Wednesday, July 25, 2001
The Peculiar Light of Inspiration - To LTF
The peculiar Mom episode...I almost forgot. I mentioned it was sort of complicated, but the retelling of the actual incident is not.
So, MPNC and I were stretched out together on the futon couch watching some movie, I can't remember what, oh yeah, I remember, Cast Away (the best thing about the movie, I thought, was the crash and splitting the title into two words). Mom was sitting at the table in the dining room to our left. I wasn't sure where MPS and MPNP were; outside somewhere.
MPNC said to me, "Do you smell something burning?"
I looked around. I called out to the dining room, "Mom, did you light the filter end of a cigarette?"
"No."
The burning smell strengthened. "Did something ignite in your ash tray?"
"No."
"Are you heating something up on the stove?"
"No."
I finally stood up and looked up into the dining room (the living room is sunken). Mom had a roll of toilet paper to her left. She was tearing off pieces of toilet paper, rolling them into tight little sticks, lighting them with a lighter and watching them burn out in the ashtray. Some of the toilet paper sticks, I noted, must have been longer than the ashtray because there were black ashes trailing away from the ashtray on either side. I also noted that a cigarette was burning in one of the holders in the ashtray.
I didn't even wait to digest this. I lunged forward, grabbed all the materials I could, whipped them out of her reach and scolded her for playing with fire. I ended with, "Mom, if this happens too many more times I'm going to have to take control of all the lighters in the house and you'll have to come to me every time you want a light." [Of course on later comtemplation I realize this would actually be playing into Mom's rapidly dementing "hands" and I don't want to become a Human Lighter, so maybe she won't remember that pronouncement.]
The complication in this episode, as I see it, is that she had been under what to her would be considered stress in that MPNC had been asking her repeatedly to either smoke outside, move, or not smoke at all. I did not intervene in this. I knew that making any requests of Mom regarding her smoking or not smoking was a lost cause. I also remember all of us siblings making repeated requests of the same type, some even stronger, of my mother and father throughout our entire lives at home, most of which went unheeded. So I stay out of these types of confrontations. However, Mom had absorbed enough of MPNC's requests that she had become irritated and tense whenever she lit a cigarette and had lit several filter ends throughout the visit.
Observing all this, it occurs to me that Mom's firebugging was a direct result of the tension she was feeling surrounding smoking during the visit. No one else, no one, said anything to her about smoking. MPS smoked outside. I had a couple of cigarettes with MPS. MPNP never said anything to Mom. MPS never said anything to Mom. I never said anything to Mom. Only MPNC did. And, I think that pushed Mom over the top and she started playing with fire.
So, I guess when she starts playing with fire again I need to look for causes of stress. That, at least, is good to know. I wasn't sure before why she was occasionally doing these apparently alien, definitely dangerous things. However I think I am going to start an informal monitoring of lighters around here.
So, MPNC and I were stretched out together on the futon couch watching some movie, I can't remember what, oh yeah, I remember, Cast Away (the best thing about the movie, I thought, was the crash and splitting the title into two words). Mom was sitting at the table in the dining room to our left. I wasn't sure where MPS and MPNP were; outside somewhere.
MPNC said to me, "Do you smell something burning?"
I looked around. I called out to the dining room, "Mom, did you light the filter end of a cigarette?"
"No."
The burning smell strengthened. "Did something ignite in your ash tray?"
"No."
"Are you heating something up on the stove?"
"No."
I finally stood up and looked up into the dining room (the living room is sunken). Mom had a roll of toilet paper to her left. She was tearing off pieces of toilet paper, rolling them into tight little sticks, lighting them with a lighter and watching them burn out in the ashtray. Some of the toilet paper sticks, I noted, must have been longer than the ashtray because there were black ashes trailing away from the ashtray on either side. I also noted that a cigarette was burning in one of the holders in the ashtray.
I didn't even wait to digest this. I lunged forward, grabbed all the materials I could, whipped them out of her reach and scolded her for playing with fire. I ended with, "Mom, if this happens too many more times I'm going to have to take control of all the lighters in the house and you'll have to come to me every time you want a light." [Of course on later comtemplation I realize this would actually be playing into Mom's rapidly dementing "hands" and I don't want to become a Human Lighter, so maybe she won't remember that pronouncement.]
The complication in this episode, as I see it, is that she had been under what to her would be considered stress in that MPNC had been asking her repeatedly to either smoke outside, move, or not smoke at all. I did not intervene in this. I knew that making any requests of Mom regarding her smoking or not smoking was a lost cause. I also remember all of us siblings making repeated requests of the same type, some even stronger, of my mother and father throughout our entire lives at home, most of which went unheeded. So I stay out of these types of confrontations. However, Mom had absorbed enough of MPNC's requests that she had become irritated and tense whenever she lit a cigarette and had lit several filter ends throughout the visit.
Observing all this, it occurs to me that Mom's firebugging was a direct result of the tension she was feeling surrounding smoking during the visit. No one else, no one, said anything to her about smoking. MPS smoked outside. I had a couple of cigarettes with MPS. MPNP never said anything to Mom. MPS never said anything to Mom. I never said anything to Mom. Only MPNC did. And, I think that pushed Mom over the top and she started playing with fire.
So, I guess when she starts playing with fire again I need to look for causes of stress. That, at least, is good to know. I wasn't sure before why she was occasionally doing these apparently alien, definitely dangerous things. However I think I am going to start an informal monitoring of lighters around here.
