Sometimes we all just want to get up and fly away, and this is the experience I offer through stories when I visit care homes with my international, multi-sensory sets.
When I started working with care homes in 2012, people told me to focus on reminiscence work; people just want a chance to talk about their lives, I was told. But when I started visiting care homes, I realised that for many residents, the past was a horror that they wanted to escape. Therefore, I brought in items that I had collected from around the world – beautifully embroidered cloths and sweet-swelling tea from India, incense from Japan, shadow puppets from India, shells from a local beach and, of course, the bellydancing belt that I once bought for a kiss!
Before long, everyone would be laughing and having fun. We would try to get sounds out of various musical instruments, talk about the intricacies of embroidery, smell the incense and the tea, and learn about countries and times far away and long ago.
The course of storytelling never does run smooth, however. Working with people with the early stages of dementia always brings a few problems, including heckling. However, just like the scarves we use for dancing, sometimes you just have to go with the flow and laugh when we get in a muddle.