A good plan and a hair crime

Fred sleeping by my lap top (when I’m writing on the couch, this is where he likes to be)

A while back, I wrote about my 85-year-old mother wanting to get a computer and me nixing the idea. I really couldn’t imagine her learning any new technology (since she has never shown the slightest interest in anything like this before now). Well, she decided she was going to get one and asked Amanda (her granddaughter, my niece) to drive her to the Apple store where she bought an iPad, and had high-speed internet service by the end of the week. 2 days ago, I received the following email from her;

“I don’t know which Mary I have  but Mary daughter. Igot the hair crime  thanks. Love u bye spelling. I’m sending it anyway
Sent from my iPad”

I’d sent her some hair-gel, and she was thanking me. I loved this! When I called her to tell her how funny her message was she said, “I don’t know how I typed ‘hair crime’ but I thought it was funny so I just sent it.”

I’m so glad that I didn’t get involved with her computer buying when she asked me. I think the combination of me telling her that I didn’t think she would do it (which she admitted got her a little fired-up) and her needing to step out on her own and prove to herself that she could do it, have opened doors that wouldn’t have opened if I (or any of her children) had set her up.

Since Amanda was only passing through town, my mom couldn’t depend on her (long-term) either, so she needed to figure things out for herself. She found (and signed up for) a computer class at the senior center, and I know that this will expand her social circle which is another thing that she’s wanted. At 85, my mother is starting to plan her own life and go for what she wants…I’ve never been so happy to be proven wrong.

“If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.” Jim Rohn

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A funny thing happened…

Noah snuggling up with the sneakers

I went shopping with my mother a few weeks ago, and there was a box of shoes in the clearance dept. marked $1 per pair. Nothing fit me, but my mother found these camouflage sneakers (Keds) and bought them even though they were too big. She wore them for an hour, shuffling around (because every time she took a step, she stepped out of them), and  finally realized that she was going to have to give them away. She asked me to drop them off at the thrift store next time I went.

I took them home, to put in my donation basket, and later that day, we saw Noah in with them. I’m not sure what made me smile more, Noah in the basket, or my mother, at 84, shuffling around in what appear to be frayed, camouflage patterned, Keds.

“It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them.” Agatha Christie

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Getting out of the driver’s seat

small river in the Adirondack Park

I wrote the post about my hair yesterday (thank you, thank you, thank you for all of the wonderful, supportive comments. I read them slowly this morning before I started to write and appreciate every one!) and then left for the entire day to take my mother up north to the town where she grew up, Paul Smiths NY; a town in the Adirondack park with only one street; “Easy Street”. That part of New York State is almost like entering another world. Everything seems stark somehow; beautiful, rough, certainly not easy.

We have taken this trip several times in my mother’s life. The last time was a few years ago when my mother and I were really not getting along. I returned home, feeling like I had been raked over the coals….maybe she felt that way too. It seemed we were fighting each other; me asking questions, trying to figure out some of my own history, and her wanting to make me see things her way. Yesterday, she wanted me to drive and she wanted to direct the day.  She just wanted to be “heard” as she recalled being a little girl, playing with friends, working, moving from house to house in this remote, wild place. Her parents didn’t own their own home until my mother was older. They were hard-working and poor.

We slowly made our way past the old homes, many of which were still standing. Some had been “remodeled” (very little “restoring” going on this far north) with vinyl siding and windows, some were left to slowly decay. I was content to be in a “supportive role”. I let her  be the director, set the pace, turn any place that she wanted, stop or not. I liked this feeling. It is relatively new for me to suspend my own curiosity, questions, and interests, for a day and to try to see the world from my mother’s perspective. I learned that she was almost going to name my sister Anne, Victoria. That she had wanted to go in the army, as a nurse, and my grandfather would not let her….little stories.

Yesterday was a good day for me, and for my mother. When she initially asked me to take her, I didn’t have to think about it, I just knew that it was the right timing. If I hadn’t felt this way, I would not have gone. I’ve finally learned that if I am not feeling good about “helping” someone, then it will not turn out well. I’ll exhaust myself and they won’t get a lot out of it either. There is a flow to life that pulls us in, and sustains us, when we trust and go with it.

 

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Take the love

accepting the good

Last evening Jack and I helped my mother move a piece of furniture. As we were leaving she said, “There was a sale on corn at Price Chopper. It isn’t local, but it was 20 cents an ear so I bought you a dozen when I was shopping on Monday. I hope it is still OK.”  In the past, my first thought would have been, “That corn has to be at least a week old! I cannot even imagine how it will taste. Why does she do things like this?”

Years ago, I was listening to a workshop tape and the leader said that a woman, in one of her previous workshops, was very distressed because not only was she “battling cancer”, but her mother kept sending her wheat grass juice to drink, even after she told her that she didn’t want it,  because she had read that someone had been cured of cancer by drinking it. The woman asked the presenter how to handle her mother’s apparent lack of respect for her choice of treatment for her cancer.

The leader said, “Just take the love, and throw the wheat grass juice out.” (and she didn’t say it with a lot of kindness, it was more in the tone of, “Oh, get over yourself!). What a beautiful concept, “Take the Love”… from any gift, and then give the gift away, or throw it out, or keep it, or eat it, …it doesn’t matter as long as I accept the goodness.

I genuinely thanked my mother for the corn (for the love). I think that there were a few happy squirrels and chipmunks in my yard last night too!

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Trusting the Good

My mother called yesterday afternoon asked me to bring her back the book that she loaned me a few weeks ago (the book that she said she didn’t want back). I said, “Mom, I loaned that book to someone. You said that you didn’t want it back.” She replied, “Oh, I never said that! Never mind if you gave it away, but I didn’t say to, and I don’t want to discuss it. “

I used to argue with her…found it infuriating to be “dismissed”, especially when she was wrong! I can’t remember ever hearing my mother say, “Really? Did I really say that?” No. It has been; I am right and you (whoever disagrees with her) are wrong. Period. My mother grew up in a rough household…in rough times. She was not protected and nurtured. She became suspicious of the world and grew a little shell around her heart…I guess to protect her. This “shell of being right“ kept her safe, separate and lonely.

Over the past few years, she has really tried to open up, but it is a huge amount of work for her at 83. She has been guarded and critical, so to trust; to be OK with being wrong, to see another person’s side of a story, is frightening. She does not want to be made a fool of. There is a great Rumi quote that says something like, “Trade your knowledge for bewilderment.” What it means to me is, you don’t have to know everything…the world can surprise you with goodness, if you don’t expect the bad. Don’t think you have it all figured out because if you do, you’ve got something way too small compared to what life could really offer. Be wrong. Be surprised that being wrong can feel good. Be blown away by goodness!

A question that I like to ask myself is, “What have you been wrong about recently that turned out really well?” It helps me to not be so afraid of being wrong myself.

 

I think we too often make choices based on the safety of cynicism, and what we’re lead to is a life not fully lived. Cynicism is fear, and it’s worse than fear – it’s active disengagement.  Ken Burns

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Early morning grace, looking through a new lens

my first photography workshop, "Early Morning" Sagamore Lake

A few years ago, Jack signed up for a digital photography course at one of the “Great Camps” in the Adirondacks. He is a very good photographer but wanted to expand with more digital photography.  At the last-minute, he couldn’t go, and his money could not be refunded,  so I took his place. I was hoping to get some basic help, like how to turn a camera on.

I had, at some point in my adult life, grown “picture-taking averse”. It seemed like every time my mother visited, she had her camera slung around her neck, and was forever making everyone pose. I resented this (as I resented many things about my mother) and so I guess I had subconsciously boycotted cameras and picture-taking.

I was talking to a friend the other day about parenting (she has 2 young teenage boys) and the challenges of knowing how to raise them.  Since I had my sons in my early-mid  20′s, and had not worked through a lot of my own family/growing up issues, I told her that when I got into a situation with them and I didn’t know what to do, a lot of times I would think about my mother, about how she would handle it, and then, I’d do the opposite. Not a sound child-raising theory, I know.

I found it hard to see that my mother had any wisdom at all, and I wasn’t looking for it. I was looking for all that she did “wrong”…and I found that. When I look through my photo albums these days, and see photographs of my sons as babies, little boys, young men… I am so grateful that my mother took those pictures. That she tolerated my “attitude” and took the pictures anyway. I see my mother differently these days. I have widened my lens with a new intention of seeing the good…and I am finding that too. Lots more of it then I ever expected.

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Bounce: The capacity to “spring”

a Costa Rican ylang ylang blossom; wishing you more happiness, joy, spring and bounce!

When I was a little girl, on May 1st (or maybe the night before) we made tiny baskets of flowers and anonymously left them on the doorsteps of our neighbors. I haven’t thought about this tradition in so many years…how sweet was that?!  I remember leaving them, and how excited I felt seeing them on our doorstep too. Yesterday I was walking with my mother and she said something about loving spring and then said, “Years ago I wrote you a letter, telling you that you reminded me of spring”. I believed her, but did not have any recollection of that letter. What sweet words…to have never really “heard” until yesterday, 30-35 years later. They felt like a surprise gift.

Recently I was with a friend and his 15-year-old daughter. She had been in a play and did a wonderful job. Her father was complimenting her all over the place and I could just see his words almost bouncing off her. It was as if she was thinking, “Yeah, yeah I know you think I’m great but who cares what you think?!” I wonder if, in 40 years, she will remember his kind, supportive words? I seem to have remembered the negative things that my parents said to me, and wonder how, I too, might have just let the positive ones bounce off…not thinking that their opinions/feelings were important.

As I looked up the history of May Day this morning, one site said that this day’s celebrations mark the end of the dark season of no growth and the beginning of new growth/life and spring. Negative thoughts and words do weigh us down…inhibit our ability to enjoy life..I want more “spring in my step” not less, more lightness of spirit, happiness and inner joy. I want more “spring”!  I would like to set my intention to listen for, and to really hear, more of the good that is being said; to let the negative words that I hear be the ones that bounce off.

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Looking for something to love (and the winners of the Mary’s Skin Survival Balm)

Kitty tracks!

My mother and I met for breakfast yesterday. As we were getting ready to leave the restaurant, she said, “These are not all that comfortable (pointing to her shoes) I’m going to look for another pair today.” I looked down at her feet. She was wearing sandals. No socks. Even though it was April 2nd, there was still a dusting of snow on the ground from a little storm we had the night before.

I said, “Mom, aren’t your feet cold?” She laughed and said, “I am just so sick of wearing shoes and winter. I am trying to encourage the spring!” I love this about my mother.

I would not have noticed this, or more correctly, appreciated this, a few years ago…when I was not looking for something to love about her. This funny, quirky little thing would have either been annoying or ignored. Yesterday, as I looked at her feet, I felt delighted…she is going to be 84 this year and she is wearing sandals in 30 degree weather…you’ve got to love that!

There is always something to love about everyone. Sometimes it is hard work to see it, but it makes life a lot more enjoyable when I do!

***Susan L. of Canton Ohio won the first skin balm and she chose Sally B. (also of Canton) to receive the second!*****

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thank you mom

It dawned on me the other day that I was having more irritated feelings, when I thought about my mother, than loving ones. This is not new. My mother has had very firm ideas about what was right and wrong, and she never hesitated to express them!  Growing up, we butted heads…a lot. She has softened and become much more accepting of others, and life, in the last few years, especially since she turned 80. Part of me hasn’t caught up with this yet.

Many times, before we are going to get together, I find myself dreading it. My mind is pulling the limited view of mom up. Part of me knows that she has changed but somehow my mind doesn’t want to accept this?

I start to dread our meeting. Who will she criticize? Who will she complain about? I wish I hadn’t made the date. This happened the other day….again. I said to Jack, “I need to change this. No matter how difficult she has been (believe me she could be writing this story about me too!) she is also incredibly generous. She actually co-signed for the house we are living in.

Where was my gratitude? I felt somewhat ashamed of this. But i did something different. I didn’t call her,  I decided to work only in my mind for a few days.  I started walking around the house saying “thank you mom”…to myself,  over and over. When I opened the front door, I said, thank you mom, when I sat looking out the window, thank you mom. The more I said it, the more I began to feel it. We met for breakfast later that week as planned. I had a wonderful time. I called her when I got home and she said, “You know Mary, I drove home with all of these warm feelings. I felt so loved!” And I also felt loved and accepted and happier.

The power of focused thought, along with the feeling of gratitude …if we could only see these powerful spiritual tools, we would pick them up much more frequently I am sure.

I am imagining you reading this right now. Without you, this blog would not be. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Love,

Mary

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