While producing "Music On Your Mind," which we re-air this weekend, I had the great fortune to discover Anne Basting, a gerontologist and dementia researcher. Anne Strainchamps interviewed the MacArthur fellow for the show.
Basting’s thoughts about aging and memory loss have personally helped me as I journey through this process with my own mother, while I play Frank Sinatra and try to ask open-ended, "beautiful" questions, like "If you could be any animal, what would you be?"
When checking in recently with Basting, I was excited to hear that her new book, "Creative Care," is out in paperback this April. She, too, is the daughter of a mother with dementia. She writes:
“Dementia has tested and will continue to test my ability to embrace the power and joy of the creative process overlaid with the losses that our lives inevitably present us simply as a result of staying alive over time. Dementia brings me and my family to that deepest place of meaning, where our human frailty and our unique human capacity to imagine entwine. Where we can experience breathtaking beauty and heart-wrenching sorrow simultaneously. Dementia brings us to creative care.”
This time during the pandemic has been perhaps slowest and strangest and most isolating for those with dementia, and those who love them. For me, summer outside visits led to safer winter facetime interactions. But just recently, as vaccinations are up and cases of COVID-19 down, I can visit again in person, playing some Sinatra and seeing my Mom’s expressions up close. If you have someone in your life with dementia, whether you are a relative or caregiver or friend, Basting’s work will resonate with you, and give you some new ideas about how to actually create joy amidst the confusion and sadness.
–Shannon
Image via Andrea Rio (CC0).