Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Well, whadaya know!
I wrote a review of Mothering Mother for Midwest Book Review on spec, it was accepted and has already been published as one of July 2007's Reviewer's Choice offerings. You will need to search the page for "Mothering Mother" to find it, or scroll down and hunt 'n peck. This edition features two reviews of O'Dell's book. My review is the first. When I perused the site after being notified that my review had been accepted, I noticed that the site, about which I was unaware until just last week, seems to feature very well written reviews of off-the-beaten-path books. Whether or not you can stand to read ME spouting off, yet again, about something I've read, you might find Midwest Book Review an interesting source.
I've finished Dementia Caregiver Share Their Stories. There's some fact checking I'm doing within the book at the moment. Once I get the spreadsheet done and have some answers, I'll write about the book. I can say, without reservation: This book is accurately subtitled A Support Group in a Book. It not only completely fulfills this promise, it is, frankly, like a literary mentor for caregivers. I, once again, have trouble with the fact that everyone else's experiences seem so much darker and fraught with despair than mine. I've pretty much decided that The Literature isn't focusing, at the moment, on caregivers like me, who are not dealing with, specifically, progressive dementia, and, thus, our path is not as, I don't know, hard, I guess, or at least, does not have the potential for trauma and drama that many dementia scenarios do. I know they're out there, my type is practically the only type of caregiver I know face-to-face; but, you know, they're not online, they're not writing books, they are just doing their thing. I am having fertile and interesting conversations with these of my colleagues as we go about our days and cross paths [I spoke with the Fed-Ex lady, again...I mention that as a reminder to myself], so I know these people. We aren't yet in the literature, though. I guess it would be too risky, yet, to talk about our experiences. After all, we are the reason, the very quiet reason, I might add, that nursing homes have lost ground, per capita, in the last few decades. But, I gotta tell ya, other than this one quirk in the coverage of caregivers, if the person's been demented and cared for by family, chances are an accurate and enlightening version of that story is in this book.
It is very pro-support group. It was generated out of a couple of specialized support groups, so this is to be expected. Frankly, if I had just such appropriate support groups available to me, I'd at least check them out.
There is mention, somewhere in the book, about caregiver mentors. I'd never want to give care, again, like this, but I wouldn't mind being a caregiver mentor, after an appropriate time away from the experience.
As well, apparently Family Alliance (which sounds like a dream of an organization) sponsors a caregivers' hotline featuring trained therapists, rather like my Buddha-phone suggestion, for caregivers who participate in any of their many programs. Compassion Specialist Intervention exists in the civilian community, folks!
It is easy, as one reads through this book, to say, "Ah, that's us!" It is equally easy to say, "Ahhh..., that is not us,", or, "...that is not us, yet...", or, "I hope that never is us..." This is important. The book is trying hard to avoid squeezing the experiences of caregivers to the demented into generic sub-areas. The importance of the unplumbed variety of behaviors implicit in any population of the demented is stressed, in many ways, throughout the book. I'm not sure why, but it's easy for caregivers to think that something must be "wrong" with their experience if they don't see it reflected in The Literature. Believe me, there are lots of caregiver-to-the-demented circumstances that are not depicted in The Literature. This particular book even implies that it leaves out a whole subset of these experiences, the ones in which the care recipients, regardless of other physical concerns, did not experience anything that could be called "behavior changes" or "unexpected behaviors". There is only one briefly mentioned member of this subset. It could be that the support groups from which the participants were culled were self-selected for behavioral change demential caregiving.
Anyway, more on the book later.
I'm thinking I could use a nap, today. I stayed up until I finished the above second mentioned book; I was so close to the end. That may not happen, though. I'm jazzed about something else that happened today, I received a copy of Kinflicks by Lisa Alther. Thus, I will be able to attend to a formal reminder that appears to be advancing on three years old. According to this post, in which I discuss a tiny portion of my fascination with this novel, dated 8/11/03, the reminder may be older than that. In this post I was clearly thinking about this earlier.
I've been able to read "The Bear Came Over the Mountain", the short story by Alice Munro from which Away from Her was adapted. From the preview I saw (no, I haven't been able to swing seeing it in a theater), I have a feeling the movie is very faithful to the story. It is about caring, and giving, and taking, but in a particular way within a marriage. Dementia and the nursing home are props in the story. What I wondered, here, about the movie satisfied me in the story. It was subtly addressed but it wasn't the primary theme of the story. I was smiling, broadly, as I finished it. The story is the last in the collection Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage Stories. I am really looking forward to the movie, now, even if I have to wait for the DVD release. I'll bet Olympia Dukakis is Marion. I hope she is, anyway.
I'm loving this reading period, right now, even though I'm letting some other things slide as I read. Some of "my" reading involves "Mom's" reading, too. We're covering books, now, which are of particular and immediate interest to me but by which she is also intrigued. Through the Narrow Gate is being read aloud with a delicious sense of inappropriateness in looking intimately into the life of a nun; a real one, not an Audrey Hepburn or Debbie Reynolds nun. Karen Armstrong wrote this book raw, I'm telling you. It is so raw it is almost embarrassing to read...but the woman was already a powerful writer and thinker, which makes it more than bearable.
An example of books I know will be out loud reading disasters is Dementia Caregivers Share Their Stories. When I told Mom about it she exhibited a practiced interest but her eyes trailed off. Some books I just know she'll not find interesting: Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. Besides, I'm not sure I could pull off reading this book aloud.
So, you know, I've been "tagged", by sheoflittlebrain over at The One Acre Wood. I've never been tagged, was not even aware of it until Karma got tagged sometime last year, I think. So, I've been tagged with the request, "Reveal 8 fascinating facts about yourself." You bet. Based on the evidence that I'm a blogger, I like to talk about myself. I feel a little quesey about tagging anyone else, and I apologize for this. It feels uncomfortably chain-letterish to me...although I don't suppose it is. So, anyway, anyone who likes the question, enjoys answering such questions in public and/or wants to keep the chain going, please feel free to pass this one on.
As to my response (which was amusing to contemplate), I compiled a list with a touch of difficulty, then realized that all but three wouldn't be revelations, because I've written about them, here, before; as you know, I "self-refer" a lot. This following list, well, I'm not sure how many "revelations" I'll remember (that I'd want to print) but the three from the previous list are the first three [the very first may not be a revelation, either, but I take advantage of every opportunity to put this desire into "wish" format]:
I've finished Dementia Caregiver Share Their Stories. There's some fact checking I'm doing within the book at the moment. Once I get the spreadsheet done and have some answers, I'll write about the book. I can say, without reservation: This book is accurately subtitled A Support Group in a Book. It not only completely fulfills this promise, it is, frankly, like a literary mentor for caregivers. I, once again, have trouble with the fact that everyone else's experiences seem so much darker and fraught with despair than mine. I've pretty much decided that The Literature isn't focusing, at the moment, on caregivers like me, who are not dealing with, specifically, progressive dementia, and, thus, our path is not as, I don't know, hard, I guess, or at least, does not have the potential for trauma and drama that many dementia scenarios do. I know they're out there, my type is practically the only type of caregiver I know face-to-face; but, you know, they're not online, they're not writing books, they are just doing their thing. I am having fertile and interesting conversations with these of my colleagues as we go about our days and cross paths [I spoke with the Fed-Ex lady, again...I mention that as a reminder to myself], so I know these people. We aren't yet in the literature, though. I guess it would be too risky, yet, to talk about our experiences. After all, we are the reason, the very quiet reason, I might add, that nursing homes have lost ground, per capita, in the last few decades. But, I gotta tell ya, other than this one quirk in the coverage of caregivers, if the person's been demented and cared for by family, chances are an accurate and enlightening version of that story is in this book.
It is very pro-support group. It was generated out of a couple of specialized support groups, so this is to be expected. Frankly, if I had just such appropriate support groups available to me, I'd at least check them out.
There is mention, somewhere in the book, about caregiver mentors. I'd never want to give care, again, like this, but I wouldn't mind being a caregiver mentor, after an appropriate time away from the experience.
As well, apparently Family Alliance (which sounds like a dream of an organization) sponsors a caregivers' hotline featuring trained therapists, rather like my Buddha-phone suggestion, for caregivers who participate in any of their many programs. Compassion Specialist Intervention exists in the civilian community, folks!
It is easy, as one reads through this book, to say, "Ah, that's us!" It is equally easy to say, "Ahhh..., that is not us,", or, "...that is not us, yet...", or, "I hope that never is us..." This is important. The book is trying hard to avoid squeezing the experiences of caregivers to the demented into generic sub-areas. The importance of the unplumbed variety of behaviors implicit in any population of the demented is stressed, in many ways, throughout the book. I'm not sure why, but it's easy for caregivers to think that something must be "wrong" with their experience if they don't see it reflected in The Literature. Believe me, there are lots of caregiver-to-the-demented circumstances that are not depicted in The Literature. This particular book even implies that it leaves out a whole subset of these experiences, the ones in which the care recipients, regardless of other physical concerns, did not experience anything that could be called "behavior changes" or "unexpected behaviors". There is only one briefly mentioned member of this subset. It could be that the support groups from which the participants were culled were self-selected for behavioral change demential caregiving.
Anyway, more on the book later.
I'm thinking I could use a nap, today. I stayed up until I finished the above second mentioned book; I was so close to the end. That may not happen, though. I'm jazzed about something else that happened today, I received a copy of Kinflicks by Lisa Alther. Thus, I will be able to attend to a formal reminder that appears to be advancing on three years old. According to this post, in which I discuss a tiny portion of my fascination with this novel, dated 8/11/03, the reminder may be older than that. In this post I was clearly thinking about this earlier.
I've been able to read "The Bear Came Over the Mountain", the short story by Alice Munro from which Away from Her was adapted. From the preview I saw (no, I haven't been able to swing seeing it in a theater), I have a feeling the movie is very faithful to the story. It is about caring, and giving, and taking, but in a particular way within a marriage. Dementia and the nursing home are props in the story. What I wondered, here, about the movie satisfied me in the story. It was subtly addressed but it wasn't the primary theme of the story. I was smiling, broadly, as I finished it. The story is the last in the collection Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage Stories. I am really looking forward to the movie, now, even if I have to wait for the DVD release. I'll bet Olympia Dukakis is Marion. I hope she is, anyway.
I'm loving this reading period, right now, even though I'm letting some other things slide as I read. Some of "my" reading involves "Mom's" reading, too. We're covering books, now, which are of particular and immediate interest to me but by which she is also intrigued. Through the Narrow Gate is being read aloud with a delicious sense of inappropriateness in looking intimately into the life of a nun; a real one, not an Audrey Hepburn or Debbie Reynolds nun. Karen Armstrong wrote this book raw, I'm telling you. It is so raw it is almost embarrassing to read...but the woman was already a powerful writer and thinker, which makes it more than bearable.
An example of books I know will be out loud reading disasters is Dementia Caregivers Share Their Stories. When I told Mom about it she exhibited a practiced interest but her eyes trailed off. Some books I just know she'll not find interesting: Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. Besides, I'm not sure I could pull off reading this book aloud.
So, you know, I've been "tagged", by sheoflittlebrain over at The One Acre Wood. I've never been tagged, was not even aware of it until Karma got tagged sometime last year, I think. So, I've been tagged with the request, "Reveal 8 fascinating facts about yourself." You bet. Based on the evidence that I'm a blogger, I like to talk about myself. I feel a little quesey about tagging anyone else, and I apologize for this. It feels uncomfortably chain-letterish to me...although I don't suppose it is. So, anyway, anyone who likes the question, enjoys answering such questions in public and/or wants to keep the chain going, please feel free to pass this one on.
As to my response (which was amusing to contemplate), I compiled a list with a touch of difficulty, then realized that all but three wouldn't be revelations, because I've written about them, here, before; as you know, I "self-refer" a lot. This following list, well, I'm not sure how many "revelations" I'll remember (that I'd want to print) but the three from the previous list are the first three [the very first may not be a revelation, either, but I take advantage of every opportunity to put this desire into "wish" format]:
- If every single day of the rest of my life was a cloudy, gray, drizzly, short day/long night Seattle day, I would be eternally happy.
- My most treasured compliment graced me several years ago when one of my sisters blurted, her voice choked with awe, "...you are an artist."
- I consider myself fortunate in that Today, it seems, is always, for me, "a good day to die."
- I love advertising and propaganda. I'm wary of it if I am an intended "victim", but I love it. I'm proud of my few but stellar accomplishments in that area.
- When I was 15, I think, I became obsessed with the idea of being "a citizen of the world" and promptly turned in my Social Security card. A few years later, when I started pulling a pay check rather than money off-the-books, I had to write the Social Security Administration and ask for "another card", which I needed to draw my paycheck. They returned my old number, and card, promptly.
- I often dream that I am walking on water. I haven't yet researched to see what these dreams typically "mean". I love this dream, though. It's my very favorite recurring dream. I always awaken from it feeling as though I did, and could, walk on water. Hmmm...Messiah complex at work, do you suppose?
- A couple of weeks ago I noticed a state paper holding a quick sweepstakes, the prize of which was $20,000 for a new car. Upon seeing the ad, I became immediately and calmly convinced that we would win the money and be able to buy a Nissan Altima, the seats of which are Sitting Heaven for my mother, no matter how long she's in the car. I probably sent in a little over one hundred focused entries. We did not win the car. We didn't even win a year of free car washes, although I didn't want that. I can't tell you why, but I continue to feel betrayed. I was absolutely positive that we'd win. And, in case you're wondering, I didn't fall into this after having read The Secret or followed other hogwash of its ilk. It was just a weird blip. I've had them before, in regard to all sorts of things; not necessarily the winning of contests (although this is not the first time I've experienced that particular blip); and, yes, as far as I can remember, all these blips have been "wrong". It isn't even "positive thinking"; I just "knew" we "were meant" to win that car. But we weren't. I feel as I did when I had my first menstrual period: There has been a cosmic mistake. I continue to expect a call telling me that, well, they forgot to call us when we won.
- I continue to remain adamantly opposed to experiencing old age. Period. Just not interested. Maybe I'll feel different after my mother dies, but, I don't know...it doesn't look like much fun to me.
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Originally posted by sheoflittlebrain: Wed Jul 04, 09:20:00 AM 2007
What a great and interesting list of facts about you. I wish I had a dream book, I'd look up the walking on water. Are you sure about #1? Maybe after the summer rains dampen us down a bit you'll feel glad of some sunshine? Or are the rains just a myth? I forget..
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What a great and interesting list of facts about you. I wish I had a dream book, I'd look up the walking on water. Are you sure about #1? Maybe after the summer rains dampen us down a bit you'll feel glad of some sunshine? Or are the rains just a myth? I forget..
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