Hearing voices—mine!

I’ve been volunteering on a cancer helpline for many years. I think I give good advice, particularly to women dealing with the anxiety of a cancer diagnosis. “You’ve done everything in your power to maximize your survival,” I tell them. Or “Keep a notebook of your worries, so you don’t rehearse them when you’re trying to sleep.” Or “Remember to breathe.” Or “Go to a movie.” Or “Yoga!”

Recently I spiraled into anxiety over concerns about my own health. I began parroting my own advice back to myself. A psychologist I know says this is a form of “counterattitudinal advocacy.” And you know what? I give good counsel! (And by the way, I'm fine.)

Some days are hopeless

I’m one of those people who apologize too much. In fact, today I was at a medical clinic and found myself doing it again—saying I was sorry my paperwork was messy, sorry it was taking me so long to get my insurance card out of my wallet, sorry my things were cluttering up the waiting room. Finally I realized my apologies were getting annoying, and I had to fight the impulse to say, “I’m sorry I’m apologizing too much.” 

Room

Space is tight in New York, and no one has enough privacy. When I told friends about a recurring dream I had in which I’d discovered an extra room in my apartment, it turned out they’d all had the exact same dream. 

When my daughter was born, she slept behind a curtain in an alcove in my husband’s painting studio. We built my son, who was 10 then, a room of his own with a sliding door. My husband and I sleep in a fold-down bed in a tiny space that doubles as my office; when the bed is down, I can’t reach my desk. 

After my son went off to college, my daughter moved into his room. I continued to long for a place of my own where I could get away from everyone and think my own thoughts. I told my family that when my daughter moved out, that room would become mine: I dibbed it.

We let her keep it while she was in college, and after college she lived at home off and on for a while. But a few months ago, she found an apartment with a friend and took her stuff with her. 

I had big dreams for my new room. I would finish the novel I began before my kids were born. I would move my books in and turn it into a personal reading library. I would use it as a yoga studio. I would set up my sewing machine. In the end, I’ve left it empty, though I sit in it for a few minutes every day. All their things may be gone, but my children continue to inhabit the space. The ghosts of their pasts linger. That room changed my kids. They entered it as children, and when they left they were adults. This is where they led their secret adolescent lives, learned to get away from my husband and me, did things they wanted to keep from us, found their freedom and their true selves. Now that my children have grown and gone and I finally have time and space to think my own thoughts, I find that I think mostly of them and the curious alchemy that took place in that room.

Yoga and the common cold

Homebound with a bad cold these past few weeks, I’ve missed my yoga. But then I began to think about how certain aspects of the common cold—coughing, nasal congestion, sneezing, wheezing—invoke a kind of involuntary yoga.

In yoga, there are a series of breath-control practices called pranayama. They are thought to enhance physical health and mental clarity.  They involve exercises like:

*ujayyi, or throat constriction, which produces a soft hissing sound—not unlike wheezing!

*kapalabhati, short forcible exhalations followed by passive inhalations—not unlike coughing! Or sneezing!

*nadhi shodana, alternate-nostril breath, in which you breathe through one nostril at a time—not unlike nasal congestion! Or blowing your nose!

So it turns out that we all do yoga, whether we like it or not.

S*%@ my mom says

A stroke, dementia and advanced age—90!—have sabotaged my mother’s ability to communicate. She gets lost in the middle of a sentence and drifts off into a swamp fog. But every once in a while she says something with crystalline clarity. One of her caregivers reported to me that she said, “I’ve always been unhappy.” Sadly, I think that may be true. But then she told me yesterday, “I always thought I’d be a tomato.” Is that true too?

Being single

I told a friend that I was going to write about being single. “But you’re not single!” she said. “You have no idea what it’s like to live alone.” She’s right. I’ve lived with my “boyfriend” since I was 22—and I’m 66 now. From the beginning we’ve had a joint bank account, and everything that’s his is mine and everything that’s mine is his, including an apartment and two children. It’s a fine point, I admit, but there’s a reason we haven’t gotten married. I never wanted to be half of anything—not even someone’s “better” half. As a child, when other girls dressed up in their mothers’ slips for make-believe weddings, I hung back. And when someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said, “A hermit.” Even then I wanted to feel whole, on my own, untethered. In the end, life gets messy, and you get tied down. So, yes, my singleness is now a mere technicality. And lately my boyfriend and I have been advised to get married for estate-planning reasons. I would never have gotten married for love. But for money? I don’t know. I’m thinking about it.

Breakfast

She doesn’t wake till 9 or 10 these days, and she takes a nap after breakfast for an hour or two, and then another after lunch. Sometimes she can barely keep her eyes open till her aide puts her to bed at 8. Meals are the main event of her day. They can be exciting in their way. They begin with the long shuffle from the bedroom to the dining room. There’s a slight frisson of suspense as she turns her walker, a few degrees at a time, and reaches back for the arms of her chair to lower herself into it. Will she lose her grip? Slam down too quickly and break a bone? 

She doesn’t like to sit the normal distance from the table. Perhaps it hurts her legs to bend them sufficiently. When the aide or I try to move her closer, she speaks sharply and resists. So each bite is a tiny drama as she moves her fork, a morsel dangling from a tine, slowly, shakily, across the broad expanse of her lap. Her average: about 75% ends up in her mouth, 25% in her lap or on the floor. It keeps us busy, the aide and me, sponging off her pants, scrubbing up the tiles. Sometimes I think it amuses her to cause these little commotions—and bring people to their knees! Other times I think she’s doing the best she can.

It’s hard to know, because her speech is murky. A stroke and dementia have turned her language into an unpredictable thing. Sometimes the words flow freely—but lead nowhere. “I have something I need to discuss with you!” she’ll say excitedly. What is it? I’ll ask. “I don’t know.” Sometimes she’ll say startling things, announcing that we’re having rabbit turds for dessert. And, rarely, her words are crystal clear: “I’m lonely.” I know, Mom. I know you’re lonely. And there’s not a thing I can do about it—except visit you, eat breakfast with you, pick up your fallen food, and share the rabbit turds.