The World Beyond the Fantasy
I plugged in a fan and installed curtains on the front porch to shield us from the Sun this Summer.
I have always loved watching the world come to life from the front porch but often it is unbearable to sit outside after 8AM. Now that we’ve installed curtains, there is some reprieve from the penetrating light beams of the East-facing stoop. Grandpa has been joining me outside as the mourning doves play a familiar song and he stares into the sun that levitates over the horizon. I think he has developed a similar dislike for the television with this current election season playing out in such a dramatic way. The news anchors speak so quickly that he often wonders (out loud) how they could go for two hours like that. Outside with the fan blowing in his bad ear, arms folded into each other with his rollator sitting before him holding his coffee, he finds peace and quiet.
Nature does that to us when we let her. She stills the mind and receives our anxious thoughts with grace when we just surrender. It isn’t all that difficult to attune to natural rhythms, we just tend to feel less productive when we do. I think I am beginning to believe that adding in the Good incrementally is a spiral path that never ends. The promise to surrender becomes a devotion to which we surrender again and again and again. Does it ever become easier or at least more comfortable? Probably not, but neither does sitting rigidly unchangeable or monotone everyday. The secret to living is in Nature.
Few days remain here so each day I let my mind rest in this safe place. It is a memory I’ll return to as things become challenging while I am away. I’ll miss these mornings that I cherish now but while I am remembering them, they will take me back to this feeling. I’ll remember morning dew slathered across my arms with a gentle breeze blowing from a fan. There’s a blanket of clouds quilted over the blue and purple beyond and rays from the sun shine through just enough to kiss my face.
The world of news, on the other hand, will make your head spin. The modern world in general is challenging to navigate for someone with dementia. As a collective, we’ve just learned that Biden will be dropping from the Presidential race only a few short months from the election. I’ve been watching my grandpa’s decline happen at a similar rate to Biden’s, so this was not surprising for me. I just listened to my grandpa answer the phone and those are the moments when you realize how much the condition affects one’s ability to communicate. What was surprising was that the charade went on for so long when the President presumably has to talk with a lot of people. We play Groundhog Day here at the house too, but my grandpa is not the President of the United States.
We usually ask grandpa the same three questions for which he has more or less the same answers with a few deviations. We stick with “Good morning” “How’d you sleep?” and “How are you feeling?” as these are good go-to statements. Its pretty clear that veering too far from the script can be frustrating or confusing for him. You can visibly see the mental gymnastics on his face as he calculates the value of whatever the fuck you just said that wasn’t a predictable question. Then there are light bulb moments. For example, I told him grandma’s birthday was coming up and he slyly asked “How do you wanna handle that?” When I told him to let me know what he wanted to get her he responded with a casual “You fly, I’ll buy.” These little breakthroughs seem to suggest that there is someone familiar still in there.
Those moments are short lived and between prolonged pauses. Most of the time when you are talking to grandpa, the entire conversation becomes nothing more than a reflection of your own patience. Honestly, I look better with the mirror of nature but he’s coming around to liking her presence too. He’s familiar with waiting in the woods with his bow in a tree stand. I’m still anchoring in, trying to find space to be still. At times it feels like I was older when I was younger. Grandpa seems younger now that he’s older. We live a lot of lives in one lifetime. Grandparents have been parents after they were children. That’s already a lot of lifetimes of life. The credits rolling. The commercial breaks. Waiting for your friend to answer the phone. Life once had so many pauses but we move through them so quickly now. Even the fitness routine in the morning has to be rushed and meditations are 10-minutes penciled into a schedule. Whatever life is becoming its getting there fast.
