Sunday, September 23, 2001
This Will Not Always Be My Life - To LTF
I've learned a lot about people and their lapses, within the last couple of years. I've been moved to consider lapses from a variety of angles not usually noticed, much less studied, by living with my mother. Her lapses now, for the most part, aren't chosen or manufactured by her. They are beyond her control and they aren't defensive, at least not in the classic sense. There are a few she still chooses: Her sleeping, for instance, is a fundamental chosen one. Her equipment for sensing and repairing lapses within herself is faltering, though.
I think, unlike my mother, most people don't know they have built in lapse detecting/repairing equipment. The equipment tries to work anyway but, without cooperation, its mission is usually accomplished with much fault.
My mother likes being apprised of her lapses, both the type due to defect and the chosen type. She likes trying to overcome them although, considering the state of her equipment, she usually, when working on overcoming a lapse, gets thrown into a nest of lapses. Sometimes, though, she is successful.
I brought one of her chosen lapses to her attention a little less than a year ago because I was its victim and I decided, on the spot, that she had no legitimate excuse for continuing to hurt people the way she hurt me. And, yes, I am familiar with the current politically correct argument (in all of its guises, from spiritual to psychological to sociological to economic) that one chooses to be hurt, one doesn't have to be hurt by other people's behavior. What a bucket of fuck. [I was reminded of this delightfully, disgustingly ambivalent phrase (is a bucket of fuck good or bad, for instance) not too long ago and have been looking for an excuse to use it.] The one I brought to her attention was this: She has had, for years, a habit of dismissing people's thoughts without thinking when her mind is full of other things or she is impatient because, intellectually, she has to work to get to where they are and thus assumes they are being frivolous without thinking her way through this judgment. Her dismissal takes the form of her launching the following phrase, a surprise attack, in the middle of a conversation with which she's become impatient: "Oh, [you, they, he, she] doesn't know what [you're, they're, he's, she's] talking about." I'll tell you, LTF, this is a blunt little conversation stopper which always works whether it's true or not. Anyway, she leveled that at me one day a while ago when I was explaining some detail about the insurance transactions to MPS. Both MPS and I were stunned silent.
I recovered quickly and made an instantaneous decision that she needed to know, through me, what her behavior did to people. What she said had stung. I cried. It hurt. I told her so. It was wrong. I explained, impassioned, why it was wrong. I even told her that the quality of her mind was such that she has no excuse for doing this. I further suggested that maybe a hearing aid might help alleviate her impatience with conversations (as far as I'm concerned, the woman has always needed a hearing aid).
She was so startled that she had no choice but to listen to me and consider what I had to say. She agreed. She did not strike a pose for Emotional Catharsis posters. She simply realized what she was doing, considered why she might be doing it, realized that her behavior was at a level of thoughtlessness she ordinarily would not tolerate in anyone else, let alone herself and decided to pay more attention next time. The upshot is, even with the added difficulty of her further failing memory, she is more aware. She has not dismissed anyone in ages (she is aging quickly, now).
Anyway, I also want to relate the following to you, a mother incident fashioned from two mother incidents. More than a couple of days ago I got her out to go to Costco (I lured her with tales of their increasing stock of Christmas related items). I noticed that she had a slight "hitch in her giddy-up". Several times we stopped while I adjusted her shoes, etc. We also had to stop at the local grocery and pick up some things. She had been enthusiastic about doing this. After the trip through Costco, though, she opted to sit on a bench just inside the entry to the grocery while I picked up the things we needed. An older woman watched our negotiation, listened to our conversation and pulled me aside as I turned into the grocery arena.
"It hurts to get old," she said.
"I know," I told her, "I see it in my mother every day."
"And," she continued, "being old means being tired." Mind you, she told me she was 88; four years older than my mother and much more spry.
She didn't deliver this in a shroud of despond. She was just explaining my mother to me.
She took off one way and I took off another. Before I was half way through produce I was sobbing.
Yet one more item to relate: On Wednesday when I was in Mesa/Chandler, I put lotion on MCF's father, wrapping his extremities in hot, wet towels, as I always do. This time, while I was loosening up one of his feet, MCF said, "You know, that's something you could do after your mom dies. You'll have lots of experience. You'd be good at it. You could even be a private companion."
I was immediately overcome with the thought of tending to people obviously on their way out. Individually or in a nursing home setting, I realized that I would not be able to do this again. Whatever it takes to survive via this set of skills, this type of involvement, I don't have it, or at least I will no longer have it when my mother dies. It was a sobering realization. Not that I'd considered doing this for a living other than doing it now for my mother and surviving as a fringe benefit. I have deliberately avoided thinking of this as an apprenticeship or a stepping stone to job opportunities. But it was weird to realize that I had already chosen to close that door. Not bad weird. Just weird.
So, my mother has decided not to go to the fair, today. Funny, she mentioned the ornamental pigeons. There was an article in today's local paper about the rabbit exhibit. That's not a favorite of mine. I don't like thinking of rabbits as domestic. They are about as domestic as iguanas. Or guinea pigs. Or turtles. Or fish. It seems undignified to "pet" them.
I think, unlike my mother, most people don't know they have built in lapse detecting/repairing equipment. The equipment tries to work anyway but, without cooperation, its mission is usually accomplished with much fault.
My mother likes being apprised of her lapses, both the type due to defect and the chosen type. She likes trying to overcome them although, considering the state of her equipment, she usually, when working on overcoming a lapse, gets thrown into a nest of lapses. Sometimes, though, she is successful.
I brought one of her chosen lapses to her attention a little less than a year ago because I was its victim and I decided, on the spot, that she had no legitimate excuse for continuing to hurt people the way she hurt me. And, yes, I am familiar with the current politically correct argument (in all of its guises, from spiritual to psychological to sociological to economic) that one chooses to be hurt, one doesn't have to be hurt by other people's behavior. What a bucket of fuck. [I was reminded of this delightfully, disgustingly ambivalent phrase (is a bucket of fuck good or bad, for instance) not too long ago and have been looking for an excuse to use it.] The one I brought to her attention was this: She has had, for years, a habit of dismissing people's thoughts without thinking when her mind is full of other things or she is impatient because, intellectually, she has to work to get to where they are and thus assumes they are being frivolous without thinking her way through this judgment. Her dismissal takes the form of her launching the following phrase, a surprise attack, in the middle of a conversation with which she's become impatient: "Oh, [you, they, he, she] doesn't know what [you're, they're, he's, she's] talking about." I'll tell you, LTF, this is a blunt little conversation stopper which always works whether it's true or not. Anyway, she leveled that at me one day a while ago when I was explaining some detail about the insurance transactions to MPS. Both MPS and I were stunned silent.
I recovered quickly and made an instantaneous decision that she needed to know, through me, what her behavior did to people. What she said had stung. I cried. It hurt. I told her so. It was wrong. I explained, impassioned, why it was wrong. I even told her that the quality of her mind was such that she has no excuse for doing this. I further suggested that maybe a hearing aid might help alleviate her impatience with conversations (as far as I'm concerned, the woman has always needed a hearing aid).
She was so startled that she had no choice but to listen to me and consider what I had to say. She agreed. She did not strike a pose for Emotional Catharsis posters. She simply realized what she was doing, considered why she might be doing it, realized that her behavior was at a level of thoughtlessness she ordinarily would not tolerate in anyone else, let alone herself and decided to pay more attention next time. The upshot is, even with the added difficulty of her further failing memory, she is more aware. She has not dismissed anyone in ages (she is aging quickly, now).
Anyway, I also want to relate the following to you, a mother incident fashioned from two mother incidents. More than a couple of days ago I got her out to go to Costco (I lured her with tales of their increasing stock of Christmas related items). I noticed that she had a slight "hitch in her giddy-up". Several times we stopped while I adjusted her shoes, etc. We also had to stop at the local grocery and pick up some things. She had been enthusiastic about doing this. After the trip through Costco, though, she opted to sit on a bench just inside the entry to the grocery while I picked up the things we needed. An older woman watched our negotiation, listened to our conversation and pulled me aside as I turned into the grocery arena.
"It hurts to get old," she said.
"I know," I told her, "I see it in my mother every day."
"And," she continued, "being old means being tired." Mind you, she told me she was 88; four years older than my mother and much more spry.
She didn't deliver this in a shroud of despond. She was just explaining my mother to me.
She took off one way and I took off another. Before I was half way through produce I was sobbing.
Yet one more item to relate: On Wednesday when I was in Mesa/Chandler, I put lotion on MCF's father, wrapping his extremities in hot, wet towels, as I always do. This time, while I was loosening up one of his feet, MCF said, "You know, that's something you could do after your mom dies. You'll have lots of experience. You'd be good at it. You could even be a private companion."
I was immediately overcome with the thought of tending to people obviously on their way out. Individually or in a nursing home setting, I realized that I would not be able to do this again. Whatever it takes to survive via this set of skills, this type of involvement, I don't have it, or at least I will no longer have it when my mother dies. It was a sobering realization. Not that I'd considered doing this for a living other than doing it now for my mother and surviving as a fringe benefit. I have deliberately avoided thinking of this as an apprenticeship or a stepping stone to job opportunities. But it was weird to realize that I had already chosen to close that door. Not bad weird. Just weird.
So, my mother has decided not to go to the fair, today. Funny, she mentioned the ornamental pigeons. There was an article in today's local paper about the rabbit exhibit. That's not a favorite of mine. I don't like thinking of rabbits as domestic. They are about as domestic as iguanas. Or guinea pigs. Or turtles. Or fish. It seems undignified to "pet" them.
