2. Sweet Memories, fly me to the moon

with Helena and Jenneba
"I'm in the prescience of an artist!" I declare, turning around in Helena's front room to admire the wonderful paintings that adorn the walls. "I never knew you were an artist as well as a singer," I say to Helena. ​"Mum enjoys doing her art," calls Jenneba who's making tea in the kitchen. I join her to look at some of Helena's pictures on the kitchen cupboards. Helena appears at my shoulder to see what I'm looking at.  "Oh I haven't looked at them, I mean really looked at them in ages," she says. "I think someone must have brought in a fish, don't you?"

In the kitchen there's some handwriting on the wall and I try to read it. Jenneba explains that Mum likes to leave messages to herself, as it helps her to remember, when she seems to be forgetting some things these days.

---

​I ask Helena about the Remembering Together sessions and whether I can see her personal art work made for her by Iris Musel, a 'Musical Memories' box and a 'Sweet Memories' box both decorated in personal photographs and each containing something special.
As Helena opens up one of the boxes to show me, her eyes glitter with excitement and she's smiling. Lifting the lid, the musical box tinkles with a familiar tune and inside there are laminated song sheets from the old days, from musicals such as Singing in the Rain and The Wizard of Oz. Helena picks one out and immediately breaks into song. It's not the first time I have heard her sing, she regularly serenaded us all at the Remembering Together sessions where she was a lively participant. 

​It's an audience with Helena I think, as I sit back and enjoy listening to her sing.  The thing is, it's so infectious and soon Jenneba and I are both joining in with her and I realise that I'm not going to get very far asking my questions. So I abandon my plans, to simply be present in the moment, going with the flow and the rhythm of Helena's musical mood.  Now it's not just our voices that are in harmony, but we are too and time doesn't matter, as we spend the rest of the afternoon singing together from the songs in the Musical Memory box. After all, I can see with my own eyes and hear for myself how perfect this art piece is for Helena! 

​In order to understand more about how Iris about came up with the idea for Helena's personal art piece, we meet in a café in Bethnal Green for a chat.
"The 'Musical Memories' box was inspired by the fact the Helena loves singing!" Iris tells me. "We enjoyed singing many songs during the sessions. I decorated the box with coloured imaged of Helena and her family and inside are song sheets from songs that I believed Helena would enjoy singing. It's also a reminder on how fun and playful both Helena and Jenne are."
The box also has a wind up mechanism I observed. Was there a particular reason for choosing this I ask Iris.
"The reason I chose 'Somewhere over the Rainbow' for the mechanical movement, is that Jenne played Dorothy in a school play when she was little, so I knew the song meant a lot to both of them."
Next we talk about the "The 'Sweet Memories' box which is decorated with black and white pictures of Helena and her family. Around the rim it says 'Sweet Memories' and inside the box are sweets, each wrapped with a piece of paper around it with a written memory on it. How did Iris bring this original idea together?
"For me, it was helpful to capture everything that I had learned about Helena and Jenne over the twelve weeks together. So I collected the stories and memories that they had shared with me during the Remembering Together sessions, as a reminder and to put inside the box." Iris tells me.
But what happens when all the sweets have been eaten? I ask.
"The idea behind the Sweet Memoires box was to make something that could be carried on, to create something that Helena's family could add more memories to, just by making sure that the box is always filled with sweet memories. I have spoken to Jenne since and I know that she keeps on replenishing the box." Iris says.
I'm keen to see how Iris found making an artwork using someone else's memories? She thinks it over for a while before telling me.
"When I was writing the memories to wrap around the sweets, I wished that I could have added more. Otherwise it was an absolute pleasure recounting the memories whilst creating the artwork. It felt extremely special and rewarding and it has inspired me to use the idea and integrate it into art workshops for people with dementia." 

​Back at Helena's place we're ready for a sweet memory as Helena rustles through the sweets, picks one and unwraps it like a fortune cookie! It's a memory about a tall nun and a short nun who both taught at Helena's school in Ireland. It seems to bring a flood of memories and we suck our sweets and talk about the past.
I've so enjoyed my special time singing and sharing memories with Helena and Jenneba. Before I go, I manage to ask Helena to tell me what her memory boxes means to her.
"It's wonderful!" She smiles, "It's full of pictures and memories and every one of them has a significance for me. It makes me happy and I forget I'm an old lady!"
In fact I find that as I leave the flat, I'm also feeling very happy too and as I walk down the road in the rain I'm still humming 'Fly me to the Moon.'

---