Dear Donna. You have commented on my blog posts in the past. I invite you to explore my most recent series. It is titled “Oh No I’m a Caregiver – Dementia – Our Cautionary Story.” These posts are of special significance to me. Dementia appears to be a reality destined to assault all of our lives in one way or another eventually. I believe that the story I have to tell – through my initial post and others yet to come at – has valuable insights to offer. For this reason, I hope you will read it and pass it on to others so that they might benefit from what I am learning and from those insights.

For example… My husband Jonathan, who has recently been diagnosed with dementia, is actually quite fine at this early stage. He is engaged in lots of cognitively powerful activities. He writes original memoir pieces that are very good and says this is the result of sitting in on so many of my writing workshops over the past forty-five years. He now finds more joy in writing than the drawing and music that were his usual creative pursuits in the past. This is good because, as you know, portraying characters and composing scenes require a deep level of focus and detail concentration which is very beneficial for him. He also loves jigsaw puzzling – the 1500-piece variety. Again much concentration is required plus he has fond memory associations of doing puzzles with his mom when he was a boy. He also reads a lot – challenging books, as well as his favorite New York Times articles. He does regular physical exercise and has also begun gardening at our church which has a large planted space in sore need of attention. Medically, he is taking a basic drug that has disappeared his brain fog for the timebeing. We also have excellent medical professionals on our team and on our side.

Dementia is not like the tv commercials portray it to be. Their purpose is to ramp up fear and sell very expensive, very dangerous drugs. There is a long, gradual period before extreme changes begin, and the aggressiveness these ads emphasize can often be mitigated with simple mood medications that are harmless and affordable.

Meanwhile, there is a real-life story to be told here of real-life experience. I hope you will read and share it. Dementia is a reality for many of us and, unfortunately, promises to be a reality for many more. Truth is our best armor against being cast into despair by the prospect. I hope to add a little to that sustaining truth. Dementia is one of the many ways all of us will evolve from this life into whatever may lay beyond. Passing on is our universal destiny. Some of those passages involve discomfort and unpleasantness. We can perhaps be a bit better prepared if we understand realistically what to expect.

That is what our story – Jonathan’s and mine – is meant to do. Help others – in an honest and caring fashion – to be prepared. Love and Blessings. Alice

Hi Donna Galanti. There is a real advantage to a writer in having lived in a number of different environments. When the setting of a story is written effectively that setting can become another character in the story – as real and resonant as the humans interacting within the setting. That resonance comes from details that make the setting come alive. The deeper those details reside within the setting – the more real the setting becomes – until the reader can FEEL what it’s like to be there. It takes familiarity with a place to pick up on those details because you need to experience the FEEL of the place yourself before you can pass it on to your readers. That level of familiarity is hard to come by from a brief visit or some research. Nothing substitutes for living the place then finding the words and word pictures that will allow your readers to live the place too… As for Riverton – it was born in my imagination – but I cannot deny that I was born and raised in Watertown NY.

I’ve since learned that you take your home with you, as nothing is permanent. And being adopted, it took me a long time to feel like I belonged as I always felt like an outsider – but you can find a new “home” in your heart, one that is not a place but a state of mind. I’ve a restless wandering soul and have moved a lot myself, but home is where I feel most loved and most at peace – wherever I find “my home”.

Lovely post and I Ioved hearing about your characters and what home means to them! And am wondering where in NY Riverton is situated?