Embedding Meaning Into Activities

I happened to come by on the day it was Nikia's birthday so today's activities were mostly centered on stimulating activities that were purposeful for the birthday. But first, Mr. Reel is not used to me coming by so the first thing we did was listen to music. Music is a powerful gift that can bring peace to the mind as it relaxes the defenses and clears away stress barriers from one's thoughts. 

Each time I met with him in the past, Mr. Reel would easily pick out Miles Davis as one of his favorite jazz artists. But there was another man's name that he could not as easily recall this morning. Still, the sweet melody of Miles Davis filled the room and he bowed his head as he listened. During the middle of the song, Mr. Reel announced, "Duke Ellington!" 

I offered to play something of Duke Ellington but Mr. Reel had another type of music on his mind. After a bit of tumble words between us, he realized he was thinking about country music. "Which country?" I asked. "Romance? Pop? Rock?" 

"Rock," he said with certainty. Jason Aldean's "Hicktown" began to play and after a couple minutes of that, Mr. Reel smiled and announced, "Hank Williams!" And once Hank came streaming through the speakers, Mr. Reel was tapping his foot, nodding his head, and singing along to "Jambalaya." 

And so music is a powerful activity in that it relaxes a person and opens his or her willing mind to other thoughts and memories. 

We stopped the music to go to exercise class which we attended together. That was actually a great class performed by a professional yoga teacher. It was nice hearing some of the residents joke around, purposely making funny breathing noises as they followed instruction. Some people truly are forever young. 

After exercise, I reminded Mr. Reel that he will be picked up at 4:30pm for Nikia's birthday dinner and so we should prepare in advance since we are also taking the Atria bus trip to the Met for a couple of hours after lunch. So we picked up a nice, light-colored summer outfit but at the last minute, he said he wanted to wear the Hawaiian shirt. It's a very nice Hawaiian shirt, and actually called an Aloha shirt by Hawaii locals (I'm from Hawaii). Amusingly enough, local never say Hawaiian shirt and never put pineapple in a pizza.

We had a lot of time to have lunch and select flowers and a birthday card. At the flower stand, I asked Mr. Reel to look at each bunch of flowers and select what he thinks would make a nice gift for his daughter. He humorously said, "She doesn't like anything I buy for her but okay!" He selected the only bunch that had a yellow flower in it. 

The museum visit was last on the agenda and Mr. Reel was more fascinated by the human sculptures than anything else. In one exhibition, a sculpted head is missing its nose. Mr. Reel put his dukes up and playfully growled, "What you got? What you got?" 

"Hold that thought!" I said and snapped the pic.