Saturday, December 25, 2004
My mother's bladder control was excellent, today.
Gee, I wonder why.
She trotted to the bathroom on her own (by which I mean without being reminded) more than a few times and I changed her underwear about half-way through her "up" time not because they were wet (every time I checked them, which amounts to every time she goes to the bathroom, they were dry as new) but because it seemed the precautionarily hygienic thing to do.
For all of you who are horrified at what you may consider the abusiveness of my outburst about her accidentally-on-purpose incontinence yesterday, trust me when I tell you, although my reaction was a bit over-the-top it was not abusive. Although I'm not happy that I resorted to such sharpness and continue to vow to look for other in-your-face methods that aren't quite as pointed, it worked. As well, it did not leave her trembling with fear about the possibility of being incontinent today nor did it raise her internal stress level.
Let me explain something about my mother. She is a natural Buddhist. She consistently sees life from the broad perspective and reacts to it out of an internal serenity that is rarely disturbed. When it is disturbed she retreats into deep, often sub- or unconscious consideration of the disturbance, settles herself with it and reemerges unscathed. She is rarely startled or tricked into loud (meant in several ways) reaction. This has been true all her life. It has been a much indulged in habit of my sisters and mine to imagine my mother harboring deep grievances and burdens. The truth is, I don't think she's had many. The only two of which I know, one involving her inability to forgive someone for a long ago committed act, the other involving regret over an episode of what she considers to be insensitivity toward one of her students when she was teaching before joining the Navy, are not hidden from view out of shame but modesty.
My mother does not consider life a stage for display but rather, simply, well, life. She does it but she has no taste for advertising her doing of it, although she clearly enjoys those who do. This lifelong tranquility is enhanced through her Ancienthood (as, I guess, everything becomes "enhanced"). Thus, making a point with my mother, which has always been difficult (she came with her own set of rules, very few of which were imparted to her through her environmental raising), now requires a certain amount of dramatics. Sometimes even those don't work. It surprises me that my dramatics of yesterday worked. It could be because they were uncalculated and provoked by and focused on what she considers to be a private matter: Bodily functions. It could be because my outburst was aimed only peripherally at her urination. My intended aim was her lack of consideration of how her decision to happily sit back and ignore her urge to pee affected me. She prefers to be considerate of others, will go out of her way to be so. This quality can successfully be brought to task when she is thoughtless.
At any rate, today I discovered that she has the ability to be aware of and control her bladder much better than I thought. I've reestablished what her current bladder baseline is. It's much higher than I suspected. This is good news for both of us.
We both, by the way, discovered that we can stand only one Capra movie at a time. Half way through the second of TCM's Christmas Capra fest we looked at each other and said simultaneously, "How about some Deep Space 9?"
Later.
She trotted to the bathroom on her own (by which I mean without being reminded) more than a few times and I changed her underwear about half-way through her "up" time not because they were wet (every time I checked them, which amounts to every time she goes to the bathroom, they were dry as new) but because it seemed the precautionarily hygienic thing to do.
For all of you who are horrified at what you may consider the abusiveness of my outburst about her accidentally-on-purpose incontinence yesterday, trust me when I tell you, although my reaction was a bit over-the-top it was not abusive. Although I'm not happy that I resorted to such sharpness and continue to vow to look for other in-your-face methods that aren't quite as pointed, it worked. As well, it did not leave her trembling with fear about the possibility of being incontinent today nor did it raise her internal stress level.
Let me explain something about my mother. She is a natural Buddhist. She consistently sees life from the broad perspective and reacts to it out of an internal serenity that is rarely disturbed. When it is disturbed she retreats into deep, often sub- or unconscious consideration of the disturbance, settles herself with it and reemerges unscathed. She is rarely startled or tricked into loud (meant in several ways) reaction. This has been true all her life. It has been a much indulged in habit of my sisters and mine to imagine my mother harboring deep grievances and burdens. The truth is, I don't think she's had many. The only two of which I know, one involving her inability to forgive someone for a long ago committed act, the other involving regret over an episode of what she considers to be insensitivity toward one of her students when she was teaching before joining the Navy, are not hidden from view out of shame but modesty.
My mother does not consider life a stage for display but rather, simply, well, life. She does it but she has no taste for advertising her doing of it, although she clearly enjoys those who do. This lifelong tranquility is enhanced through her Ancienthood (as, I guess, everything becomes "enhanced"). Thus, making a point with my mother, which has always been difficult (she came with her own set of rules, very few of which were imparted to her through her environmental raising), now requires a certain amount of dramatics. Sometimes even those don't work. It surprises me that my dramatics of yesterday worked. It could be because they were uncalculated and provoked by and focused on what she considers to be a private matter: Bodily functions. It could be because my outburst was aimed only peripherally at her urination. My intended aim was her lack of consideration of how her decision to happily sit back and ignore her urge to pee affected me. She prefers to be considerate of others, will go out of her way to be so. This quality can successfully be brought to task when she is thoughtless.
At any rate, today I discovered that she has the ability to be aware of and control her bladder much better than I thought. I've reestablished what her current bladder baseline is. It's much higher than I suspected. This is good news for both of us.
We both, by the way, discovered that we can stand only one Capra movie at a time. Half way through the second of TCM's Christmas Capra fest we looked at each other and said simultaneously, "How about some Deep Space 9?"
Later.
