Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Memory and Poetry

I want to talk about a serious subject and, for those who recognize themselves in the discussion that I'm about to launch, to suggest a path that offers many rewards. To jump to the end: I'm going to advocate the virtues of memorizing poetry. (Please don't tune me out.)

There's no one I know, seventy or older, who does not, at least privately, worry about his (or her) memory. What are we to make of those little lapses? The names we can't summon forth instantaneously? The chore that slips our mind? The purpose for which we came into this room in the first place? We don't want to spend our time worrying. Still less do we want to discuss our concern and give our children reason to worry. But still. . . .

And so we adopt tactics designed to train our minds. Treating our brains like muscles, we apply our own versions of the "use it or lose it principle." We work out crosswords, we play bridge, we puzzle our way through sudokus; or we resume piano lessons from childhood days, we finally set out to learn French or Spanish; or perhaps we enroll in courses in the nearest college. All of this is fun – in fact, we wouldn't do it if it weren't – but we also hope that the activity is a useful mental exercise, keeping us a bit ahead of the game as we look for strategies for graceful aging.

In these generalizations I am of course including myself. It's true that I watch others and share observations with them. But above all I draw my impressions from consulting my own consciousness. And so in urging a turn to the memorization of poetry as a form of proactive therapy for memory slippage I'm touting an exercise that I've enjoyed.

It is likely that many of you will recall being asked to memorize poems in school.  That sound practice, sadly, has almost disappeared. And for some of course it was simply an unpleasant inflicting of needless pain. But there were many – and those are the ones I appeal to first and foremost – who, whatever they made of the school assignments at the time, recall now that poetry could sometimes have a certain charm, or power, or magnetism, or incisiveness that made lines . . . well . . . memorable.

For example (and say these aloud):

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep.

Or:

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth, e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour,
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Or:

Bring me my bow of burnished gold,
Bring me my arrows of desire;
Bring me my spear, o clouds unfold;
Bring me my chariot of fire.

I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall the sword sleep in my hand,
Til we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.

Or (one of my favorites):

Innocence seeth'd in her mother's milk,
And charity setting the martyr aflame;
Thraldom that walks with the banner of Freedom,
And recks not to ruin a realm in her name.

Or (one of everyone's favorites):

To be, or not to be – that is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them.

But rather than supply more examples I'll just become a cheerleader and say it: THIS STUFF IS WONDERFUL. If you speak the poems aloud, the words roll out of the mouth like rich candy – candy for the mouth, yes, but for the ears too, and the brain. If you're like me, it takes time to gain a control over lines of verse; but the achievement, when it comes, is very rewarding. I hope you won't think this an odd prescription. In fact, I hope you'll take it the way I feel it: as a desire to let friends in on the sheer fun of capturing and commanding poetry. Believe me. There's magic in the words of the great poets.

You'll notice I've changed my subject. And that's because I can't really claim that memorizing poetry improves your odds against cognitive impairment. (That was a come-on.) But it might. And it's lots of fun to boot. So my advice is to give it a try. What's there to lose?

Monday, July 9, 2012

Recovery

We are recovering nicely here at Kendal at Granville from four difficult days without power  during a record breaking heat wave  thanks to our marvelous staff.   About five o'clock on Friday, the twenty-ninth of June, as I was working at my computer in my den I sensed that it was growing darker and thought to myself, "Maybe we will get some rain and it will cool off."   Little did I dream what was about to happen.  Not even when the telephone rang and I heard the recorded message about an approaching storm from the fire chief of Granville village did it occur to me that we were about to be hit by hurricane force winds in less than ten minutes.

 Suddenly the sky was really dark - like about 9:15 p.m. - and the rain came in torrents and the wind roared in like a freight train.  Almost immediately the power went off leaving us in the dark wondering how long before it would return.   Our chef suddenly found himself  busier than the proverbial one armed paper hanger seeing that meals were served with only emergency power and also checking with the village officials to find out what they knew about how long the power would be out. The disheartening news he received was "three or more days."  Not what anyone wanted to hear with all weather reports indicating temperatures in the middle nineties for the coming week.  By morning the prediction was five to seven days. 

 Fortunately for us many of our administrative staff had helped us survive and recover when four years ago in late summer the tail end of hurricane Ike swung north from Louisiana and knocked out our power at that time for four days.  They learned the drill then.  Consequently although the next day was Saturday we saw them here bright and early to drag fans out of storage, locate needed extension cords, bring up extra supplies of bottled water from the basement, move furniture,etc., etc., etc.  Each one of them took it all in stride not missing a step.  No one asked, "Is this in my job description?"  They just did whatever needed to be done.

They did many things to make our life bearable without the benefit of full power.   I can only include a few.  One of the foremost things was to serve three meals a day for everyone.  Almost all of us  are on the one meal a day plan whereby we prepare two meals a day in our residences.  However, without power we couldn't cook.  One side benefit of this hardship was that it brought some of us together at mealtimes that didn't always see each other.

Lounge furniture was moved into one of the dining areas where staff had assembled an assortment of large fans and a couple of air coolers along with a television to  give us a lounge where we could relax and catch up on what was happening in the world at large. 

 Charging stations for cell phones were set up for residents who rely entirely on them for their phone service.  Staff made sure there was plenty of bottled water available so people would not become dehydrated.  As an insomniac one of my ways of coping with the dark nights was to move my den chair into the hall outside of my apartment where one of the ceiling emergency light provided me with light for reading and puzzle solving.  When the night man made his rounds, he never failed to ask me if I would like some water.

As much as possible we maintained our normal activities.  For example on Saturday a group of us saw that the ceramics created by residents went into the display cabinet as scheduled.
The newsletter came out on the first of July as expected.  

On Monday morning three of the administrative staff came around to each residence with black garbage bags to help us empty our refrigerators of all of the food that had been there too long without refrigeration and so must be discarded.  The housekeeping staff followed up to  clean the refrigerators where necessary.

Monday afternoon our hopes went up when the power went on in midafternoon.  But it went off again in a few minutes.  Some people got partial power later in the evening, but full power did not come on until about 2:00 p.m.  on Tuesday.  One of the most common sounds accompanying the sighs of relief as air conditioners started up was the sound of washing machines being started by those of us desperately in need of clean clothes.

We owe a huge THANK YOU to our staff for all they did for us in spite of the heat and I didn't hear a complaint from one of them.  No doubt the ones who deserve an extra measure of recognition are those who worked in the kitchen and dining room where the heat was greatest due to the cooking without benefit of air conditioning.  They are my heroes and heroines.

Now that we are experienced in the handling of extended power outages I believe that our staff could easily write a  valuable how-to book for others.