Sunday, December 12, 2004
Years ago, catering to a creative urge...
...wasn't a problem for me because I lived alone. I'm reluctant to swear that, today, it created a problem. I was aware, as each minute past 1100 ticked by, that I should be awakening my mother. I refused, though, to pull myself away from finishing my essay.
It's a curious position in which to be: On the one hand, my creativity is enhanced by taking care of my mother. Quite a bit of it is focused through my caregiving to her. On the other hand, my personal urge to produce creatively has, traditionally, dispersed through more than a couple types of activity/media. I've practiced creativity through the act of writing in several forms. While taking care of my mother, especially in these last four years, I've been able to practice only writing and only a few forms, those which best suit my creativity as focused through my care of my mother. It can be frustrating because it's impossible for me to ignore my need to create through all the mediums and forms I've explored. Thus, there is much I'm not able to do but this doesn't keep the ideas and their development from rumbling about in my head. On some days, like today, I have to make a choice...write or take care of my mother. This morning I chose to write. I would not ignore my mother if, while I was writing, her needs became urgent. I sometimes wonder, though, if in small ways, when I make a choice for my writing I am simultaneously making a choice against my mother; I am sacrificing her well being for mine. The fact that my writing is at this time focusing on my mother adds an acute irony to the situation. If it weren't for me taking care of my mother much of what I've created in the last couple of years would not have been possible. I am ambivalently grateful for this.
I want to report a conversation between my mother and me that continued throughout yesterday involving Martelle, teaching, etc. It began in the morning when she, once again, mentioned that she'd definitely decided to teach in Martelle next year. I participated, as usual, by entering into her world until the conversation took a confusing turn for both of us.
She, once again, conditionally accepted that we don't live close to Martelle, we don't live in Iowa, so it would be necessary for "us" to move in order for her to accomplish her goals.
"You don't need to move," she said. "Dad (her father), took me to school and brought me home last year. He can do that again."
I don't know exactly why but, at this point, I decided maybe some reality should be injected into the discussion. "Mom," I corrected, "that wasn't last year. You're 87 and you taught in Martelle when you were 25 (approximately) so that was 63 years ago."
She stared at me as though I'd just gone over the edge and only the ghost of me remained in her vicinity.
I continued, "And, your dad is dead. He's been dead for a long time. He wouldn't be able to take you to and from school."
Her eyes dilated and her brow crinkled as she worked hard to either recall or incorporate this information. "Yes," she said carefully, "now I remember. Well, Mother can take me, then."
"Your mother is dead, too, Mom."
For some reason this was harder for her to absorb. She did, though, conclude, "Well, then, I guess you can drive me."
This did not make me feel completely confident that she wanted me to do this.
"I'll need some way to get to school, and we don't live very far from there," she added.
The interesting aspect of this part of the conversation is that in reality she didn't learn to drive until after she was married and pregnant with her first child. So, in her mind, she was neither married, nor my mother. I didn't waste time wondering who I was, I just absorbed that I hadn't yet been born. She hadn't met her husband. She hadn't even thought about joining the Navy, which is where she met my father. I began to make a connection to her not driving now. It seems to me as though this one fact is somehow (maybe only currently) the key to her flight back into her years of teaching in Iowa.
It appeared as though she had settled everything in her mind but again, for some reason I can't explain, I felt as though, yesterday, with this conversation, maybe it was time for me to insistently insert reality. "Mom," I began, "there's no way we can commute from here to there. Martelle is about 2000 miles from here. If you decide to teach in Martelle next year we'll have to move to Iowa."
This hit her like a ton of bricks. She literally reeled. She began to argue. So, I opened our trusty Rand McNalley Road Atlas, which has served me well in the maintenance of each and both our realities in the past few years. As it turns out we are more like 1600 miles from Martelle. I showed her graphically exactly where we are, exactly where Martelle is and how we'd have to traverse, twice a day, close to two thirds of the U.S. if we were to follow her strategy.
She never quite got it. She came close a couple of times: I'd watch her eyes race over the country map; she'd flip between the Arizona map and the Iowa map looking for Prescott in Iowa and Martelle in Arizona. It was not only torture for me, I suspected it was torture for her.
I stopped it. "Mom," I said, "it's time for a dose of reality. You're 87. There's very little chance that the Martelle school district would hire you. Mom, normally it doesn't bother me when you phase back and forth between now and years ago but, I have to tell you, this time it's getting out of hand and I think each day that I indulge you it's worse for you, not better.
"We've been having these conversations about you teaching in Martelle next year, you going into the Navy and you having a baby for more than a few days. Up to this point it's seemed harmless for me to enter into the world of your past and respond from there. I don't think it's harmless, anymore, at least not for this conversation. So, I'm telling you, we live in Prescott, Arizona, I take care of you.
"I take care of your entire life and there is absolutely no way I'm moving us to Iowa, especially since the Iowa you want to move to is an Iowa that no longer exists and the you who wants to move there and teach is a you who exists in memory, not in reality. All the things you want to do you already did. You taught in Martelle. You joined the Navy. You had that baby, you had four and I'm one of them.
"We're going to go forward, not back, from here. There are going to be times when your 'here' is different than my 'here'. But, Mom, I know where we both are, I know we're together, and I hope you trust that my perception of our reality is the one we need to follow."
I don't know if she understood most of what I said but she understood the last sentence. Her entire demeanor relaxed while I invited her to trust me, even though it was clear she wasn't sure I was 'right'. "Oh," she said, "I do trust you. I'm glad you're here. Just make sure you don't launch any plans without talking them over with me, first."
"I haven't, Mom, and I won't. I promise."
I won't.
One last insertion: Earlier last week we were watching a current episode of Judging Amy. She likes the show for several reasons, not the least of which is that Tyne Daly is in it and my mother knew, from a distance of two years, her father, Jim Daly, in college. The episode we watched involved a story line which strongly suggests that Daly's character is about to die. Her character was in the hospital in this episode for some sort of blacking out spell, something to do with her heart I think (although I can't be sure, I wasn't watching that closely).
A conversation ensued with her mother's spirit about her mother's death which granted her clues as to how to approach and move through her own death. As the scenario continued her mother revealed that the one aspect of her own death she would have changed is that she would not have remained in the hospital. As the scenario developed throughout the program my eye was trained on my mother, observing her reaction because she was deeply involved in this plot, hunched forward in her chair, studying every gesture, catching every word.
At the end of the episode as Tyne Daly's character decides, against doctor's orders, to refuse further treatment, walk out of the hospital and return home, I broke in during Daly's character's triumphant walk through the hall to the door and said, "Mom, I want you to know, I will not let you die in a hospital if I can help it. One way or another, if it's humanly possible, I'll see to it that you're home when you're ready to die."
Mom relaxed against the back of her rocking chair and took a couple settling sways. "Good," she said. "If you can help it, I don't want to die in a hospital."
Luckily, I now have enough confidence in myself in the face of the medical establishment and am so little intimidated by it on my mother's behalf that I think if hospitals are at all involved in her approach to death, I'll be able to shove them out of the way and get her home when the time comes so she can leave from her port of choice. I hope so, anyway. Assuming, of course, that my other fantasy of her death doesn't occur, which is that by some quirk of fate we dance through the Great Divide together, maybe with The Little Girl. That would work, too.
Strange night, tonight. Not unsettling, but definitely strange.
It's a curious position in which to be: On the one hand, my creativity is enhanced by taking care of my mother. Quite a bit of it is focused through my caregiving to her. On the other hand, my personal urge to produce creatively has, traditionally, dispersed through more than a couple types of activity/media. I've practiced creativity through the act of writing in several forms. While taking care of my mother, especially in these last four years, I've been able to practice only writing and only a few forms, those which best suit my creativity as focused through my care of my mother. It can be frustrating because it's impossible for me to ignore my need to create through all the mediums and forms I've explored. Thus, there is much I'm not able to do but this doesn't keep the ideas and their development from rumbling about in my head. On some days, like today, I have to make a choice...write or take care of my mother. This morning I chose to write. I would not ignore my mother if, while I was writing, her needs became urgent. I sometimes wonder, though, if in small ways, when I make a choice for my writing I am simultaneously making a choice against my mother; I am sacrificing her well being for mine. The fact that my writing is at this time focusing on my mother adds an acute irony to the situation. If it weren't for me taking care of my mother much of what I've created in the last couple of years would not have been possible. I am ambivalently grateful for this.
I want to report a conversation between my mother and me that continued throughout yesterday involving Martelle, teaching, etc. It began in the morning when she, once again, mentioned that she'd definitely decided to teach in Martelle next year. I participated, as usual, by entering into her world until the conversation took a confusing turn for both of us.
She, once again, conditionally accepted that we don't live close to Martelle, we don't live in Iowa, so it would be necessary for "us" to move in order for her to accomplish her goals.
"You don't need to move," she said. "Dad (her father), took me to school and brought me home last year. He can do that again."
I don't know exactly why but, at this point, I decided maybe some reality should be injected into the discussion. "Mom," I corrected, "that wasn't last year. You're 87 and you taught in Martelle when you were 25 (approximately) so that was 63 years ago."
She stared at me as though I'd just gone over the edge and only the ghost of me remained in her vicinity.
I continued, "And, your dad is dead. He's been dead for a long time. He wouldn't be able to take you to and from school."
Her eyes dilated and her brow crinkled as she worked hard to either recall or incorporate this information. "Yes," she said carefully, "now I remember. Well, Mother can take me, then."
"Your mother is dead, too, Mom."
For some reason this was harder for her to absorb. She did, though, conclude, "Well, then, I guess you can drive me."
This did not make me feel completely confident that she wanted me to do this.
"I'll need some way to get to school, and we don't live very far from there," she added.
The interesting aspect of this part of the conversation is that in reality she didn't learn to drive until after she was married and pregnant with her first child. So, in her mind, she was neither married, nor my mother. I didn't waste time wondering who I was, I just absorbed that I hadn't yet been born. She hadn't met her husband. She hadn't even thought about joining the Navy, which is where she met my father. I began to make a connection to her not driving now. It seems to me as though this one fact is somehow (maybe only currently) the key to her flight back into her years of teaching in Iowa.
It appeared as though she had settled everything in her mind but again, for some reason I can't explain, I felt as though, yesterday, with this conversation, maybe it was time for me to insistently insert reality. "Mom," I began, "there's no way we can commute from here to there. Martelle is about 2000 miles from here. If you decide to teach in Martelle next year we'll have to move to Iowa."
This hit her like a ton of bricks. She literally reeled. She began to argue. So, I opened our trusty Rand McNalley Road Atlas, which has served me well in the maintenance of each and both our realities in the past few years. As it turns out we are more like 1600 miles from Martelle. I showed her graphically exactly where we are, exactly where Martelle is and how we'd have to traverse, twice a day, close to two thirds of the U.S. if we were to follow her strategy.
She never quite got it. She came close a couple of times: I'd watch her eyes race over the country map; she'd flip between the Arizona map and the Iowa map looking for Prescott in Iowa and Martelle in Arizona. It was not only torture for me, I suspected it was torture for her.
I stopped it. "Mom," I said, "it's time for a dose of reality. You're 87. There's very little chance that the Martelle school district would hire you. Mom, normally it doesn't bother me when you phase back and forth between now and years ago but, I have to tell you, this time it's getting out of hand and I think each day that I indulge you it's worse for you, not better.
"We've been having these conversations about you teaching in Martelle next year, you going into the Navy and you having a baby for more than a few days. Up to this point it's seemed harmless for me to enter into the world of your past and respond from there. I don't think it's harmless, anymore, at least not for this conversation. So, I'm telling you, we live in Prescott, Arizona, I take care of you.
"I take care of your entire life and there is absolutely no way I'm moving us to Iowa, especially since the Iowa you want to move to is an Iowa that no longer exists and the you who wants to move there and teach is a you who exists in memory, not in reality. All the things you want to do you already did. You taught in Martelle. You joined the Navy. You had that baby, you had four and I'm one of them.
"We're going to go forward, not back, from here. There are going to be times when your 'here' is different than my 'here'. But, Mom, I know where we both are, I know we're together, and I hope you trust that my perception of our reality is the one we need to follow."
I don't know if she understood most of what I said but she understood the last sentence. Her entire demeanor relaxed while I invited her to trust me, even though it was clear she wasn't sure I was 'right'. "Oh," she said, "I do trust you. I'm glad you're here. Just make sure you don't launch any plans without talking them over with me, first."
"I haven't, Mom, and I won't. I promise."
I won't.
One last insertion: Earlier last week we were watching a current episode of Judging Amy. She likes the show for several reasons, not the least of which is that Tyne Daly is in it and my mother knew, from a distance of two years, her father, Jim Daly, in college. The episode we watched involved a story line which strongly suggests that Daly's character is about to die. Her character was in the hospital in this episode for some sort of blacking out spell, something to do with her heart I think (although I can't be sure, I wasn't watching that closely).
A conversation ensued with her mother's spirit about her mother's death which granted her clues as to how to approach and move through her own death. As the scenario continued her mother revealed that the one aspect of her own death she would have changed is that she would not have remained in the hospital. As the scenario developed throughout the program my eye was trained on my mother, observing her reaction because she was deeply involved in this plot, hunched forward in her chair, studying every gesture, catching every word.
At the end of the episode as Tyne Daly's character decides, against doctor's orders, to refuse further treatment, walk out of the hospital and return home, I broke in during Daly's character's triumphant walk through the hall to the door and said, "Mom, I want you to know, I will not let you die in a hospital if I can help it. One way or another, if it's humanly possible, I'll see to it that you're home when you're ready to die."
Mom relaxed against the back of her rocking chair and took a couple settling sways. "Good," she said. "If you can help it, I don't want to die in a hospital."
Luckily, I now have enough confidence in myself in the face of the medical establishment and am so little intimidated by it on my mother's behalf that I think if hospitals are at all involved in her approach to death, I'll be able to shove them out of the way and get her home when the time comes so she can leave from her port of choice. I hope so, anyway. Assuming, of course, that my other fantasy of her death doesn't occur, which is that by some quirk of fate we dance through the Great Divide together, maybe with The Little Girl. That would work, too.
Strange night, tonight. Not unsettling, but definitely strange.
