Rebellious Thoughts of a Woman

“She can’t even get a glass of water by herself,” I told a friend in a zoom conversation. Her usual smile faded. “It’s a lot,” I added. She repeated my statement, nodding in acknowledgement and fear, thinking, perhaps, of the future with her own parents.

It is a lot. It’s a heck of a lot to take care of someone who no longer does ordinary tasks for herself and for whom the future portends doing even less. This is not a helpless child who you teach to be independent. This is my parent who is losing her independence, which means that she will be increasingly dependent on me.

It is a lot, on so many levels. I’m trying for it not to overwhelm me. Although, to be aware, constantly, of another person’s daily needs is an invasion of my own mental space and sanctuary.

It’s not that I object to thinking about other people, or this specific person, or that I think I’m an island, it’s that there’s always this awareness, a shadow person on/in my mind.

But I’m also aware that it could be worse. Which makes me feel like I’m spoiled and lacking.

But I’m also aware that I could be worse. Which makes me feel like I’m caring and accommodating.

Life on a different kind of edge.

As she takes what feels like an eternity to go down the two steps from the house, painstakingly pushing her walker over the threshold, then one sneakered foot over it as if it’s a minefield, then the other, positioning her feet as if they are both dainty and leaden, I try to be empathetic. Breathing in compassion for this woman who strode around Manhattan at a native New Yorker’s brisk pace. I try to see that version of her, not the little old lady who’s afraid of walking because she’s afraid of falling because she’s afraid of breaking a bone because she’s afraid of dying.

I force myself to slow down, remember that I’m in no rush, that letting her work through the motions at her pace is all that matters at this moment. I don’t need to huff and puff with frustration. I can be still, leaning my heart into her motions, finding the better version of myself, the one for whom patience and humility are not just for strangers or contemplation. Life as continual lesson.

Rabbis teach that the challenges we face push us to become the person we need to be. There are no choices in the challenges, just how a person reacts to them. Acknowledging this wisdom helps me accept that there is no alternative life in which I should/could/would be living on a yacht in the Caribbean with, perhaps, a gentleman serving me. This is the life I need to grow within to fully be me at this moment in my life.

What is the challenge that most challenges you right now? How are you accepting it?

Parents Moving to Live Near their Adult Children—It’s a Thing!

I’m on the mother migration trail (on which I’ve noticed quite a few fathers too). There are no covered wagons to hitch, nor stakes to claim then settle for the coming generations. No, this migration trail is forged in the heart of mothers (especially the single ones) who see the empty nest as a diminishment, an unwanted interruption in her motherhood role, and for whom family needs to be held together by more than an occasional holiday visit or weekend phone call. We’re on the move, kids! Watch out!

We’re driven to reach the people who are home: to collapse distance and complicated scheduling. Calls and zooming are no longer sufficient, especially once children’s lives became steady, dependable—imagine that! Migrating to be near the people who will sit around my kitchen table, enjoying my cooking as a comfort and reminiscence—even bringing to-go containers knowing that leftovers for them are a given. People for whom talking about this and that, scheduling a walk tomorrow, and not saved for a visit that involves planes and Airbnb’s, is meaningful in a natural, this-is-everyday-life, way. This is the new promised land.

Once, the next generation would return home, to be near their parents who were moored in place. But not now (or with so many of the people I know), not with family homes sold because of divorce or relocations for better jobs or any job, or retirement to warmer climes. So many of us did not stay put, but, amazingly, our children are starting to settle down. They are not tempted to come to where we ended up; they have no connection to our new places. They are determined to find the perfect balance of work and life style. If we want them to live near us, we need to adopt their hometowns.

My brother, who stayed near the home base and whose children have done so too, seems to be the outlier amongst my friends. They are the people who stayed in the old country while the more adventurous, or desperate, relatives joined those westward trails, seeking new opportunities and different possibilities. This journey is more than about being a mother (or father) living near her children; it’s about being the type of person who pushes herself out of her comfort zone, who doesn’t want to settle with what has been, who still believes that what will be can be different, guided by internal and external discoveries.

Many mothers and fathers (alone or together) are on this unmapped trail. Our guides are love and connections: people-as-place. The compass points are not grounded in the earth, but in our hearts. More on this journey as I make this new place home.

What are some of the places, figurative and literal, that your path brought you to? Who or what did you follow?

I’m branching out! I just started a Substack called Sharing Insights . This will be another home where I plan on sharing insights, as well as providing support, empathy, consolation, and lighthearted moments that show our hearts are made of/for compassion and love.

I plan to continue posting here, generally the same posts because there’s just so much that I can do and think and feel and write.

So please, either continue subscribing here or, if you’ve gotten comfy on Substack, I invite you to subscribe to my newsletter, Sharing Insights, there.  

Thank you thank you thank you for being a reader. Thinking of you helps me write.

The main topics that will continue to write about include: being a woman, a mother, and soon! to be a grandmother, retirement, single living, caregiving, elder care, Judaism, and Israel.

There are times when it’s good to use your strength, like when opening a jar closed by a small man with biceps bulging out of his XL shirt. Then there are those times when thought should precede that mighty muscle flex, which I learned the hard way the other morning.

It all began innocently enough, as so many things do: when I came home from walking Poops my front door wouldn’t close. I needed the door to close since I needed to take a shower so that I could meet a friend for a walk. Now, I have two front doors: a glass/screen door combo and then the keep-out-the-predators front door. It was not enough to lock the glass/screen door and close the front door as much as possible, since I need the double-lock at shower-time. (Have I said that I’m from NYC?)

I used my arm strength to try to close the door. Nothing doing. I tried again. Nothing. It would not close all the way. Then I decided, with a brilliant lightbulb above my head, that only a full-body propulsion lead by the mighty shoulder would do. Voila! Success. Door closed.

Closed shut.

Shut.

The joy of success was immediately followed by a drop of dread, and then a tug on the door.

Another tug.

Sealed shut.

I had just shut myself into my house. My first thought was that I have enough food to last a few days, followed by a glance at Poops, who had about another eight hours of holding it in in him.

A moment of claustrophobic panic arose, but I shot it down as I looked out to the sunny balcony. No, I told myself, you cannot go there.

Of course, my Mr. Fixit neighbor, with his big boy muscles, was not at home.

I texted the friend who I was supposed to meet and asked her if she could come over and save me by pushing open the door.

But more needed to be done. She might free me, but the door needed to be fixed. I was on it: yelping for handymen. Did I go with Jim, Doug, or Honey Do Guy? For the first time in a very long while I was choosing between men! How empowering.

Just as I was about to do my eeny, meeny, miny, mo, my friend called to say that she would come over and that she had a handyman who lived in her building, if I wanted. Thank goodness for friends.

Oh, the wonder of asking for help and getting it.

An hour later, she and Ted arrived. As Ted banged on the door, she called out, “We’re here!” Between Poops’ barking and the pounding of Prince Charming, I already knew that they had arrived. Within a huff or two, I was freed! Glorious sunlight and a clear path out.

Ah, but the door still needed fixing.

Ted took a look. Then he got a tool. As we have all learned by now, there is no fixing without the appropriate tools. I, myself, armed with an Ikea toolkit, have tightened many a loose screw.

He used sanding paper to try to sand down the bottom edge of the door, since it looked like that was where the door wasn’t closing. (Of course, since the door is not wood, he was sanding down the paint, even I could see that.) He rubbed some more and then tried to close the door again. No movement. He sanded some more. But still no closure. Then, just as I looked away for a moment, he pointed to a plastic bag that looked ominously familiar and said, “There’s the problem.”

There lay Poops’ poop bag. It had gotten stuck between the front door and the door jam.

Now it is important to understand that this bag is one of the ways by which I am saving the world. It is a bag from a newspaper that either my brother or a friend donates to my worthy cause of poop pick up so that I don’t have to purchase wasteful manufactured dog poop bags. But that is not enough, there are surely more ways a dog walker (especially one with a small dog) can save the world: rather than just put one of Poops’ puny poops into a bag and then throw it away, I reuse it, knotting as I go along, until it’s full.

Since I don’t want my neighbors to be disturbed by the sight of a poop bag in front of my house (though why I care, I don’t know, since they leave their very big dog’s bags strewn all over the front yard, but at least now they use bags), and since I don’t want the smell in the house, I have been putting it between my two doors. It was a great solution. Until now.

Now it’s in a little garden pot hidden behind plants next to my door.

Since it’s always important to look on the bright side, I am grateful that the bag was not placed in such a way that when I shoved with full-body force the poop burst forth. Then, surely, I would have needed a shower.