Journies

My daughter recently went with me to a visit with my doctor. I'd had a frightening episode of extreme dizziness, which turned out to be nothing at all worrisome. While we were at the clinic, however, my child, my best friend, who should have known better, suggested I schedule baseline testing for potential memory loss. I was incensed! As with all family skirmishes, no time, place or mustering of self-control, would have done anything other than make matters worse. 

     Thank God for the young physician, who knows me, and knows I have a an eidetic memory. The doc did not blink; she simply changed the subject ... immediately. Memory loss seemed a potential blessing, once we'd left the clinic. It was a bad thought, however, because dementia mows down its victims with ruthless indifference. 

     Then I remembered what a great tool journaling is for alleviating pain, physical, mental and emotional. It helps with perspective, as well; my journals help me view my life as a progressive journey. There are many software options for journaling, not to mention a spectrum of reasons to journal. Shared or not, injuries, health crises, acquired or long existent disability make journaling a particularly relevant stress management tool. Even a "pain journal" can be very revealing, if shared with a physician. Blogging is a kind of journaling, and so accessible, even for a novice.

     Not knowing where to start may be the most difficult obstacle to overcome. Believe me, whether you are a reader, writer or neither, millions stop before starting. I read voraciously and write professionally. My angst springs more from an unstoppable inner-critic than from writer's block. It is not The Great American Novel, but I tear out the page I've just written, to start again, and repeating. I don't recommend this mindset. It may help to begin with a guided journal, such as the journal that accompanies "The Artist's Way" or "Peace and Plenty." There are many options available in bookstores, including beautiful blank or lined journals to complete and keep. A journal is a personal, intimate, production. It is your creation, so create at will, and let the devil catch up the rear.

     I've seen journals by journalists, one of the most creative of which was Dan Eldon's "The Journey Is The Destination." Dan Eldon, a British photojournalist, artist and activist, was stoned to death in Mogadishu with three colleagues in 1993. He was twenty-three years old. If you have never read his journal, find it and buy it. This is not the kind of book to borrow or rent. It is a masterpiece. Here is another suggestion. If, indeed, you know an elder, or you are an elder with early memory loss, recording a journal (and, perhaps, later, writing a life story from it) would be an immensely fulfilling project. Everyone has a story; our stories are the treasury of human experience.

Those with dementia are still people and they still have stories and they still have character and they're all individuals and they're all unique. And they just need to be interacted with on a human level. -Carey Mulligan

Start growing a journal for yourself or someone else today.