caregiver's View
Seattle P.I on-line

Ten week catch-up: lots of changes, yet none ...
March 23, 2010

I haven't been here at the blog for over two months. Lots of changes. But the more things change, the more they remain the same. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose - Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr

I went to Abe's yesterday afternoon. He was at the men's club meeting, so I stayed only a few minutes. A minister runs the group. They were talking about health care. No surprise. Congratulations, Mr. President!

Abe's the only one in the group with Alzheimer's. I have no idea what he understands, but he seemed to be listening. His condition is the same: wheel-chair bound; speaks only a few words.

One day he said a whole sentence: "Look who's here!" Another day while lying in bed, he said: "I'm scared." A few minutes later: "Who's that?" referring to people walking in the hall outside his room. That same evening he asked me: "Are you healthy?" Although confused, he was aware of his environment; and he seemed to know me.

The other day when it was warm outside but not warm enough to take him out, I wheel him to the window to see the sun. He points to the man on the motorcycle, delights in seeing a bus pass by, smiles at the woman coming back from the library, a stack of books in her arms. My car is directly below: I wonder if he'd react if he saw me downstairs.

When I get to my car, I look up. There he is in the window, his eyes glistening. He sees me. I wave, he waves back. I can't believe he's responding like this. We wave and wave. I'm jumping up and down. Here we are - me in the parking lot of the nursing home, Abe upstairs - a married couple still, waving to each other as if there's no tomorrow. I want to run back up to him, but I continue waving. I don't know how to get in the car.

I'm finding a balance between this Alzheimer's journey and other parts of my life. In the last two months I've gotten back to my research on Dr. Edith Buxbaum's psychoanalytic pedagogy in the Pacific Northwest. (Ok, so it's not the most exciting topic on earth, but it's mine; and I love to dig in the University of Washington's archives). Writing on Buxbaum leads me to her peers who are as fascinating as she was.

Since taking a leave from this blog I wrote an article for Washington State's on-line encyclopedia, HistoryLink, about educator, Eleanor Siegl, who started The Little School, one of the first alternative preschools in Seattle. Buxbaum was consultant to the school, and the two women were friends.

It's women's history month. I've been conducting interviews. Among them, octogenarians Pat Melgard and Marjorie Whittier Johnson who taught at The Little School and created its Central Branch after Martin Luther King was assassinated.

In addition to my research, I continue curating the It's About Time Writers' Reading Series at the Seattle public library, Ballard branch; and I teach my class Poeming the Silence.

In January I was awarded a Jack Straw Productions' residency. This means I attend workshops and receive audio training. It's a lot of fun. I work with a great group of people and I get to do a podcast. I'll let you know when it comes out.

I went to Hawaii for a few days, compliments of my daughter; and I let my hair grow. I'm walking more and I'm actually getting my hands into the ground to garden.

As for reading:

Mary Guterson, Gone to the Dogs (St. Martin's Press, New York, 2009)
Mary Guterson, We are all fine here (Putnam, New York, 2005)

Andre Gide, Madeleine (Elephant Paperbacks, 1998)

Taha Muhammad Ali, So What: New and Selected Poems: 1971-2005. Translated by Peter Cole, Yahya Hijazi, and Gabriel Levin (Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, 2006)

Adina Hoffman, My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness: A Poet's Life in the Palestinian Century (Yale University Press, New Haven, 2009)

Lucille Clifton, Generations: A Memoir (Random House, New York, 1976)
Lucille Clifton, The Book of Light (Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, 1993)

I forgot what else I read. Nothing on Alzheimer's. I can't. Some books by John Dewey connected with my research. It's been a good 10 weeks. I'll talk to you again soon.

Thanks for stopping by,

Esther

October 2009 update

2009-10-05T16:51:00.000-07:00

2 pubs this month:

"My Father's Tzimmes, 1956" in Switched-on-Gutenberg
"Fragments from An Alzheimer's Journey" over at FragLit

Witnessing Alzheimer's: A Caregiver's View - Goodbye for now

I'll be reading at Hugo House with the Switched-on-Gutenberg contributors Thurs. Oct. 15th. We'll be in the cafe. 7:30 pm. You can get a bite to eat, have some wine and catch the readings from issues 14 "Science and Technology" and Issue 15 "Gains and Losses”. Guess which one I'm in.

Don't forget It's About Time Thurs night.

See you soon,
Esther

Sept. 2009 Updates

2009-09-30T12:06:00.000-07:00

The It's About Time Writers Reading Series has its own blog now. We are also on facebook.

The Poeming the Silence blog is now activated.

See you soon,

Esther

Don't think he's not in there

2009-08-10T11:30:00.000-07:00

previous updates at Witnessing Alzheimer's: A Caregiver's View

I'm lucky in rabbis

2009-07-23T22:39:00.000-07:00

Witnessing Alzheimer's: A Caregiver's View

Keeping you posted

2009-07-16T21:08:00.000-07:00

Abe update

It's About Time Writers Reading Series#239

2009-07-04T11:55:00.000-07:00

Thursday, July 9, 2009
Time: 6:00pm - 7:45pm
Location: Ballard library
Street: 5614 22nd Ave. N.W.
City/Town: Seattle, WA

Authur Tulee, Jeff Encke, Jane Alynn + Laura McKee on The Writer's Craft

Laura McKee holds a B.A. in French and English from the University of Utah, and an M.F.A from the University of Washington. Her work has appeared in Rhino, Mid-American Review, Campbell’s Corner, Identity Theory, Konundrum, Cutbank, and Denver Quarterly. Her book, Uttermost Paradise Place, was chosen this year by Claudia Keelan for the APR Honickman 1st Book Prize and will be published in the fall. She works at Cornish College of the Arts.

Arthur Tulee was born and raised on the Yakama Indian Reservation and graduated from Washington State University in 1990, receiving a B.A. in English. He is currently living and working in the Seattle metropolitan area. He is excited to read all brand new material for this It's About Time.

Jane Alynn is a poet and fine-art photographer. Alynn’s first collection of poems, Threads & Dust, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2005. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, such as Calyx, Floating Bridge Review, The Pacific Review, Quercus Review, Manorborn, Snowy Egret, StringTown, and Switched-on Gutenberg, as well as in many anthologies. In 2004 she was awarded a William Stafford Award from Washington Poets Association. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles and currently lives in Anacortes.

Jeff Encke taught writing and criticism at Columbia University for several years, serving as writer-in-residence for the Program in Narrative Medicine while completing his PhD in English in 2002. He now teaches literature at Richard Hugo House. His poems have appeared in or forthcoming from American Poetry Review, Barrow Street, Bat City Review, Black Warrior Review, Colorado Review, Fence, Kenyon Review Online, Salt Hill, and Tarpaulin Sky, among others. In 2004, he published Most Wanted: A Gamble in Verse, a series of love poems addressed to Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi war criminals printed on a deck of playing cards.

Music: for memory, healing & art's sake

2009-06-06T19:43:00.001-07:00

June 5, 2009

Rosewood, Uncle Benny, Abe & Alzheimer's

2009-05-06T17:14:00.000-07:00

It turns out I had early training in Alzheimer's care. I grew up with a mentally impaired and physically disabled uncle, whom I adored. He lived in an institution called Rosewood, actually the Rosewood State Training School for Boys, out Reisterstown Rd. in Owings Mill, Md., about an hour north of where the Helfgott and Altshul clans lived in Baltimore city.

read more

Is Art Betrayal?

2009-05-06T17:11:00.000-07:00

It's a dangerous mission. You/could die out there. You /could go on forever. Tess Gallagher, Instructions to the Double

Frye Art Museum
Sunday, May 3, 2009

As soon as I go to the podium, I want Abe. In my mind, I leave, run to the nursing home to be with him. I don't belong in this space. Something is wrong. I'm supposed to talk about my poem Spouse as Home but I can't speak. I can't look at my notes. What I'm doing is unethical. My body tells me this.

read more

Beyond Forgetting: Poetry & Prose about Alzheimer's Disease - Reading at Frye Museum

2009-04-30T10:31:00.000-07:00

May 3, 2009
2 pm

Frye Art Museum
704 Terry Avenue
Seattle, Washington
98104
(206) 622-9250

I'll be reading. Hope you can make it!
Tickets are free. Pick them up at the front desk

Beyond Forgetting is a unique collection of poetry and short prose about Alzheimer’s disease written by 100 contemporary writers—doctors, nurses, social workers, hospice workers, family members —whose lives have been touched by this tragic disease. Through the transformative power of writing, their words enable the reader to move “beyond forgetting,” beyond the stereotypical portrayal of Alzheimer’s disease to honor the dignity of those afflicted. Published in spring 2009 by Kent State University Press as part of their Literature and Medicine series and with a foreword by poet Tess Gallagher, this anthology forms a richly textured, literary portrait encompassing the full range of the experience of caring for someone with Alzheimer’s disease.

The Frye is honored to host the first public reading from Beyond Forgetting. Readers are poet Tess Gallagher, editor/poet Holly Hughes, and contributors Jane Alynn, Lana Hechtman Ayers, Joanne Clarkson, Nancy Dahlberg, John Davis, Alice Derry, Arthur Ginsberg, Joseph Green, Esther Altshul Helfgott, Denise Calvetti Michaels, and Kay Mullen. The book will be available for purchase at the event.
Related Items
Readings

Alzheimer Node

2009-04-27T11:42:00.000-07:00

My blog today is the result of Poetry through the Ages
If you haven't seen it, give a click, especially the node section.

Gay Marriage, Kabbalah & Abe

2009-04-25T12:38:00.000-07:00

For more entries at Witinessing Alzheimer's: A Caregiver's View, seattlepi.com, check blog archive.

It's About Time Writers, May 14, 2009

2009-04-21T16:32:00.000-07:00

Thurs. May 14, 2009 #237 features Rochelle Kochin, Carmen Germain, Josh Isaac + Emily Warn on The Writer's Craft.

Emily Warn is the author of The Leaf Path, The Novice Insomniac, and Shadow Architect all from Copper Canyon Press in 2008. Her poems and essays appear in Poetry, The Kenyon Review, Blackbird, BookForum, The Bloomsbury Review, and The Writer’s Almanac. She has taught creative writing for Lynchburg College in Virginia, was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and most recently served as the founding editor of poetryfoundation.org. She will be speaking on Poetry and Personal Identity.

Rochelle Kochin and her husband Levis Kochin live in Seattle where they raised their four children. Since retiring from Boeing, Rochelle spends her time writing, traveling and telling stories to her American and Israeli grandchildren. Her short story Angel of Death appeared in the second volume of Drash.

Joshua Isaac, 36, has been expressing himself creatively since childhood with several published pieces of poetry, prose and an award winning documentary film. But his work has been defined by his ongoing eleven year battle with cancer. This Seattle native finds that his greatest gifts are his wife and three children. Josh's film "My Left Hand" is at http://mylefthand-themovie.com/default.aspx

Carmen Germain is a co-director of the Foothills Writers Series, Peninsula College, Port Angeles. Pathwise Press published Living Room, Earth, in 2002, and Cherry Grove published These Things I Will Take with Me in 2008. On academic sabbatical in 2007-2008, Carmen was a Visiting Artist/Scholar at the American Academy in Rome, working on a manuscript and researching the work of the Italian post-war writer Elsa Morante. She and her husband live in northern British Columbia in the summer.

Diaries and such

2009-04-10T23:19:00.000-07:00

Writing, technology & another good moment - April 10, 2009
at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on line

Witnessing Alzheimer's update

2009-04-08T09:25:00.000-07:00

Food, Writing and your loved ones - April 6, 2009

Small annoyances - April 1, 2009

Let me call you sweetheart - March 31, 2009

Dental hygiene - March 29, 2009

of pain & dying - March 28, 2009

Memory Loss Seminar - Everett/Edmonds - April 3

2009-04-02T02:24:00.000-07:00

Memory Loss Seminar - Everett/Edmonds - April 3
Thanks to reader Leslie Larson, I bring you the following information:

SEMINAR: Putting the Pieces Together - How to Support Friends and Family Dealing with Memory Loss Issues with Teepa Snow, Dementia Care and Training Specialist

April 3, 2009
2 locations!
Please pre-register
Space is limited
F R E E

9:30 AM - 12:00 Noon
Trinity Episcopal Church
2301 Hoyt Avenue
Everett WA 98201
Call to register:
425-252-4129

1:30 PM - 4:00 PM
Edmonds United
Methodist Church
828 Caspers Street
Edmonds, WA 98020
Call to register:
425-670-8984
Ext. 22

You will learn:
• The symptoms of various memory loss diseases.
• Communication strategies that work.
• How to cope with and effectively handle a broad
range of difficult behaviors.
• Strategies to maintain meaningful activities and
relationships without diminishing your health (mental
and physical).
• Snohomish County has many excellent community
resources specializing in family caregiving issues.

The Communities of Faith / Family Caregiver Workshops
are underwritten by the Snohomish County Family Caregiver Network, www.snocare.org and the Alzheimer's Associations of Western and Central Washington, www.alzwa.org

Department of Human Services Director Kenneth Stark ken.stark@snoco.org
Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon county.executive@snoco.org

More info at Witnessing Alzheimer's: A Caregiver's View

Alzheimer's Association Regional Conference

2009-04-02T02:18:00.000-07:00

Alzheimer's Association Regional Conference
Supporting the Resilient Mind

Friday, April 24th, from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., at the Washington State Convention Center.

According to Keri Pollock of the Western and Central Washington State Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association: This year's conference will be our 24th annual and promises to be the best yet.

We offer a special family caregiver rate of $40.00, which includes 3 workshops, two keynote speakers, information, resources, and a lovely plated lunch. We intentionally developed a family caregiver track, knowing how hungry caregivers are for hands-on, relevant training, and a day in the company of others with whom they can share, connect, and relate.

There is also a pre-conference day of sessions on Thurs. April 23rd.

For information, contact:
Keri Pollock (Heinen)
Communications Director
Western and Central Washington State Chapter
ph. 206.363.5500 ext 246
www.alzwa.org

More info at Witnessing Alzheimer's: A Caregiver's View

from Witnessing Alzheimer's

2009-03-16T14:19:00.000-07:00

2 more entries

Hands March 15, 2009

poem making March 16, 2009

Reading & Writing

2009-03-14T09:15:00.000-07:00

from my blog, Witnessing Alzheimer's: A Caregiver's View, at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on-line, March 13, 2009

Bluebeard's Castle & Jewish Law

2009-03-11T11:25:00.000-07:00

from Witnessing Alzheimer's: A Caregiver's View, Seattle P.I., March 10, 2009

Saturday night I went with a friend to see Bluebeard's Castle. I don't know much about opera, but I can't imagine another troupe putting on a better rendition of Bluebeard or Erwartung than the Seattle Opera did. A spectacular evening. Except I wasn't in the right frame of mind to go to the opera or anywhere else. It's true what they say about the long goodbye. One is forever in a state of mourning, so no matter how stunning the settings, the orchestra, the arias, I am hard-pressed to find joy in a musical night out. read more

Still Alice

2009-03-06T13:21:00.000-08:00

Thanks to a reader I met on facebook, I picked up a copy of Still Alice this weekend, a gripping read. I couldn't put it down.

For those who are living through Alzheimer's, whether as caregiver or victim, I understand why you wouldn't want to read one more sentence about Alzheimer's. After years of dealing with the disease and studying this opinion and that, reader's fatigue sets in. But Still Alice will pick you up again. It's all about the idea of self and its practical manifestations in every day life. Though Genova doesn't use these words - the language is mine and she may disagree - for me the characters of Alice and her husband, John, demonstrate first hand the relationship between ego and self.

read more

March 6, 2009, Witnessing Alzheimer's: A Caregiver's View

Cheekbones

2009-03-06T13:14:00.000-08:00

Abe was so beautiful tonight. We've been married 27 years and have known each other 28, but in all that time I don't think I've noticed his cheekbones.

He slept in his wheelchair throughout my visit. I sat on his bed and watched him. He's lost about 50 pounds. His face is thin and sculpted. He is pure Abe, pristine and whole. His cheekbones are stunning.

I'm taken aback. On the one hand, absence of his beard has upset me more than I initially thought it would (I've asked them not to shave him again); on the other hand, the shaven face has allowed me to see newness where I hadn't before. Newness, as in a new-born's newness, absent of scars and blemishes that come with living.

read more
March 4, 2009, Witnessing Alzheimer's: A Caregiver's View

Nursing Home Break: Irene Drennan & the Red Sky Poetry Reading at Hugo House

2009-03-01T14:16:00.000-08:00

from Witnessing Alzheimer's: A Caregiver's View at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on line

Just home from the dog park and a good walk with Emma. I always forget the digital camera. You should have seen Emma next to a 160 pound St. Bernard. Big as she is her 75 pounds could have walked under him.

I had planned to go to see Abe after the dog park; but all night long I dreamed of driving to the home, getting out of the car with a bottle of water, forgetting the water somewhere, then not being able to find his room once off the elevator and on the right floor. The dream goes on and on, I'm back in graduate school, then years earlier to when my kids were little and old age was something I didn't know about.

So I didn't go to the nursing home. The dream helped me not go. I went home instead, dried Emma off and came here to decide what poem's I'll read tonight. I don't know if I'll get to Abe's today or not.

Today and night I spend time with my friend and writing group sister, Irene Drennan. Irene died in August and tonight Red Sky is paying her tribute with a reading at Hugo House, 7 pm. Poets in both of Irene's writing groups are reading.

From the the Seattle Five Plus One group are Anne Sweet and Priscilla Long and from the Daughters of Dementia, I'll be reading along with Diane Westergaard and Denise Calvetti Michaels.

The Daughters met at my house for two of the years that I cared for Abe at home so Irene and the others were very much a part of us and Abe a part of them. I think I'll read a couple of poems I wrote when in the group with her and some she always laughed at. The poems will help me hear her laugh again. She had such a great laugh. You can see it here MsgAttachment[1].jpg

Hope to see some of you at Hugo House in a few hours. There's open mic so you can read too. Come early to get a seat and a parking spot.

Thanks for stopping by,
Esther

free association (beard's gone)

2009-03-01T14:11:00.000-08:00

February 28, 2009

He looked so frail tonight, more so than usual. I wish they hadn't shaved his beard off. He looks more like his brother now than he does himself. I don't know why they had to shave his beard off. He's had it over 40 years. I wonder how his face feels to him now? Does he know? Does it itch? When he touches his face does he feel something's missing? They shouldn't have cut his beard off. They should have included me in that decision. I don't know why I feel worse about his beard than I do the cross on his forehead on Ash Wednesday, but I do. They had no business shaving him. I've never seen him without a beard except in pictures when he was young, maybe in his thirties and before. He's lost so much weight, 40 pounds or more and he loses more every day. The speech therapist changed his diet from "pureed" to "mechanical soft," also without consulting me. He can't eat that food, can't swallow, keeps it in his cheeks (called pocketing), until it falls out or he figures how to spit it out. He's so thin. It's better if he drinks a health shake, which provides nutrition, than to worry him with food he can't swallow. He's so thin, he's so so thin, and now his beard's gone. When I got there at 5:30 tonight, he was in the dining room asleep in his wheelchair. He had a paper cup of something slipping out of his hand and most of what had been in the cup was on his shirt. He wasn't the only one. Everyone was waiting for dinner. He had his red t-shirt on. He looks beautiful in red and with the beard gone his face is all pink like a baby's. I took the cup from his hand and wiped his shirt. He continued sleeping, his mouth open, then closed, then open. I don't know why they had to shave his beard off. I loved his beard. Later in bed he wakened a bit but still I couldn't get him to drink, much less eat. He knew me. When I said I love you, he said Me too, smiled a little, then went back to sleep. The sleep's from not refusing his medicine. Yesterday he refused his so ate more, at least I think that's the cause and effect. (The nurse showed me the chart, which is how I know when he did and didn't take his medicine). I can't stand that they shaved him. The first time I saw him shaved last week, I worried more about his face itching and how it would feel as it grew back than anything else. Everybody said how great he looked and he did look great, but now they did it again and so unexpectantly. That's what they do with men in the mornings, one nurse told me. Maybe so, but not to men with beards. Darn it. I wonder how he feels when he's being shaved. It's not as if he doesn't have feelings anymore. He's still Abe, and I'm still Esther. I don't know him without a beard. I didn't know he had little veins in his face or that his ears stuck out like that. I didn't know there was all that vulnerability under a beard. I didn't ever know men were so vulnerable as that.

read more of Witnessing Alzheimer's

Comment:

Posted by Esther Altshul Helfgott at 3/1/09 11:57 a.m.

This isn't true free association. In that process, I include all thoughts and images that come to mind. I include dreams and pictures, colors, tastes and smells. I wouldn't use upper case or punctuation. Lines, words and sentences fall over each other. It's difficult to read.

But here you may get an idea of what happens when I suggest that students free associate on the page to see what themes they are thinking about. There's always plenty of material that emerges, and in the unconscious, of course, there is infinity.

Of Poetry & Exercise

2009-02-27T05:54:00.000-08:00

Today when I read from Naomi Shihab Nye's Envy:*

The white cat
on the white chair
lives white minutes
I'm not even in

he said: That's beautiful; and when I started to get up, he said: Don't go.

Imagine. Two sentences. And he looked at me - with mind.

The move to the second floor has been good for him. He's more alert and he shows more affect. Today, as people passed us in the hall, he smiled his crinkly-eyed smile and a young blonde visitor caught his eye.

Meanwhile, I joined the Y and Silver Sneakers, had my first exercise class and consultation with the Y's personal trainer, both good experiences. I especially like doing the strengthening stuff and working out with weights. Who knew?

Thanks for stopping by,
Esther

*Envy by Naomi Shihab Nye in Cats of Cairo: Egypt's Enduring Legacy by Lorraine Chittock.

read more of Witnessing Alzheimer's at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on line

Ash Wednesday

2009-02-27T05:51:00.000-08:00

Feb. 25 '09

Visiting Abe tonight had an interesting twist. I came in after he was washed and readied for bed. He looked sweet. His face was pink and beautifully clean. Except ... the aide must have missed a spot....

read more of Witnessing Alzheimer's at www.seattlepi.com

A dozen darn donuts

2009-02-23T15:32:00.000-08:00

I sit by his bed. It's 3:30 p.m. He's sleeping. I watch him for only a few minutes, then tell the aide: "I'll be back." But I don't go back. I leave the nursing home thinking I'll go back/knowing I won't.

Instead, I get in the car and go to Krispy Kreme Donuts. I never go to Krispy Kreme Donuts. I don't buy donuts. I don't eat donuts. I live across the street from Top Hat Donuts and I don't even go in there because I don't buy donuts. I mean never. When did you ever see me buy a donut? read more at Witnessing Alzheimer's: A Caregiver's View, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.com.

Today's Visit

2009-02-20T00:58:00.000-08:00

Witnessing Alzheimer's - Feb. 19, 2009

Abe ate by himself

2009-02-17T23:25:00.000-08:00

Exciting day. My California son and grandson are here for the week.

At lunch, Abe ate his food (pureed) - some of it - all by himself. He was more alert than I've seen him in awhile.

Notice of an Alzheimer's Anthology I have a poem in just came out. The actual tome should be on the stands in March '09.

Two Seattle readings are already planned. I hope some of you will be able to make it.

May 2 Elliot Bay Books 7:30 pm (time still needs to be confirmed)
May 3 Frye Art Museum 2 pm - I'll be reading here

Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer's Disease
Edited by Holly J. Hughes

Literature and Medicine Series
2009, 276 pp
ISBN 978-1-60635-007-2

A literary collection that illumines the darkness of Alzheimer's disease

read more of Witnessing Alzheimer's at seattlepi.com

Abe update

2009-02-14T05:25:00.000-08:00

Feb 14, 2009 He's moved

Feb 12, 2009 Abe's Move & the It's About Time Writers Reading Series

Feb 10, 2009 Watching Avalon

Alzheimer's, illness & God

2009-02-07T07:48:00.000-08:00

Feb 5th & 6th, 2009: God, God I will look for you ....

Feb. 3, 2009 Illness, aging & poetry

Alzheimer's, caregiving & movies

2009-02-03T13:39:00.000-08:00

Feb. 3, 2009: Movies, Black history month & Octavia E. Butler

Feb. 2, 2009: Thanks for checking in

read more on Witnessing Alzheimer's at www.seattlepi.com

3 more days of Witnessing Alzheimer's

2009-01-30T13:43:00.000-08:00

Jan. 26, 2009: A complaining day, perhaps don't read

Jan 27, 2009: Alzheimer studies and personality traits

Jan 29, 2009: I just came to see my husband

Bedridden

2009-01-25T13:22:00.000-08:00

read more of Witnessing Alzheimer's at seattlepi.com

Can't ambulate

2009-01-24T21:28:00.000-08:00

Witnessing Alzheimer's: Stage 7

2009-01-22T11:59:00.000-08:00

...
I never expected him to reach this point. At the same time, I haven't wished for him to die. I haven't prayed for him to die. I've made no bargains with God or anyone else. I've just done everything I could to keep him comfortable. I've poured myself into that task. If it had been me I'd have wanted euthanasia. But I know Abe would not have wanted that, even if it were possible. He'll stay until the end and I'll stay with him. I only hope my courage is as great as his.

read more at the Seattle P.I.

He was better today

2009-01-19T12:04:00.000-08:00

recognized me when I came in
took my hand and kissed it.

Later, he kissed his own hand.
He has a bruise,
and he kissed the bruise
as if he were a father caring for a child,
something like the day
he called himself He.

While I was there he ate
a cup of ice cream, strawberry
with medicine in it
and 3 to 4 ounces of health shake.

A few days ago
I didn't think I'd make it to the opera tomorrow.
I thought I'd be arranging a funeral
but I'll go to the opera
and out to eat with a friend.
I'll pretend the day is normal.
Maybe it is.

Thanks for dropping by,

Esther

Suggested reading

Alzheimer's Notes

Witnessing Alzheimer's: He opened his eyes

2009-01-16T09:06:00.000-08:00

He opened his eyes

he's weak and tired
his hands curl into fists
read more at the Seattle PI

Witnessing Alzheimer's: Dinner

2009-01-14T10:38:00.000-08:00

Last night at dinner:
a dish of pears
6 ounces of health shake
4 ounces of apple juice
the rest: spit read more at the Seattle P.I.

A twinkle in his eye

2009-01-12T12:10:00.000-08:00

There was no twinkle in Abe's eye yesterday; not much the day before either. Today I brought him read more

In my dream

2009-01-11T14:11:00.000-08:00

She kisses me goodbye

2009-01-06T13:57:00.000-08:00

In this entry, Abe gets a chance to speak, a fun way to open up possibilites for our relationship on the page.

Progress Report

2009-01-04T08:38:00.000-08:00

He ate an orange

2009-01-02T06:18:00.000-08:00

In the afternoon, I bring a pear

2008-12-31T13:10:00.000-08:00

My 'Witnessing Alzheimer's' blog at P.I.

2008-12-27T16:58:00.000-08:00

Dec. 28, 2008
A telescope, bananas and an everything-in-it-room
Dec. 26, 2008
Unsuccessful visit

Witnessing Alzheimer's: Seattle's Snow Days

2008-12-23T16:05:00.000-08:00

A new entry over at the Seattle P.I. in my Witnessing Alzheimer's series.

Letter to Dr. Alois Alzheimer

2008-12-19T13:25:00.000-08:00

The latest entry in my Witnessing Alzheimer's blog

Peter Falk, Hip Surgery & Alzheimer's

2008-12-18T07:05:00.000-08:00

Reading the Book of Noah

2008-12-16T14:41:00.000-08:00

recent Witnessing Alzheimer's blog entries
Reading the Book of Noah

Listening to Gershwin

A Question of Language

2008-12-15T07:07:00.000-08:00

I visit while he sleeps...

2008-12-14T09:49:00.000-08:00

I visit while he sleeps, the Validation theory, and some thoughts on Asian poetry

Story is at Witnessing Alzheimer's

Visiting Facilities

2008-12-14T09:44:00.000-08:00

Visiting Facilities: A Look Back

Witnessing Alzheimer's: Love Seat

2008-12-14T09:40:00.000-08:00

Dec 11th entry Love Seat

Witnessing Alzheimer's: A Spouse's Perspective

2008-12-09T21:30:00.000-08:00

My Dec. 7, 2008 entry appears at the Seattle Post Intellegencer Reader's Blog
I visit while he sleeps, the Validation theory, and some thoughts on Asian poetry

Dec 3, 2008 Witnessing Alzheimer's entry:
Writing as a container for Grief: two diary entries

Dec 2, 2008 Without Memory

Dec. 1, 2008
Parallel Universe

Nov. 28, 2008
Thanksgiving Day, 2008

"Witnessing Alzheimer's"

2008-12-05T20:02:00.000-08:00

The Seattle. P.I. has just launched my new blog, "Witnessing Alzheimer's."

I am honored and delighted that they have given me such a fine space. I hope you will drop by.

Esther

New at Beth Shalom

2008-10-20T15:58:00.000-07:00

Writing the Jewish Self

Each of us who identifies as a Jew comprises diverse backgrounds of Jewish (and non-Jewish) experiences that contribute to the workings of Congregation Beth Shalom and the larger community. Through in-class writing exercises we will develop tools to record life events. While I use poems to trigger writing and to uncover silences within us, all written forms are encouraged -- diaries, fragments, stories, poems, memoirs, dreams, recipes, lists, whatever we discover.

Participants interview each other, write poetic dyads, read their work and sometimes combine writings with collage art. The group is structured, yet informal. It is organized as a personal development or creative expression's group. We do no critiquing. Our primary goal is to create a safe and nurturing environment so we can write, speak and breathe ourselves into the world.

Writing the Jewish Self is scheduled to take place at Beth Shalom Synagogue on Wednesday nights, November 5, 12, 19 and December 3, 10, 17 (6 sessions) from 7:00-8:30pm. Cost: $162 for members, $180 for non-members. Writer Esther Altshul Helfgott is the instructor. Proceeds go to the Homeless to Renter Program established by Temple Beth Am and administered by the Jewish Family Service. Please register for the class by calling Beth Shalom at 524-0075.

Esther Altshul Helfgott is a non-fiction writer, teacher and poet. She believes everyone has a story to tell and, with practice and encouragement, everyone can write. Esther's work has appeared in more than sixty journals and periodicals on-line and in-print. She has a Ph.D. in history from the University of Washington and has been nurturing writers through her It’s About Time Writers Reading Series (now at Ballard Library) for 18 years. For more information www.estherhelfgott.com

Memory Loss: Abe and Sarena

2008-08-13T20:05:00.000-07:00

1

He has begun
to speak of
himself
in the third
person.

2

When asked
her name
she says:
I used to be
Sarena.

Drash: Northwest Mosaic

2008-07-13T11:51:00.000-07:00

Drash, vol 2 is out on the bookstands. I'm proud to have a poem and an interview in pages that include:

Wendy Marcus (editor), Pesha Joyce Gertler, Diane Ray, Martin Perlman, Suzanne E. Edison, Susan Monas, Judith E. Freimark, Ken Shiovitz, Maureen Sherbondy, Michael Bonacci, Marilyn Greene Johnston, Elaine Bishop, Justin Vicari, Lois Rosen, Jerome Richard, P.Hurshell, Rob Freedman, Fredda Jaffe, Diana Brement, David B. Williams, Linda Clifton, Erika Michael, Jed Myers, Selma Bernstein, Rachel Wolf, David Dawson, Ilana Long, Sue Schwartz, Paul Lichter, TA Delmore, Jane Levin, Murray Gordon, Tree McCurdy, Donald Kentop, Sandra Larkman Heindsmann, Michael Schein, Rochelle Kochin, Akiva Miller, Frances Behar Israel, Daniel W. Rasmus, Vishwas R. Gaitonde, David Hirsch, Priya Keefe, Willhem Gates, Jeanne Lesinski, Rabbi Dan Fink and Gretchen Flesher.

There's a 5:30 pm reading today at Lake Forest Park Third Place Books, 17171 Bothell Way NE.

I'll be reading with Drash contributors on Sun, July 27th at Tree of Life Books. 3 pm. Hope to see you there.

Here's a Bellingham-Herald interview with editor Wendy Marcus

My poem Age Eleven, on the way to the mailbox appears in Drash, vol 1, 2007.

Drash, vol 1 is featured here

Ballard library will be hosting a Drash reading in Oct.

CRYSTA CASEY, R.I.P

2008-06-26T21:20:00.000-07:00

May 27, 1952 - June 24, 2008

For more information, visit Our Lovely Crysta

Alzheimer's Guide Dogs

2008-06-18T08:13:00.000-07:00

What an amazing Video on Alzheimer's Guide Dogs. Who would have thought.

My German Shepherd, Emma, wouldn't get an A but going into my own old(er) age, I'll re-think working only for her to be happy and safe instead of, in addition, letting her - or a future dog - work for me.

It never occurred to me to get Abe a guide dog during his wandering period. How wonderful that the concept is out there now and can be integrated into our caregiving consciousnesses. The video is worth the 10 min watch.

Bettelheim: Living and Dying

2008-06-15T19:49:00.000-07:00

Bettelheim: Living and Dying
David James Fisher

Amsterdam/New York, NY 2008. IX, 181 pp. (Contemporary Psychoanalytic Studies 8)
ISBN: 978-90-420-2380-2 Paper € 38,-/US$ 57,-
ISBN: 978-90-420-2427-4 Textbook € 16,-/US$ 24.-

New Publication Offer: € 27,-/US$ 41.- Valid until July 11, 2008.
Online info: rodopi

REVIEWS

“A self-declared ‘critical admirer’ and final confident of Bruno Bettelheim, David James Fisher succeeds with as balanced and nuanced a portrayal as seems possible of the character, the lifetime contributions, and the final justifications of a most controversial psychoanalytic eminence. Bettelheim was at once the center of major professional polemics, and at the same time, the psychoanalyst who, after Sigmund Freud and Erik Erikson, has had the greatest impact on the wider culture of the twentieth century. Fisher's book is highly recommended reading for all concerned with the interplay of ideas and personas in the evolving history of the psychoanalytic place in the scheme of human development.”

Robert S. Wallerstein, M.D., Emeritus Professor and former Chair, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine.

“David James Fisher has written a moving, personal portrait of Bruno Bettelheim as thinker, writer, and friend. His story of Bettelheim during the last two years of his life makes for riveting reading, as does his balanced view of both Bettelheim's personality and his many contributions to psychoanalysis and the treatment of disturbed children. Fisher's work is a valuable volume in the history of psychoanalysis in America, and a wonderful narrative about this enormously complex man.”

Joseph Reppen, Ph.D., Editor, Psychoanalytic Psychology and Chair, Council of Editors of Psychoanalytic Journals.

CONTENTS
Foreword
One Introduction
Two: Psychoanalytic Cultural Criticism and the Soul
Three: Towards A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Fascism and Anti-Semitism: Perceptions from the 1940’s
Four: On Parenting and Playing
Five: The Relationship and Debates between Bruno Bettelheim and Rudolf Ekstein
Six: In Memoriam: Rudolf Ekstein (1912-2005)
Seven: A Final Conversation with Bruno Bettelheim
Eight: The Suicide of a Survivor: Some Intimate Perceptionsof Bettelheim’s Suicide
Nine: Homage to Bettelheim
Ten: An Open Letter to Newsweek
Eleven: Concerning Bruno Bettelheim: A Reply to Former Patients from the Orthogenic School
Twelve: Two Letters from Bettelheim to the Author
About the Author
References
Index
Acknowledgements

Rodopi Publishers

2008-06-05T18:17:00.001-07:00

the lion sleeps tonight

Back to Blogging

2008-06-04T23:30:00.000-07:00

I didn't go to see Abe tonight or last night. Seeing him right after the Alzheimer's Grief group, as I did Monday, is not a good idea. Wipes me out. I don't know these things until I try them.

Reading Pauline Boss's, Ambiguous Loss was helpful. Now I'm trying Shenk's book again. Sometimes when reading AD literature I think there are no old people with memory left, but then the sound of Daniel Schorr's voice on NPR and I feel safe again.

What about Obama! I can hear Earl Robinson singing Proud to Be An American at Mother's 90th birthday party.

And Hillary. What a force she is. Congratulations to both of them, but I want to do battle with McCain already.

Alzheimer's Diary: Wish List

2008-05-23T10:12:00.000-07:00

I wish I'd stop holding on to every little
piece of us.
I wish I'd stop making him a Saint.
I wish I'd gone on the doctor's trip to Vietnam with him.

I wish his Silences wouldn't have bothered me.

Once, before Aphasia ruined his speech,
he said he was glad for all of it,
that I kept him on his toes,
really.

I wish Alzheimer's would just go away.

But then he wouldn't be here
and he's still him,
really.

Last Wish List for awhile...

Alzheimer's Diary: Another Day

2008-05-22T21:42:00.000-07:00

I didn't think I'd make it there today. I felt like a piece of mush, but the dog kept jumping on me and the mail came with the new DRASH: Northwest Mosaic, including a poem about my mother and the interview I did with Pesha so I pushed myself out the door.

I was afraid to go there and that's not usually the case, afraid more of how I'd be than of how he would be. I think I can handle his condition better than I can handle handling his condition. I didn't want to go there and feel numb or cry. For company and courage, I took Emma. The residents like her, and she behaves well. She licks them. They laugh.

He was sitting on the love seat just staring ahead. Lit up when he saw me. A week or so ago I decided to change my status from caregiver to visitor so I sat down in his upright NY Hospital Intern graduation chair and said, "Hi, I came to visit." But in minutes my head was on his shoulder and Emma was licking and kissing and wondering why I was crying.

I don't know why people say you shouldn't cry when you go there. His eyes twinkled into mine and he recognized me more. We sat for awhile and I got myself back. Even the dog flopped down into her relaxed mode, and Abe had a conversation with me that he really enjoyed. He interspersed medical terminology with almost-words that stuck to his tongue. He was telling me something about the condition of a patient and work going on in the lab. I loved hearing him talk, just the sound of his voice, and he loved watching me watch him talk.

We sat awhile. I picked up a prayer book and we read along together - yes, he read too, sometimes half of a whole sentence! - and we sang The Star Spangled Banner, America the Beautiful, Hatikva and read a few psalms. After about an hour, we said the sh'ma and I said "I'll see you later." We kissed goodbye, smack on the lips. I unscrambled Emma, and walked out the door, just as the caregiver was coming in to take my Sweet to dinner.

Alzheimer's Diary: Catching Up

2008-05-20T11:58:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted anything on Alzheimer's since Oct 31, 2007. There's no way I'll be able to catch up so I'll start from now.

I didn't feel the assisted living facility could handle the final stages of Abe's care so last January I moved him to a nursing home. He's well-cared for, the nursing staff is right there with him and the care giver training program appears to be more in tune with the needs of AD sufferers than the for-profit facility where he was.

The journey continues with no end in sight. I requested that the Alz Association create a small Grief Group and it did. Much better for me than the larger 12-20 person group.

I stopped writing about Alz's (though I continued in my handwritten diary) because I was completely overwhelmed by involvement with the disease. I needed to get back to work on my academic research and writing. I've stayed away from making poems because Abe and Alzheimer's contain as much poetry as I can take in a day. I'm already down to the bones.

I've cut out most readings, there's just so much energy, but hope to get to the Roethke reading at UW tonight. Mary Jo Salter and Brad Leithauser are reading and I know nothing of their work. Besides the phone keeps ringing with: "Are you going?" so I better get myself together. I planned not to go to the home today anyway...

It's About Time moves to Ballard Library

2007-11-28T09:04:00.000-08:00

[for more info about the series, go to our new It's About Time blog]

Peggy Sturdivant's Nov. 22, 2007, Ballard News Tribune column:

"I was already jazzed about a longtime Seattle reading series `It's About Time' moving to the Ballard Branch - the subject of this week's column, Still About Time. Since I first started attending the reading series in 1996 there have been so many times I wanted to attend but couldn't drag myself to the other side of Greenlake to attend. No more such worries.

"In my mind this week's column was a mere nod to the Ballard Library nonetheless I got a nice note from a member of the architectural team. He considers it one of his most rewarding projects:his message follows the copy of column.

Still About Time

"Let me count the ways that I love the new Ballard branch of the Seattle Public Library. At least half of the year, when our days are short, nighttime events held in the community meeting room create an outside glow as though the top of the Space Needle had landed on Northwest 22nd. Even if we're not inside that room for the District Council meeting or the author appearance, we can appreciate from the outside the importance of that space and what it delivers, in addition to all the other riches of the library system.

"A year ago in September my daughter forced me on an after-dinner run to Bartell's for school supplies. From across the street I could see that the meeting room was at capacity, the library lobby was filled and people were even standing by the exterior bushes. Who is over there, I wondered. What if it's somebody famous and I don't even know? I learned later that it was Nora Ephron reading and discussing her book, "I Feel Bad About My Neck." The Nora Ephron of book and movie fame - "Hearburn," "When Harry Met Sally," - a movie called "Sleepless in Seattle." She was at the Ballard Library. Our Ballard Library.

"I can turn down many solicitations that come by mail or telephone, but I can never turn down a phone call from a librarian. The libraries are incredible assets; if I can provide money that purchases a few more books or goes toward more open hours, I will always contribute what I can. I should write a book on libraries or start the first ever TV series set in a public library. Just imagine the dramatic potential. I even heard something from a librarian this week that gave me a sense of civic pride. The City of Seattle considers the libraries to be part of "essential services" even during a winter storm event.

"Given my admiration for the library system in general and the Ballard Branch in particular I was truly thrilled recently to learn that two of my favorite things are about to converge. Starting Dec. 13, the "It's About Time" Writers' Reading Series will make its monthly home in Ballard's community meeting room. Conceived and launched in 1989 by poet, teacher and scholar Esther Altshul Helfgott, the reading series will mark its 221st event on its Ballard debut. Mark this in the plus column as Ballard gains a Pacific Northwest literary asset.

"I was introduced over 10 years ago to this reading series, which always offers an "open mike" opportunity to attendees. Since its inception, the series dedicated to an end of racism, homophobia, anti-semitism, homelessness and war has been a welcoming venue for beginning and experienced writers to read from their work. Although assisted by supporters over the years, the writing series is still coordinated by its original founder Esther Helfgott.

"A longtime teacher, Helfgott was frustrated by the way that her students, often retired professional women in her classes at senior centers and community colleges, tended to demean themselves and their writing efforts. Helfgott was inspired by their accomplishments in life and the writing that they produced together. She asked Nelson Bentley at the University of Washington if her students could participate in a campus reading but it was reserved for enrolled students. It was Bentley who suggested that Helfgott start her own reading series instead. And so the series began in the library of then Ravenna Bryant Senior Center in 1989.

"While `It's About Time' has always been welcoming, the venues have not been as accommodating. The first location could only sit 20 people; branch libraries were sometimes subject to early closure and acoustics have been a problem in the last two locations. Despite the facility challenges the series has never faltered. Until the windstorm last December not a single event had been cancelled in 17 years.

"The reading series has also evolved over the last 18 years, never losing sight of its core mission to provide a safe place for writers to share their work on equal standing. Originally geared to women, the series now includes men and women, beginning and experienced writers. As of 2001 the series adopted its current model of four featured readers and a fifth writer presenting The Writer's Craft on process, with open mike opportunities throughout. Many of these talks are available in electronic form on the series' Web site at www.itsaboutimewriters.homestead.com/.

"The library branches have considerable leeway in establishing their programming and the Ballard branch is showing itself to be a strong supporter of poetry and literature, as seen through its ongoing poetry events and increasing author appearances in conjunction with Secret Garden Bookstore. The calendar is filled with story times, readings, book club meetings and now, "It's About Time." Discussions about the moving the series began after a poetry event in October and Helfgott is greatly relieved to have found a worthy home for the series, ensuring its continuity. With commitment from branch librarians and the public relations support of the Central Library, the Ballard Branch will be able to advertise the event and provide an accessible and outstanding venue.

"Helfgott's motto is "Everyone has a voice. Everyone has a story to tell." Her teaching is predicated on that belief along with the conviction that those stories also deserve to be heard. In 1989 she felt that it was literally about time for there to be a venue for that expression, and it's still as vital as it was eighteen years ago to create that time and place for writers. Yet another reason to love the Ballard Library. Look for the glow of the meeting room lights from the sidewalk, and then go inside where you belong.

"It's About Time" details can be found at www.itsaboutimewriters.homestead.com/. The Dec. 13th event features John W. Marshall, Emily Warn, Mike Hickey, Holly Chiron and Christine Deavel on The Writer's Craft, and runs from 6 p.m. to 7:45 p.m. at Ballard Library.

Peggy,
I was fortunate enough to be the Project Architect of the Ballard
Branch. My role didn't have as much to do with design so much as it
had to do with shepherding the project through - from Design Review
meetings, Permitting, Construction and Grand Opening, through Warranty
issues, etc. The Ballard Library was and continues to be one of the
more rewarding projects I have had the opportunity to participate in
during my career. And I have been lucky to be involved in many great
projects.

I just now received today's Google Alert notifying me of your article
in the Ballard News-Tribune. As it happens, I am presenting the library
project tonight to a University of Washington Architecture class. I
will share your fine article with them!

Best regards,
David Cinamon, AIA
Associate

Bohlin Cywinski Jackson
Architecture Planning Interior Design

Posted by At large in Ballard at November 22, 2007 11:00 a.m.
Comments
#69191Posted by maryw at 11/22/07 7:54 p.m.

Thanks for another informative column on our Ballard community. The "It's About Time" program sounds wonderful! I, too, am proud that it will be held at our beautiful new library.

Regarding the library building itself, I agree completly--it is beautiful. Our library is the living, beating heart of the Ballard community--warm, inviting and possibly the only place where everyone is welcome and you can mingle with folks you might not have an opportunity to meet otherwise--and you don't have to spend a cent.

A belated thanks to Mr. Cinamon and everyone involved in the planning and design.

It's About Time article

2007-11-22T23:09:00.001-08:00

Peggy Sturdivant, columnist for the Ballard News Tribune, wrote a nice article on It's About Time's change to the Ballard library. Thanks, Peggy!

It's About Time venue change

2007-11-16T09:57:00.000-08:00

Dear It’s About Time Writers and Friends,

I am happy to tell you that as of Dec, 13, 2007 the reading series will be hosted by the Ballard Branch of the Seattle Public Library. Thanks to librarians, Lynn Miller and Ellen Fitzgerald.

We will be publicized through the library system, on-line and off, so I won’t be sending out monthly publicity notices anymore. I am asking readers to publicize their own events, make flyers, place in bulletins, newspapers (call reporters to write stories about you, if you like). Place on blogs, websites, and so forth. With one caveat: when announcing your own reading, please mention whom you will be reading with that night. Friends of writers are welcome to publicize too.

Now we can keep the series going indefinitely. I’ll still be coordinating, with emcee help from Diane and Denise; but the space and noise problems are fixed, and I won’t be alone with the administrative tasks. Writers: No need to send me your bios. Bring a short one with you to the reading.

If you have any questions, do email me.

Thank you for your support over the years. See you soon,

Esther

Thurs. Dec, 13, 2007 #221 John W. Marshall, Emily Warn, Holly Chiron, Mike Hickey
+ Christine Deavel on The Writer's Craft

Ballard Branch
5614 22nd Ave. N.W.
Seattle , WA 98107
206-684-4089
6pm -7:45 pm]

[Everyone can write. Everyone has a story to tell.]

Hebrew literature

2007-11-08T10:51:00.000-08:00

Last night in the nextbook series:

Meir Shalev - Writer, Novelist - at Henry Gallery. He was marvelous-- funny, sensitive, aware, honest. Interested in audience response. Interacted with audience, not the page. Packed house. I went home knowing myself better. Not everyone who speaks on home and exile can do that for me.

His 6th novel is A Pigeon And A Boy

Administrators & Caregivers

2007-10-31T19:37:00.000-07:00

This is what a visiting nurse said to me when I said a ratio of 1 caregiver to 15 residents is not adequate: "If we hired more caregivers, they would just stand around visiting with each other."

Caregivers work so hard for low pay; they put up with all kinds of crap - not just the bodily kind. Instead of assuming responsibility for complaints about administrative and corporate issues, management blames the caregivers. It's like a trope.

Yesterday I checked a nursing home where the ratio of staff to resident is 1 to 8. Doctors are around all day, nurses, social workers --a medical (non-profit) model as opposed to a corporate one. So, do I put him in a place that looks like a hospital and is worse than grim in appearance or do I keep him with the corporation? Last night I accepted the "we have one male bed available" offer. By this morning I knew I'd turn it down.

That visiting nurse also said: You're missing a lot when you don't have fun with us. Excuse me? When I come to see my husband, I say, I'm there to cuddle with him, not to participate in a group activity, unless he wants to.

When I talked to the regional director the other day, he said, Well you wouldn't want to move him to go to a place with linoleum.

I'm not moving him at all. Who knows what it would be like for him in another place. I'm going to leave it alone for now.

NY son's here. He has an academic/corporate job, gives me some pointers on how to survive. "You can do it, Mom. You're doing great. Just keep your distance." I'm gonna try. "Thank you, Sweetheart."

Happy Halloween.

Doctor Day

2007-10-29T23:27:00.000-07:00

I was scared about taking Abe to the doctor. I didn't think I'd find the energy, but I did and he did. We even got shakes at Jack in the Box.

The disease is progressing, as I have known. I'll probably move him soon. A ratio of one to fifteen is just not enough, or even one and a half to fifteen, as has been explained to me. Somehow I don't get the "half" business; but I guess there's a way of moving a half of person around on paper.

Lauren Kessler's Dancing with Rose: Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer's (Viking, 2007) describes people with Alzheimer's as those of us who really know how to live in the moment. I want Abe to have a chance to do that most comfortably. A move will be strenuous for both of us but I think it's time.

Ohhh, I was a dahctor?

2007-10-27T12:22:00.000-07:00

I didn't go to see Abe today. I can't believe I held out and listened to myself. I knew if I went I'd never get back to my work. I called and left a message for the nurse that I'm taking him to the doc for a check-up Monday. I'll call to talk with him later.

I don't think I've been aware of how consumed I've been by this particular illness. I've probably been, and still may be, in denial. I know Alzheimer's is a brain disease, but I can't help admitting that I've been (in a child-like state?) thinking I was somehow responsible.

How could this brilliant man who was, as a pathologist, at the heart of a hospital, not remember the names of the bones in the body, much less that he was a doctor. He remembers that sometimes, but not too long ago he asked me: "What kind of business was I in?"

I said, "You were a doctor."

"Ohhh, a dahhhctor? Hmmm."

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry or to ask him if he was in the Bronx again, working in his father's grocery store perhaps. Or holding onto his mother as she peddled garments on the street. I just sat there next to him and held his hand.

Instead of going to see him today, I drove to Group Health to get my flu shot. On the way, NPR: David Sederis was reading his Great Dane/mother story (from Me Talk Pretty). I laughed so hard, I cried. God he's funny.

I didn't know today was the start of flu shot day at that clinic. It was mobbed but a lot of fun - generations of sleeves rolled up waiting for a stick. Amazing how fast medical people work. I was in and out in 10 minutes.

On the way back, more NPR. Another story. This time Brady Udall reading his armadillo story (Story Magazine, Autumn 1999)for This American Life .

Abe said once he retired all he wanted to do was read the stacked up New Yorkers and listen to NPR.

from An Alzheimer's Marriage

2007-10-27T04:13:00.000-07:00

Who would have thought
that Alzheimer’s
could knit
the warmest
and best parts
of our struggle
together
into a blanket
and, like a prayer,
hold it over us
until
morning
comes?
-Esther Altshul Helfgott

Written after reading Margaret Atwood's poem "Habitation"
in last week's Poeming the Silence class.

Habitation

Marriage is not
a house or even a tent

it is before that, and colder:

the edge of the forest, the edge
of the desert
the unpainted stairs
at the back where we squat
outside, eating popcorn

the edge of the receding glacier

where painfully and with wonder
at having survived even
this far

we are learning to make fire
- Margaret Atwood

"Habitation" by Margaret Atwood,
from Selected Poems II. © Houghton Mifflin Company, 1987.

On Alzheimer's, Poetry, & Such

2007-10-26T09:29:00.000-07:00

Now that I'm understanding Alzheimer's, I have to learn to put up with institutional management that speaks a corporateeze that I'm not much good with. One way to get away from it is to go to a poetry reading.

Last night's reading at Ballard Library was lovely--laid back and comfortable, a place where one can be new and scared or experienced and still scared (or not). Thanks to librarians, Lynne and Elizabeth, who set the stage for the lot of us who read one poem each.

I forgot how long it's been since reading. What a wonderful poetry community we have here in Seattle. (Well, not always). I feel the sense of caring and community more as a reader than as a series host. Lynne read one of her poems - I love her cadences and repetitions - and it was good to see a host feel comfortable reading her own work, which I haven't felt. Last week when she read at It's About Time, she said she writes her poems to read in community, and it shows. She's a happy reader. I write as an internal need, to get things said that I feel need to be said, and to understand, but I'm certainly not a happy reader.

Brian is. When a few of us were talking - mostly I was talking - about writing depressing poems, he said "I can do happy. I can do fun." I laughed and invited him to read for It's About Time.

I had no idea what I was going to read last night until yesterday afternoon when I received an email from a Provincetown director. She wanted to use The Homeless One to help support a homeless shelter that couldn't keep up. Then I knew what I'd read: At the Back of the Laundromat, which I revised six times before the reading and am still revising; here's the original.

Now I'll take the dog for a walk and go buy a battery for my chirping smoke alarm, which is driving me nuts.

I've decided not to go see Abe today because I was so upset with the management of the place Wed. When I walked in, there was a staff party going on and no caregiver in Abe's section. I was livid. This is not the first time the party scenario's happened, but saying anything only serves to get me and everyone else upset.

Abe was happy. When I asked somebody to clean the bathroom, he said: Good for you! He's still Abe. LOL. I don't know how they will have staff enough to take care of him as the disease progesses - which they promised - but I'm staying away for another twenty-four hours, at least.

Well, I guess I'm into blogging again. It's Peter's fault. I find his blog, which includes much on poetry and medicine, helpful; and it's inspired me to write outside my room again.

25 poets read 1 poem each

2007-10-25T14:35:00.000-07:00

Tonight, Thurs. Oct 25th
6:30 pm

Ballard Library
5614 22nd Ave NW
6:30 pm.

Bring a poet, bring a friend.

Caregiver's 'village' not big enough

2007-08-17T23:42:00.000-07:00

By ESTHER ALTSHUL HELFGOTT
GUEST COLUMNIST

Caregiver's Village Not Big Enough

Seattle P.I.
August 15, 2007

Alzheimer's patients

2007-06-13T20:49:00.000-07:00

You can improve quality of life for Alzheimer's patients
By ESTHER ALTSHUL HELFGOTT
GUEST COLUMNIST

Seattle P.I., June 12, 2007

Elizabeth Edwards

2007-04-04T02:46:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Edwards said she's marking 10 years as her "bottom line."

"But even then I'm not happy," she said. "I'm 67 in 10 years. That's not enough. I've got more stuff to do."

New York Times, April 3, 2007

You go, Girl!

Alzheimer's Patient

2007-03-31T09:55:00.000-07:00

Ten Requests from the Person with Alzheimer's
by Twice Blessed, a Caregiver

[I don't agree with all of these; for instance, I don't know that AD patients always have hope (perhaps the hope is in the caregiver) or that they miss the way things used to be. Generally, they don't remember (perhaps for a fleeting second), but these are good guidelines from a caregiver who participates in the Alzheimer's on-line community. She posts this above her husband's bed. I'm not sure I would ...EAH]

Ten Requests from the Person with Alzheimer's

1. Be patient with me-- Remember I am the helpless victim of an organic brain disease which is out of my control.

2. Talk to me-- Even though I cannot always answer you, I can hear your voice, and sometimes I can comprehend your words.

3. Be kind to me-- for each day of my life is a long and desperate struggle. Your kindness may be the most special and important part of my day.

4. Consider my feelings-- for they are still very much alive within me.

5. Treat me with human dignity and respect--as I would have gladly treated you if you had been the victim lying in this bed.

6. Remember my past--for I was once a healthy vibrant person full of life, love, and laughter, with abilities and intelligence.

7. Remember my present-- I am a fearful person, a loving husband, father, grandfather, uncle, or dear friend who misses my family and home as I knew it very much.

8. Remember my future-- Though it may be bleak to you, I am always filled with hope of the tomorrow.

9. Pray for me--for I am a person who lingers in the mist, that drifts between time and eternity. Your presence may do more for me than any other outreach or compassion you could extend to me.

10. Love me-- and the gift of love you give will be a blessing which will fill both our lives with light forever.

from Twice Blessed's website

Bringing Him Home

2007-03-30T06:32:00.000-07:00

March 30, 2007
Thurs.
5 am

It has been seven months since Abe entered the ALF and though he has adjusted well to his new surroundings, I am yet to get used to his absence in our home. This past week - perhaps this was the first time it sunk in - I finally acknowledged that he lived somewhere else and he would never be in our house again. I kept walking up and down the stairs, going in and out of the rooms repeating: He’ll never be in this house again.

Since last August when he went into the facility, I have been wanting to bring him home, all the while knowing this was physically and emotionally impossible. Or thinking it was. I had gone out to eat and to a poetry reading with a friend the night before, the first time in I don't know how long and, all of a sudden it kicked in: Abe really lived some place else; even though he is alive, he lives some place else.

The next morning I called the ALF and let the caregiver know that I would be there early and could she have him ready to go out. It was 9 am, he hadn’t wanted breakfast and was still in bed. I spoke to him and he got right up. When I arrived he was sitting on our love seat smiling. I said, “Come on, it’s a beautiful day. Let’s go for a ride.” He was delighted. I brought him home.

We drove the scenic back roads so he could see the cherry blossoms, and on the way we stopped to pick up bagels and cream cheese sandwiches for brunch. He went into the deli with me, sat while I waited in line, and enjoyed the comings and goings of the customers. When we pulled up to the house, he recognized it, I think, unbuckled his seat belt and came inside with me. I took him up the elevator which he found comfortable but did not recognize. (Maybe he was in a fog even then, four years ago, when we were having it built). And we sat down at the table to eat our sandwiches.

Afterwards he sat in his recliner and noticed the gas fireplace that I had had installed since he left. I turned on the switch and he watched the flames. I put on Mozart, curled up on the couch, and watched him watch the flames. I felt as if a world I had known for centuries had returned to our living room and all of a sudden, after all these long months, the house - with him in it - made sense again.

Finally the bathroom called and afterwards we went outside for a walk, about half a block, and he was tired. And I was tired watching him be tired and I took him home, collected our things, watched him not say goodbye to the dog and got us in the car. When we arrived back at the ALF, he smiled at the people who greeted him. He wanted to sit down. I watched him sit down. Sat next to him for awhile, then kissed him goodbye and went home.

Primo Levi

2007-03-19T10:30:00.000-07:00

I'm still reading Primo Levi. This time The Drowned and the Saved. I realize that comparing illness to the concentration experience is invalid, perhaps even unjust; but Concentration Camp literature is helping me conceptualize Alzheimer's more than anything I've read on Alzheimer's. For instance, "... our ability to decide had been amputated. Therefore we are not responsible and cannot be punished." (p.29)

I think of how often Alzheimer patients are punished for "bad behavior," eg. I don't want to take a shower. Leave me alone, and given drugs to modify that behavior so personnel can get their work done. On the one hand, understandable; on the other, a ratio of 1 care worker to fifteen patients is untenable.

One day Abe raised his cane at a resident who was bothering him and right away the head nurse wanted to put him on drugs. "Except for Abe, they're almost all on depacote," another nurse said. I spoke to the doctor and a resident's daughter and that's not at all true. Meanwhile, the cane raising hasn't happened again and he didn't have to go on drugs. Plus, that person has let him alone.

Levi is hopeful, as well as helpful to me:

Why does one write?

Because one feels the drive and the need to do so.
To entertain oneself and others.
To teach something to someone.
To improve the world.
To make one's ideas known.
To free oneself from anguish.
To become famous.
To become rich.
Out of habit.

-Primo Levi

from his essay Other People's Trades

Lines 1 and 6 apply to me more than the others...