Hello in There

By Harriet Riley






A few tables and chairs litter the room. The walls are unadorned. Along with coffee, cake and brownies, this room contains lives.



Each Wednesday morning when I arrive at the community center, the students sit in a circle singing along with a mandolin-player. When she finishes, we all push the tables into the middle and arrange the chairs so everyone has a place. I pass out lined paper and pencils. We are now here to write.



As a creative writing teacher, I’ve written with all ages. From three-year-old cancer patients having infusion therapy in a hospital to fourth-grade bilingual speakers in their classroom to 16-year-olds at a university overnight writing camp to an 86-year-old in an evening adult writing class. I’ve also led a writing workshop in a nursing home and at a summer camp for schoolkids.



But this is different. I am facilitating a seven-week writing workshop with clients in an Alzheimer’s day treatment program.



And I have no idea what to expect.



My adult writing workshops are called Telling Our Stories. But how can I ask my students to tell their stories if they do not remember? My innocent, uninformed hope is that a variety of prompts will help this group of older students unlock past experiences, thoughts and lost memories. That is how writing prompts work for me. I read the word “room” and memories of different rooms in my life come to mind, almost bringing me to tears. Or I smell Channel No. 5 and my mother floods my senses.



On the first day, I bring at least 20 objects with me and spread them out along our long table. Eight older adults silently watch. Handling each item with respect, I say, “Each thing you see here is full of story—what it was before it was made, and where it has been, and the stories of all the people who have used it. Objects give us the world—they are how the world comes to us.”



I ask them to write about one object or several, just to see where their mind will take them. Some seem hesitant to write. I add that they can dictate to me or to one of the helpers in the room and we will write down their thoughts.



A little antiquated book I placed on the table really affects one lady with short-cropped salt and pepper hair. With a big grin, this woman says, “I remember the 20,000 Word book when I was at business school at age 18. It was 1957. We used this book before the electronic/telecommunications age.”



A diminutive 97-year-old woman with a sparkle in her blue eyes says, “I remember I moved to London from Berlin just before WWII. I was 16 or 17 years old, and I had to make a choice to go to the army or do war work. I chose to do war work: I made pots on a machine. Those were the days, my friend. We all had a very active sex life because everybody was afraid that it was his or her last time. Bombs were dropping all over the place.”



She continues in her thick German accent, “We had to work 12 hours a day. For two weeks we would work the day shift and for two weeks, the night shift. I remember I had one nice outfit. It was navy blue wool. I guarded it with my life. It was hard to get nice things.”



Another woman with a deep furrow in her brow tells a story about her father leaving her birth country Honduras when she was a baby because he had killed a man. She explains with a frown, “I finally met my birth father when I was 21. I told him that he was a son of a bitch. ‘Nobody would leave me like he left my mother,’ is what I told him. I saw him just that one time. His wife said not to return.”



I have some students tell their stories to each other, sometimes to partners, sometimes to the volunteers. Some others actually write. Other students are silent, but they seem to hear.



After that first visit, I know this is not going to be my normal writing workshop. Over the six weeks I have left, I use writing as a tool to just connect with these older adults who have lost their memory. Writing is not the point of the workshop. Most of them don’t really want to write. They just want to be seen by another person. It is in being seen and heard that they became real, like the Velveteen Rabbit. The act of writing brings out their root memories in way they haven’t been unlocked before.



I believe these workshops bring out each person’s core story. Whether it is the Blitz in London or the hurt of a father’s rejection or the pride of taking over a father’s business or happy times on a family sailboat, the essence of each life remains. As I re-read their writings, I see that being a writer is about more than holding a pencil. Even when we’ve lost our memory, we are still ourselves.



The late songwriter John Prine wrote about older adults just wanting to be seen in his song, “Hello in There.” When our memory is missing or somehow distorted, we remain the same people we always were. We just need to be seen.



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Harriet Riley  is a New Orleans-based freelance nonfiction writer focusing on essays and journalism. She taught creative writing for 11 years with Writers in the Schools Houston. Harriet also taught journalism, worked as a non-profit director and as a newspaper reporter. She recently published articles in 64 Parishes, Mississippi Folklife, Minerva Rising , and the Wanderlust anthology. She has her MA in print journalism from UT Austin.