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  109 Chapter 6 “You Can Dance Alone or We’ll Dance with You” Creating Community We’re so schedule driven now. We can’t have a relationship with the residents—to get forty-four people up, dressed, to breakfast, to the bathroom—there’s no time. —Dee Dolezal, director of nursing, the Village, before culture change What touches my heart is to know the elders in their winter years will actually have a home. Some of these people, we’re the only family they have. It is exciting to wake up and come to work every day. What more could you want? I’m ready to step out in faith. —Glenda Buchanan, registered nurse and Green House guide These are the happiest years of our lives. —Phillip Bellefeuille, ninety-five, on living with his wife, Alean, at the Mount When I first entered Providence Mount Saint Vincent in Seattle, Mardi Gras was in full swing. A Dixieland band was swaying in the lobby, and plenty of folks, young and old, were gathered around, some in wheelchairs, all tapping to the beat. From the outside, the Mount looks rather imposing. A 300,000-squarefoot brick edifice, constructed in 1924 for the Sisters of Providence (who now live in an adjacent building), the Mount offers assisted living and a nursing home for people of all faiths. It may not be the most modern, elegant, or homelike in its bricks and mortar, but in fifteen years of “resident-directed” culture, the Mount has forged a deep sense of community. 110 Old Age in a New Age On a tour, I glimpsed images of real life. Coming down the hall was a young woman, dressed in t-shirt and jeans, pulling a large plastic wagon that carried three round-cheeked babies solemnly watching the world go by. The Mount has four onsite day-care centers, and children are a regular feature of daily life. A group of older men strolled through the halls crooning “Cajun Love Song,” while a woman walking with them rolled her eyes and indicated with a twirl of her finger that they were crazy. Family members, volunteers, and residents shopped for treasures in the thrift shop or sat in the espresso bar having coffee. I heard laughter and conversation. No one wore uniforms (the result of a request by residents). The Mount seemed to be achieving its goal of “normalcy” for people who live there. The highlight of Mardi Gras week was a parade of staff, family members, and residents, each with a dog in costume: a shih tzu dressed as a nun, a Yorkshire terrier in red plaid, a miniature dachshund with a red feathered mask, a homely old mutt with a big underbite and a baseball cap, another dachshund in a baby bonnet, cocooned in a quilt. I followed the parade as it snaked its way through the building. Most of the residents seemed delighted, although a few looked confused. The hilarity was contagious, though. Celebrations such as this are frequent, I was told. Any occasion will do, even Oprah’s birthday. Cathy Butler, sixty-one, a younger resident with lifelong disabilities, would later tell me, “And parties! Do we know how to party! We’ll open a bottle of champagne at the drop of a hat.” She filled me in on the latest cocktail, a poinsettia, made with champagne and cranberry juice. “That’s what we drank on Super Bowl Sunday,” she said. Cathy said her life was fuller since she’d moved to the Mount, and she had a wide circle of friends. Kathryn Anderson taught nursing students for twenty years before she became director of nursing at the Mount in 2005. She said she realized in those two decades the only mornings that she woke up eager to come to work were the days when she was bringing students to the Mount for a geriatric rotation. “I felt happy just coming through the doors,” she said. Happiness and fun—in such short supply in so many nursing homes— seemed abundant here. I spoke with Penny Garrett, an aide who had worked on and off at the Mount since 1986. She, like many of her coworkers, was from the Philippines. She had worked at other nursing homes in Seattle and in Georgia, and she believed the community at the Mount was special. “Some other places, people don’t talk and laugh, and the residents worry. It’s depressing. You got more load, not enough help, and...

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