Gerda Saunders's Blog: Field Notes on My Dementia, page 18

“Could I be faking dementia?” Excerpt from MEMORY’S LAST BREATH: FIELD NOTES ON MY DEMENTIA that I read at CityArt

Last Wednesday evening, I read from the second chapter of MEMORY’S LAST BREATH, in which I reflect on the genesis of my book that grew from journal entries to an essay to more essays to chapters. About three essays in, the discrepancy between my daily memory failures and my apparently retained writing ability generated the […]

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Launch of Gerda’s memoir, MEMORY’S LAST BREATH, June 22, 2017 @ 7 pm. , The King’s English, 1511 South 1500 East, Salt Lake City

While we bibliophilic locals dont’ need an introduction to The King’s English, it is still nice to see that is is known far and wide and even features on TripAdvisor (the source of the photo above.) Here is one of many recommendations: “The King’s English is what a bookstore should be: welcoming and homey, eclectic […]

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Save the date: June 22, 2017 @ 7 pm. Gerda’s memoir, MEMORY’S LAST BREATH, launched at The King’s English, Salt Lake City

While we bibliophilic locals dont’ need an introduction to The King’s English, it is still nice to see that is is known far and wide and even features on TripAdvisor (the source of the photo above.) Here is one of many recommendations: “The King’s English is what a bookstore should be: welcoming and homey, eclectic […]

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Kirkus Reviews said nice things about MEMORY’S LAST BREATH. Doña Quixote asks: “What is Kirkus Reviews?”

Saunders’ “eloquent, often lyrical book…is remarkable not only for its fiercely honest, sometimes-poetic portrayal of mental decline, but also for the way the author effectively celebrates ‘the magisterial of a mind, the grant of an interval to sound the ordinances of a world without being.’ A courageous, richly textured, and unsparing memoir.” —Kirkus Reviews How […]

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Despite our ongoing ménage à trois with Doña Quixote, aka my dementia, Peter and Gerda celebrate our 46th wedding anniversary

On Sunday March 26th, the Salt Lake City Saunderses celebrated 2 birthdays and a wedding anniversary. Sunday was the actual day of Marissa’s birthday: my baby girl turned 40! Today, March 28th, is her husband Adam’s 43rd birthday. In between–that is, yesterday, came my and Peter’s anniversary.   Marissa with Gerda’s mother, Ouma Susan, and little […]

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Honor Moore said nice things about MEMORY’S LAST BREATH. Doña Quixote asks: “Who is Honor Moore?”

Honor Moore is a playwright, memoirist, editor, and poet. She has written two memoirs, The White Blackbird: A Life of the Painter Margarett Sargent by Her Granddaughter and The Bishop’s Daughter.  In The Bishop’s Daughter, Moore writes about her life as the daughter of Paul Moor, an episcopal priest who, at the end of his […]

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Shopping while demented: Doña Quixote loves her independence in Las Vegas

Twenty years after the fact Peter and I are still benefiting from the handful of biggish gambling wins he had in Las Vegas when working in there for a 3-year period in the 1990s—every few months we get three nights of “free” hotel rooms. Which hotel invites us depends on where Peter chose to lose […]

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Andrew Solomon said nice things about MEMORY’S LAST BREATH. Doña Quixote asks: “Who is Andrew Solomon?”

Andrew Solomon (photo: Annie Leibovitz, from Solomon’s website) is a professor of psychology at Columbia University, and a regular contributor to The New Yorker, NPR, and The New York Times Magazine. He is also a gay man raising four children with his partner and a lesbian couple–he and his husband are each the biological father of […]

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Three small steps for Doña Quixote, a giant leap backwards for Gerda towards Dickensian craziness

Sometimes when I function reasonably well for a few days, I ask myself if I might not just be faking dementia as I sometimes think people who don’t know we well suspect that I do. Sadly, though, this week three discouraging things happened that restored my integrity–”I really am not faking this”–but burst my bubble […]

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Blessed be the caregivers of us the elderly, particularly us dementers!

Main Photo: Rick Rayburn takes care of his wife Marianne, who has dementia. As impossible as it seems to me that our generation, the baby boomers, are now the old people, I see it confirmed in myself and in my circle of friends and family, where hip- and other joint replacements, serious illnesses, dementia for […]

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