It’s time for #6degrees. Start at the same place as other wonderful readers, add six books, and see where you end up.
This month we begin with Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov and translated by Angela Rodel. The novel is about a project that creates a space for dementia.
I recently read Sarah Holland-Batt’s poetry collection, The Jaguar, and although it is not about dementia per se, there was a poignant poem that highlighted how the body persists but the mind does not when a person suffers from dementia –
We’ve said our goodbyes –
you’re elsewhere now.
Here, but nowhere really.
We only talk in poetry.
I’m not sure when
I last saw the you I knew –
whenever it was
I didn’t make a note of the date.
My next link is to The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka, which features Alice, a character with dementia who is moved into permanent care (and we realise that she’s had her ‘last’ swim).
Swimming is a vital part of my life. Although I loathed Heather Rose’s Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here, there was one quite lovely passage about ageing and swimming –
It’s a gift to my future self, all this swimming. I watch women in their sixties, seventies and eighties come down to the beach through the frosty months…
‘Gift to my future self’ – I love that. My gift to my future self is to keep learning, which links to Beginners by Tom Vanderbilt.
I recently learnt some new skills at a botanical drawing class with Emma Mitchell, author of The Wild Remedy.
Botanical drawing provides my next link to the story of Sara Plummer, who, in 1870 taught herself botany and discovered hundreds of new plant species. Her work was largely credited merely as “J.G. Lemmon & wife.” Wynne Brown’s narrative nonfiction account of Plummer’s life is The Forgotten Botanist.
From dementia and swimming to new skills and plants. Where will other chains go? Link up below or post your link in the comments section.
Next month (August 5, 2023), we’ll start with Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld.
