Five Weeks at the Retro Lounge - When You Make Room, People Fill It
- 1 day ago
- 7 min read
Five weeks ago, we opened the doors to the Retro Lounge not entirely knowing what it would become. We had ideas and concepts.
There would be good coffee and food. Music. Art supplies. Games and puzzles. Interesting things to watch and talk about. Opportunities to create, move, laugh and spend time together.
But there was one thing we were quite certain about. We didn't want to fill every minute.
The Retro Lounge was created by Young Onset Dementia Collective as a relaxed weekly space for people living with younger onset dementia. From the beginning, activities were intended to be invitations rather than directives. The space is generously provided by our hosts First Scene.
Come at 9.30 if you like. Come a little later if that works better.
Make something. Play something. Dance. Talk. Watch. Help. Have another coffee.
Or don't do any of those things. There is no rush. No hurry. No pressure to participate.
Five weeks later, we are beginning to understand just how important that philosophy might be.
It starts with coffee
There are some things at Retro Lounge that have become non-negotiable. The coffee machine goes on first. Flat whites, long blacks and hot chocolates appear as people arrive. There is usually home baking or something delicious alongside them. Bacon and cheese scones, cookies, Chelsea buns, Portuguese tarts and whatever else has found its way onto the table that week.
But the food and coffee are doing more than feeding people. They give us a reason to sit. To linger.
To ask what someone has been doing since last Thursday. To pick up a conversation from the week before.
Nobody arrives and is immediately ushered into an activity. The morning is allowed to unfold and increasingly, that unhurried beginning feels less like the time before Retro Lounge starts and more like one of the most important parts of it.
A room full of possibilities
Look around the Lounge on any Thursday and different things will be happening at the same time.
Someone may be working on our community jigsaw while someone else paints. There have been collages, cards and canvases. Charades, quizzes and conversation starters. Commonwealth Games highlights on television. A Mystery Aroma Challenge involving everything from rosemary and vanilla to Milo, L&P and Apple Lumps.
We've danced .. a lot .. every session.
We've somehow had butterflies, weightlifters, hammer throwers, horse riders and a couple of Mexicans appear in the room.
We've watched David Attenborough take us into the natural world and travelled visually around beautiful Aotearoa.
We've opened a box of Deeper Questions and discovered that sometimes just one question is enough to send a conversation somewhere completely unexpected.
And a small, donated whiteboard lasted approximately five minutes before being commandeered for some spectacularly unsuccessful portrait drawing by one of our volunteers. Fortunately, our subjects were good-natured. Even more fortunately, whiteboards wipe clean.
There is plenty of silliness at Retro Lounge and we all love that.
What people bring with them
Perhaps one of the loveliest discoveries of our first five weeks has been seeing what emerges when there is room for people to bring themselves into the day.
During Session Two, 93-year-old Margaret joined us and shared her first-hand memories of arriving in Aotearoa with her family in 1939, just as Britain declared war on Germany. For a few moments, history wasn't something on a screen or in a book. It was sitting in the room with us.
Another week, Rua quietly picked up a guitar. There had been no announcement and no planned performance. He simply began to play. A talent appeared that many of us hadn't known was there. That moment stayed with us because it represented something much bigger.
When someone is diagnosed with dementia, there can be an enormous shift in attention towards what that person is losing or can no longer do. Yet people continue to arrive carrying a lifetime of skills, interests, humour, knowledge, memories, creativity and personality.
Sometimes the opportunity for those things to emerge is all that is needed.
Creativity without a deadline
Our creative space has taught us something too. A painting doesn't have to be finished because Thursday is ending.
Some people have become completely absorbed in creating. Others paint for a while, wander away, come back later or return to the same canvas the following week.
There is no required outcome. The expression belongs to the person creating it.
That might seem like a small distinction, but it reflects something important about the Retro Lounge. We are not looking for evidence that everyone has successfully completed the day's activity. We are creating opportunities. What people do with them is up to them.
Friendships are beginning to travel
Something else is happening. People aren't simply coming to Retro Lounge. They are becoming part of a community.
Marie, already familiar to us through YODC Enrichment days, recently walked through the Retro Lounge doors for the first time. Increasingly, friendships and familiarity are travelling with people across different parts of YODC. Faces become familiar. People notice who has arrived.
Conversations continue from one week to the next.
There are hugs at the beginning of the day and hugs again when rides arrive in the afternoon. But isn't really goodbye anymore. It's, “See you next time.”
That sense of belonging cannot be put onto a timetable. It has to grow.
Everyone contributes
There is another little ritual that has quietly become part of every Thursday. At the end of the day, we tidy up. Together.
And one of the things we've noticed is that people want to help.
Cups are collected. Tables are cleared and wiped. Things are returned to where they belong. Nobody needs to stand in the middle of the room allocating jobs.
Tevita, for example, knows where the vacuum cleaner lives. When tidy-up time comes, he locates it and gets on with the job, completely unprompted. It would be very easy for someone else to do it for him. But why would we?
It's useful. It's contributing. It's purposeful.
People living with younger onset dementia find themselves too often on the receiving end of help. As abilities change, other people can gradually begin doing more and more for someone, often with the very best of intentions.
At Retro Lounge, we want to leave room for people to do things themselves and for each other.
Tidying a table or vacuuming a floor might look insignificant from the outside but it’s not.
It says: this is my place too, and I have something to contribute here.
Sometimes there is music playing and even the clean-up has been known to involve dancing. There are people packing away while others finish conversations and everyone gradually gets the room back in order.
Retro Lounge isn't a service being delivered to a room full of passive recipients. It’s something we create, enjoy and look after together.
Our volunteer support people understand that too. Their role isn't to direct every moment, keep everyone “busy” or automatically step in and do things for people. They are alongside people, making coffee, joining conversations, noticing when someone wants a hand, participating, laughing and helping create an environment where people have the opportunity to contribute as well as receive.
Purpose doesn't always have to come from something big. Sometimes purpose looks like finding the vacuum cleaner and getting on with the job.
And then words took flight
Perhaps the moment that best captures what we are discovering happened during Session Five.
Music was playing, as it almost always is. The Mavericks came on. A favourite.
And suddenly words that can sometimes be difficult to access in conversation came easily as lyrics to a familiar song. There was no searching. No pressure to remember.
The melody began and the words seemed to know the way. Other voices joined in.
Music helped words take flight and It was one of those moments that could easily have passed unnoticed. But we noticed because younger onset dementia can change language, memory and communication. It can make familiar words frustratingly difficult to retrieve.
Yet there they were. Not necessarily gone but simply waiting for another pathway. For those few minutes, music found it.
It left us wondering: Perhaps we should put all our words to music so they are easier to find?
What five weeks are teaching us
Retro Lounge is only five weeks old. We are still experimenting, observing and learning.
But a biggest lesson so far is that we don't need to decide in advance exactly what a good Thursday should look like. We can create the conditions for one instead.
Good coffee. Something delicious to eat. Music. Creativity. Interesting things to discover.
People who genuinely enjoy being together. Choice. Humour. Time. And plenty of space in between.
Then trust people to fill that space themselves. Sometimes with paint. Sometimes with stories. Often with laughter. Sometimes with a guitar nobody knew someone could play. Sometimes with a conversation sparked by a smell. Very often with dancing.
Sometimes with absolutely nothing more complicated than two people sitting together over another cup of coffee. And when we are particularly blessed, they fill it with a familiar melody and words take flight.
Five weeks ago, we wondered what Retro Lounge might become.
We are beginning to realise that perhaps our job was never to decide.
It was simply to open the doors, create the space and allow the people inside it to make it their own.
Connection. Purpose. Contribution. Belonging.
A different response to younger onset dementia.
About First Scene
Established over 40 years ago, First Scene is recognized as having Aotearoa’s largest selection of costume and party props with over 400,000 items in stock. Many items have featured in local and international films, national theatre productions, television commercials and of course thousands of parties and celebrations around the country. The First Scene team's creative experience and wide ranging backgrounds enables them to offer the best support possible to ensure projects, events or productions are the talk of the town!
