Fertile Soil

It constantly fascinates me, the situations where older friends seem to easily open up, eager to engage in lively conversation or to share an anecdote from the past, a tender story about their earlier years.  The #1 place for producing fertile soil for such moments seems to be over a dinner table. whether in the dining rooms of senior residences, across from each other at cozy diners, or over white linen table cloths at more formal restaurants.

Never fails to delight me!

Two nights ago, a grannie client was feeling a bit down in the dumps after a somewhat deflating afternoon.  I must have picked up on her fledgling blues during a touch-base phone call, because instead of trotting to one of our regular dining spots, I surprised her with a special pre-dinner drive.  

Started out under lowering skies, her spirits seemed as grey as the clouds, but they (at least the spirits) quickly lifted as we nipped thru funky parts of Glenside (especially the part where we were parallel to railroad tracks), skirted Chestnut Hill to deliciously curvy Lincoln Drive, over to the Kelly Drive where at least 30 racing shells of all sizes were on the river (for a few seconds, where the drive is very close to the river, we were within 30' of an eight!). 

Swooping past Boat House Row & the elegant Fairmount Water Works (seriously - incredibly elegant), we sped along toward the Philadelphia Art Museum; as we drove past that iconic (in so many ways) masterpiece, had to keep my eyes peeled, as i'd never taken the Vine Street Expressway west-east. It was a snap! 

Oh, my gosh!! It was a surprisingly gorgeous experience (the east-west view is fairly ho hum). and super easy to get onto i-95, the slip left onto Columbus Bldv (still think of it as Delaware Ave) & our destination - CHART HOUSE restaurant. 

What a reception we received! While making reservations, I'd noted on the comments space that my companion would be an older woman who loved celebrations. They certainly made her feel like royalty! 


My grannie client was bowled over by sitting virtually atop the water.  Still light out, our table offered a clear view of the USS New Jersey, docked on the Camden side of the Delaware.  Up river was a dramatic view of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, while down stream we could see the Commodore Barry.  After night fell, the Spirit of Philadelphia, docked next to Chart House, pulled back in our full sight, headed out for a dinner-time cruise. Barges went up & down the Delaware, helicopters kept taking off & landing from behind a splendid collection of condos to our right.

Jason, our server, took care of us like my client was HIS grannie! Chart House offers three $29.99 trios - she ordered chopped salad, the short rib with wine reduction over yukon gold mashed potatoes & topped with perfect aspargus, and creme brulee, with a cocktail to start & coffee to close. 

Me? A large water with four lemon slices & the smallish but perfect salad bar.

My g.c. might have been a bit down in the dumps when we started out, but on our return she practically purred with utter contentment.  

All of it was splendid - from the drive to the first sip of her vodka martini to her last bite of creme brulee - but for me the BEST part was the wonderful discussion we had as the meal progressed.  The open water & open skies seemed to open up everything, including the range of topics we covered, from our specific faith to religion in general to wondering about other planets in the universe and the nature of God.  

Fertile soil, indeed!

A Women's Leadership Intensive - Omega

... Become the Kind of Leader the World Needs Now

Behold - the September weekend workshop at Omega.   The one that challenges my thinking about myself.  Never saw myself as much of a leader.  Not much of a follower either.  Was raised by my older sis to think of the road less traveled, the solitary path as being the one best suited for such as us.  Just deciding to take this one shakes up my image of myself.

Reality is that the only way I can make a lasting impact on the lives of olders who touch my heart is to make a welcoming place for the leader in me. 

She's in there!  A lot of what I know about leadership was learned during my days at Prudential.  That was where I first heard about the spiral form of leadership.  Always related to that - opposite of an organizational chart mode. 

Love the description:
This workshop is for women who want to use their leadership to create a caring, just and sustainable future for everybody.  Through reflection, dialogue, writing, yoga (glad I will have taken Buddha Body Yoga) and exploring nature, we delve into our leadership stories, learn from each other, and create a shared understanding of what is needed to bring greater consciousness into the world.

Scrooged!

This glorious spring morning, drenched in sunlight with hosts of daffodils FINALLY popping after a brute of a winter, am feeling positively Scrooge-like!  

No, no - NOT the Scrooge who is visited by Marley's ghost.  I feel like the Scrooge who wakes up after his 3rd & final visitor to discover he is NOT dead, that Tiny Tim lives, the his life is filled with hope & intention to set things better.  

Like Ebenezer, this morning finds me as light as a feather, as happy as an angel, as merry as a school-boy, as giddy as a drunken man. Like him, I promise to live in the Past, the Present, and the Future, with the spirits & best wishes of our Earth Angels forever striving within me.  I say, "Heaven, and the spirits & best wishes of our circle of angels, here & Elsewhere, be praised for this! I say it on my knees, on my knees!''

I am Frank Cross, Bill Murray's character in the vastly underrated Scrooged, who closes the film with an oh so truthful  monologue... 

 Christmas Eve... the one night when we all act a little nicer. We...we smile a little easier. We...we...share a little more.   

For a couple of hours we are the people we always hoped we would be. It's really a miracle because it happens every Christmas Eve…   

You have to do something. You have to take a chance and get involved.  l get it now.  If you give, then it can happen, the miracle can happen to you. 

Everybody's gotta have this miracle!  It can happen tonight for you all!  If you believe in this pure thing, the miracle will happen and you'll want it again tomorrow!  You'll want it every day! It can happen to you! 

I believe in it now. I believe it's gonna happen to me, now. I'm ready for it!

                                               I'm here, Earth Angels - - bring it on!

Motivation

Actors talk about motivation - what propels them to do a particular role.  It helps everyone in any field to know our motivation.  My motivation for becoming a catalyst for holistic, sane older care is simple - Mom.

In my late 50s, about 10 years after Mom was reunited with her O! Best Beloved, it dawned on me that it wasn't just genetics that enabled her to be so engaged in life, even when she wasn't feeling particularly energized.  Maybe, just maybe, my support, John's, helped her be an excellent elder.  

FACT:  Mom could never have afforded my care if she'd had to pay.  No how, no way.  That doesn't seem right.

That being so...

My goal isn't simply to overhaul how we look at aging from your earliest through our final years.  

It's not simply to find ways that countless others can help olders get out of their own way.  

It's to figure out how to make those methods techniques activities available to everyone, not just the few who can afford to pay at least $25 an hour + expenses.  

And THAT is anything but simple.  Thank goodness I love a challenge!

Social Entrepreneur

What I aspire to be - a social entrepreneur.  Committed to changing the direction of elder care.  Visionary, but realist, too.  Consumed with taking my vision from airy fairy wishes, giving it a foundation.  Balancing ideal & practical, inspired vision & wise action.

Exciting challenging up-rooting.  

The person I am is going to be different from the one starting out.  Startling thought.  And probably one which keeps a lot of potential changemakers stay put in a broken yet familiar status quo.  

To expand & change the world means expanding & changing myself first.  

Deev, social entrepreneur, elder care anarchist.

It suits.

Get to Know the Real You - Omega

Some weeks back, a situation with my family doc brought home how seriously disconnected my body language, facial expression & tone are from the words I'm speaking.  I'd been sharing vital information with him for half a year & it never registered.  When he went back over his notes, there it was, clear as day.  But it had never registered in his conscious because of the way I said it. 


The lack of concern in my body language, tone & facial expression literally negated what I thought was being shared.  

My experience with it goes way back.  Two incidents in college are perfect examples of the same problem - in both cases, no one reached out help me when I was about to faint or when I was injured with a dislocated elbow.  

My body language, tone  & facial expression were completely out of whack with my calls for help.

The Aug 1-3 Omega workshop ~ GET TO KNOW THE REAL YOU  What Your Brain Chemistry, Personality & Body Say About You ~ seems pitch perfect for my problem.  "What does your speech say about you?  How about your face?  Your movements?"  Sounds at least like a start!  

Years & years ago, I read an article about a therapist who video taped her clients interacting with others. The results were apparently always dramatic, always a great surprise to the subject to see how he or she came across, how what was intended to be shared was being lost in translation.  As soon as I read it - before I was married, so well over 25 years ago - I longed to have the experience of seeing my own impact.  

Something like 7% of our words account for what it processed by others as communication.  The rest is conveyed by body language, by tone, by facial expression.  

Fingers crossed that the workshop's exercises, discussions & guided self-reflection will help me "delve into all aspects of (my) life and connect with who (I) really am, inside & out."

Power of memory

My husband & I have been - intentionally - without a television for almost two years.  We don't watch even Stewart or Colbert online.  But, thanks to our itty-bitty dvd play, we do enjoy a daily dose of Boston Legal.  

Why Boston Legal? It's genuine adult T.V., the best sort of educational programming.  

Seriously?  Absolutely.

Today's episode introduced us to propranolol, a medication that can help suppress traumatic memories.  The question being argued in court - is it more helpful or harmful to suppress memory, even horrific ones?

Imagine having the ability to wipe out memories that threaten our sense of security.  I thought about some of my grannie clients - what if they had, many years ago, the chance to obliterate the heartbreaking memory of the death of a young love, the loss of a child?

Most of my grannie clients think it's wrong to remember painful moments.  Actually, it can be surprisingly helpful when a sad memory surfaces during a gab. 

Take this past Saturday. I was having supper with a client & some of her senior residence friends.  It was an especially tender time for me, during a week that marked both my father's death, many decades ago, and a  beloved brother's, his youngest son, even further back.  I commented to the table how it's beyond my comprehension to imagine a parent's pain at the loss of a child.  

Two of my older dinner companions knew the pain - both talked about the loss of a child, one at 23, the other at 2 weeks.  Looking in their eyes, I saw them as the young & not-so-young mothers they were.  Their open sharing of that moment bound everyone around the table in mutual compassion.

Would they have wiped their minds clear of that pain?  Would it, could it, serve a greater use?

Interesting, the string of thoughts set off by a healthy helping of Boston Legal!