My dad has always expressed a desire to control. I have an early memory of him saying, “Do what you are told, when you are told to do it.” And his desire to control has led him to develop anxiety over the uncontrollable. He lies awake at night, fretting about something he wants me to do for him in the morning.
Maybe this is a character flaw for him. I think it certainly informs his lifelong interest in engineering. No problem is too large that he can’t engineer a solution, with accompanying drawings on graft paper.
But here is the problem; there are things he can’t actually control, the hearts and minds of others, his declining health, the slow and inexorable slide to the grave. So he gets frustrated, and then angry. I always thought of my dad as an angry guy. Now I think he is a frustrated guy.
It occurs to me that a guy who worries, who wants to control, who engineers to solve problems would be a better planner. But Dad never really planned. He never thought about how he would pay for his retirement or how to guard his health in order to live the long life he has prayed for. He smoked until he was in his late forties. He never paid attention to cholesterol, salt, exercise. He never thought that an unattended injury to his knee would mean twenty years of pain. He gave no regard to the effects of inflation on his meager savings. He never thought of any of the things a prudent man would consider.
Yesterday, I was making pancakes for breakfast for Mom and Dad. I had a mostly used-up bottle of sugar-free syrup for their breakfast, and another full new bottle in the pantry. After pouring what I would think was the last of the syrup from the old bottle, Dad stood the bottle on its top and let the last few drops accumulate in the lid. He did this several times until the last possible usable amount was on his food. He ended up with a puddle of syrup, still there after he had eaten all the pancakes.
I think this bottle of syrup is the perfect metaphor for his life. Now that he is at the end of the bottle, he is afraid of squandering even a moment. But over the years, how much of his life did he pour on thick and leave as dregs on the empty plate? Did he ever think the bottle would run dry? Now that the last of his sweet life remains, he tips it up to get every drop, but still squanders that small portion by worrying about tomorrow, and not enjoying today.
I come away with two lessons. First, use a little less syrup at the beginning of the bottle but enjoy what I do use. All of life is uncertain. Though it might seem that I have a full measure, anything can happen and I might find my life abruptly ended. So think of every drop as precious.
The second lesson is to not to worry that the bottle is empty. Tomorrow will come. I can plan for it, but worrying about it won’t change a thing. The only thing I can engineer is my own heart; I have no effect on any other outcome.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Cantaloupe
Cantaloupe
©2009 Anne Trapp Younger
On Sunday morning, I was peeling a cantaloupe for my mother.
It was very ripe and warm from sitting in my car, so the fragrance rose from it like the perfume of warm flesh. It had an earthy, sweet, and slightly musky smell. Muskmelon, dark and faintly sexy. The scent suddenly transported me back. I was seventeen, summer in Yuma, Arizona. I had my first real boyfriend. Secrets in the darkness by the pool, cicadas buzzing in the pecan trees. That taste of melon, juicy and warm.
As I peeled this melon for my mother, I was tempted to taste it. But I can't. I know the taste would be dangerous. Forbidden fruit. I developed an allergy to melon, my throat closes, I can't breathe.
After my husband died, I came to take care of my mother. I peel melons for her, she loves melons. "Aren't you having any?" she asks.
"No, thanks, Mom. I can't," I say.
"Well you don't know what's good," she says.
No more melon for me, no more secrets in the darkness.
©2009 Anne Trapp Younger
On Sunday morning, I was peeling a cantaloupe for my mother.
It was very ripe and warm from sitting in my car, so the fragrance rose from it like the perfume of warm flesh. It had an earthy, sweet, and slightly musky smell. Muskmelon, dark and faintly sexy. The scent suddenly transported me back. I was seventeen, summer in Yuma, Arizona. I had my first real boyfriend. Secrets in the darkness by the pool, cicadas buzzing in the pecan trees. That taste of melon, juicy and warm.
As I peeled this melon for my mother, I was tempted to taste it. But I can't. I know the taste would be dangerous. Forbidden fruit. I developed an allergy to melon, my throat closes, I can't breathe.
After my husband died, I came to take care of my mother. I peel melons for her, she loves melons. "Aren't you having any?" she asks.
"No, thanks, Mom. I can't," I say.
"Well you don't know what's good," she says.
No more melon for me, no more secrets in the darkness.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Some Things to Remember When Caring for a Loved-One with Dementia
1. Remember that they forget. No matter how many times your loved-one asks a question or mentions a subject, for them it is the first time. Often when we are driving somewhere, my mother will ask where we are going. I immediately tell her and an entire discussion about it will ensue. Finally, she will fall silent, and after approximately twenty seconds, she will start the cycle again with where are we going. If I try to get her to remember what we just said, she will struggle with it and make a guess. Sometimes she will come up with a wild guess, like we are going to the train station. Sometimes she will tell me that I never answered her when she asked before. The point here is that she honestly can’t access that information in her brain. Either it didn’t get stored or it can’t be accessed. Like a computer with no memory, there is only room for active files. Once the file is inactive (the silence) the file is dumped. So there is no point in getting irritated that you just told them something, for them it is the first time.
2. Familiarity breeds familiarity. When your loved one is in familiar surroundings, they have an easier time remembering certain things. Right around the time my mother started to show signs of dementia, she and my dad moved across country from where they lived for thirty years. Even though they brought all their furniture and belongings, it was an unfamiliar setting. Then when she started really losing all her short-term memory, they moved again, to a house near me, and I moved in with them. We have been here for six years, but Mom still finds the place strange. I point out her coffee table that she tiled by hand forty years ago and she wants to know how it got here to this unfamiliar place. I tell her that all her belongings are here and point them out to her and it helps her orient herself. I also find family photos and other familiar objects such as family heirlooms helpful. Sometime ago, my mom recorded stories about her life; things like growing up, meeting Dad for the first time, working in a factory during the war, getting married, and so on. We wrote all those stories down, along with other family history and put them in a loose-leaf binder. She reads these stories occasionally and can remember these things.
3. Have a routine. Get up at the same time, go to bed at the same time, keep clothing in the same place all the time, a favorite teacup used every day, slippers in the same spot. This kind of routine is comforting but it also becomes rote. I find that my mother has a limit to how much she can remember, so the more she has that is automatic, the less she has to try and store in her dwindling memory bank. And a routine is familiar and comfortable. There can be quite a lot of anxiety with dementia, so a familiar routine can feel safe.
4. Make the environment safe. A person with dementia may not be capable of making good decisions or may not be aware of potential dangers.
~ Get rid of the teakettle that sits on the stove. Use an electric one with an automatic shut-off. Your loved-one will be less likely to boil it dry, scald themselves or catch a sleeve or dish towel on fire.
~ Replace the locking doorknobs on the bedroom and bathroom doors with simple latching knobs, also called closet knobs. If your loved-one locks the door and then falls or has a medical emergency, it can have a bad outcome.
~ Put alarms on all exterior doors. A very inexpensive alarm can be purchased at most hardware or home centers. It emits a loud whistle if the door is opened. This will prevent your loved one from wandering off, undetected.
~ Consider getting a locator device (Granny Lo-Jack) or other such monitored safety devices.
~ Install a voice-activated baby monitor. If you are a sound sleeper like I am, you will want to be available if your loved-one falls or becomes ill in the middle of the night.
~ Install smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors and have fire extinguishers available. Plan an escape route in case of fire.
~ Make sure that all your electrical outlets in the kitchen and bathroom have ground-fault interrupt circuits. This will protect from accidental electrocution around water.
~ Keep all medications away from your loved-one and dispense them as needed. Before I moved in, my mom would make many mistakes with her meds, taking more than the proper dose or forgetting to take her pills at all.
~ Lock the exterior doors and windows at night.
~ Put plenty of handrails in areas where your loved-one may fall. Remove small rugs and other trip hazards, and make sure the floors are uncluttered. Get a shower seat and a handheld shower head.
~ Make sure that you answer the phone in case a telemarketer calls. My mom is a friendly person, even with dementia. When someone calls, she will tell them all kinds of things and is completely unaware that the person may be scamming her. We recently received a bill from an out-of-state attorney for a class action suit against a drug manufacturer. My mom had never even taken that particular medication but had agreed to hire the attorney when they called. I am still unclear how they got our number. The same rule applies to answering the door.
~ Don’t leave your loved-one unattended. Not even for a second. I once dropped off my mom at the door of the doctor’s office building and told her to wait for me in the lobby while I parked the car. She got on the elevator and it took me twenty minutes to find her in the four-story building.
5. Good health equals good brains. Obviously when your loved-one is older, there are necessarily some health problems. But all the things that make a body healthy also help make a mind healthy.
~ Give your loved-one good nutritious food, low sodium, low fat, low sugar, lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, low-fat proteins, whole grains. Nutrition has a direct effect on some types of dementia. Supplement their diet with a quality multi-vitamin.
~ Get lots of exercise. Obviously if your loved-one is wheel chair bound or bed-ridden, exercise is problematic. Ask you doctor or therapist for exercises that your love-one can do. Setting a good example and exercising along with them is healthy for you, too.
~ Let your loved-one get plenty of sleep, but not too much. Time naps for about an hour. Sometimes other health problems can interfere with sleep patterns, so allow for lost sleep at night with daytime naps. Maintain a routine bedtime and wakeup. And create a routine around sleeping, such as changing incontinence pads, putting on pajamas, taking bedtime pills. I find that if the evening is tranquil, my mom has fewer problems with confusion at night. If there is a violent or noisy program on TV before bedtime, she is more confused and has a difficult time getting to sleep. Talk to your doctor about some safe sleep aid options such as Benadryl, Melatonin, valerian, or chamomile.
6. Label things. I found that if I post reminders for my mom around the house to some of her commonly asked questions, she can refer to these in moments of confusion. On the lampshade near her favorite chair, I posted a note in large typeface so she can read it without her glasses. Because she doesn’t recognize this house, it says, “Mom, You and Dad bought this house and moved in with all your belongings six years ago. This is Largo Florida. I live here with you and take care of you. Love, Anne.” I wrote the names of the people in family photos on the back of the picture. I got her a TV remote with very simple, very large buttons. And I simplified the choices of channels on the TV. I deleted or blocked home shopping channels, Spanish language channels and sports channels. We have nearly one hundred channels to choose from and it was confusing for her, so we opted to narrow her choices.
7. Stimulate the mind. Alzheimer’s researchers have learned that the brain is a use it or lose it organ. The more a person uses their brain, the more brain they will continue to have available.
~ My mom still enjoys reading. She has a difficult time reading long and involved text because she can’t remember what she just read. But short stories, poems, magazine articles and other sorts of writing are easier for her to read. One of the best magazines out there for someone with dementia is Reader’s Digest. There is a good mix of subjects, lots of short and humorous items and if she loses her place, she can pick it up and proceed and still find something of value. While my mom does watch TV, I try to find other things for her to do if possible. Television watching is a passive activity and can actually have a deleterious effect on cognitive function. So keep TV to a minimum and opt for things that will stimulate thought, like news, comedy, music, nature programs and sports. My mom especially enjoys the funny video type programs. I think laughter is healthy for everyone.
~ More than reading, a dementia patient can benefit from other kinds of stimulation. One of the best ways to stimulate the brain is by learning and memorizing new information; the process of learning a new language, for instance. However, if the memory is faulty or damaged, this can be an exercise in frustration. Nevertheless, your loved one can learn other simple things, such as the words to a song or poem. Repetition can help the brain create new pathways and connections.
~ Problem solving is the next best brain exercise for dementia sufferers. Simple things like supervised cooking can preserve what memory is still functioning, and it can be a bonding moment that will stay in your memory, too.
~ Doing things with the hands such as crochet, embroidery, art activities, building models or repairing machines can keep the mind active. Also fishing, tossing a ball, or other activities that use motor skills. But of course, stay safe, only use power tools if your loved one is used to them. I find that ironing clothes or even folding clothes is an activity that is low stress but can stimulate the hand-eye coordination.
~ Puzzles, games, conversation with new people, museums, trips to unfamiliar and familiar places are all stimulating. My mom comes alive when we go out and have a simple cup of coffee at a restaurant, especially when there is a waitress, someone for her to interact with. Some people like to play cards or board games. Chose activities that don’t have a lot of rules. Some excellent games on Wii use the mind and body, even though the consol can be expensive, the return in increased activity and brain function may be offset.
~ Attendance at a place of worship is also important; there are aspects of the familiar setting and of a new event with a visit to church, synagogue, mosque, or whatever.
~ Consider the option of using medication to help your loved-one. Some have proved effective. Some do have side effects. Also be aware that these medications can be expensive, and probably won't reverse the course of the dementia but only slow its progression.
7. Be aware of sundown syndrome. This is a particular phenomenon with dementia patients, referring to how they often become more confused at night, and will seem to lose whatever gains they may have made during the day. I also noticed that some of the things that were happening just before bed would stay in my mom’s mind. If she was reading about her trip across country in a train when she was in her twenties, she will think the house is a train station, and wants to know if I will wake her up when her train arrives. She also loses track of who my dad is at night, and often won’t recognize him. I have caught her on her way out the door with her clothes on and her purse tucked under her arm, on the way to catch a bus. All kinds of things happen in her mind after 6pm.
8. Keep explanations short and simple. When Mom thinks she has to catch a bus or that she is sleeping in a train station, it is usually easier to reach her logic than convince her she is wrong. So usually, I will show her the clock and say, “Well it is nearly eleven at night, stop right now, it is time to sleep. We will worry about all that stuff in the morning.” Or if she is debating with me whether she needs a doctor’s visit, I don’t go into literal specifics of why she needs to see the doctor, I just tell her that this is a follow up visit and that he is keeping her healthy. Since much of a person’s ability to think logically is based on storing facts, some simple and general facts may be easier to grasp than specifics. And since a long explanation might be harder to remember, I keep it short and to the point. When Mom forgets that we live here, my dad wants to tell her a narrative detailing the significant events of the last six years, but this just confuses her more. Just stating the fact, you bought the house six years ago, and have lived here ever since, is enough.
10. Take time for yourself. If you are cranky, tired, or ill, it can be much harder to cope with the challenges of caring for your loved-one. You must take care of your-self, too.
~ Find someone to give you respite care, and find something that stimulates and refreshes you. Whether it is engaging in a hobby or just going for a walk, take a moment to get away from the stewpot that is your life and breathe.
~ Maintain your physical and mental health. If you are tired and run-down, you will have a harder time coping with all the stress and anxiety. And exercise is a good way to relieve stress.
~ Find a support group, whether it is with family-members, or a moderated formal group, find someone to share with and talk to.
~ Don’t try to do everything. Sometimes, with all the needs and demands of a loved-one with dementia, it is easy to start feeling like a hired hand, or a drudge. But this is your family. Let the dishes go, vacuum less, dust only under duress, and spend time with your loved-one. Or even better, get them involved in the housework and do things together.
~ Give yourself a break. Don’t expect that you will never make a mistake. You are a hero for being there for your loved-one. It might be easier to just put them in a home and visit on Sundays. But you would be missing out on some very rewarding moments. You chose to be there for them and help them. So when you lose your mother in the doctor’s office building or snap at her for asking that same question for the hundredth time, remember that you are human and are doing the best you can. The beauty of dementia is that all the hurt feelings and resentment are washed away. It is impossible for them to hold a grudge. They can't remember what they were mad at you about. So the only one holding on to that shame is you. Let it go.
Friday, February 6, 2009
The wilderness behind the Walgreens
This is a very long entry, but I think you will enjoy it.
©2008 by Anne Younger
The Wilderness Behind the Walgreens.
Near my house, in the heart of Pinellas County, Ulmerton Road crosses US 19. Running north and south, US 19 is a road that acts like a freeway. This primary route runs along the spine of the entire peninsula from Pinellas Point to Pasco County. Ulmerton Road bisects the county west to east, from the gulf beaches to the I-275 on-ramp and the bay. Over fifty-thousand motorists pass through this intersection each day. It would be hard to find a spot less like a wilderness than this, the very epitome of a hostile urban space, a car-culture gone mad. Yet, nature abides here—even thrives.
I was sitting one afternoon in the drive-thru of the pharmacy on this very busy corner, waiting for my mother’s prescription. Behind the Walgreens on Ulmerton stands a wooded area of about one hundred acres. A small pond immediately in front of the car holds a tangle of cattail and other marsh plants. The late spring sun set behind me, casting a golden light on everything, silhouetting each leaf in sharp focus against dark storm-threatened sky. I heard the metal-on-metal sound of a bird song, “conk-a-lee?” I recognized the sound from my youth in the Southwest. It is a song I rarely get to hear but that I love. Looking around, I see him—a red-winged blackbird perched on a cattail head. His shoulders look like red and yellow sergeant stripes; he is claiming this little piece of Eden behind the Walgreens as his own territory. While watching this bold fellow, I notice a young raccoon shyly peek out from the reeds and tiptoe past to the dumpster around the corner. What gives? How can there be blackbirds and raccoons living on Ulmerton Road?
How does one define wilderness? I have debated this question with my friends, back-to-the-land tree huggers and environmentalists, eco-hippies. They say wilderness is pure state, it is defined by the absences—no motors, no trash, no permanent residents, no humans. My friends think highflying jets and satellites should be forbidden from passing over wilderness areas. To them, wilderness is an ever-advancing boundary that cannot be crossed. Once you are in a wilderness, it is no longer wild. I think wilderness is defined by the word “wild,” as in “not tamed.” In our culture, we have the fanciful notion that we can control the places where we live. We collectively think that we can dump chemicals on our lawns to control what grows there and how well. We move plants and animals around on the landscape, get rid of some pests while inviting the attractive, entertaining or useful species. But no matter how many gators are taken out of a pond, there will always be more that can come back. The animals that live around here don’t know that they live in a city; they simply live where they can find food, shelter and mates. This is just like the rest of us.
I live with and take care of my elderly parents in the Ranchero Village Mobile Home Park in Largo—one of the largest parks in the county with roughly one thousand homes. Ranchero Village was built in 1978 on Ulmerton Road just a mile from that Walgreens. The original owner of this park retired in 2005 and wanted to sell his business. Developers salivated at the prospect of this huge tract of centrally located land. They could build many postage-stamp sized town homes, each selling for over a quarter of a million.
But, Florida law says that the owner of a mobile home park must offer the land for sale to the tenants and that they have a limited time to make an offer. If the tenants refuse to buy the property or are unable to meet the owner’s price, the owner can then sell it to whomever he wishes. He must pay the residents $1,500 for each mobile home on the property. A doublewide home counts as two, so my parents stood to get $3,000 for the $34,000 home they had just purchased two years before. Of course, they could have used that cash to relocate the home, but doublewides are virtually impossible to move. Happily, the residents were able to get together on the deal and come up with a price that we could all afford and that the owner would accept. We were saved from having to move.
The house is actually a two-bedroom home with an added sunroom. In Arizona, they called this kind of enclosure an “Arizona Room,” here in Largo it is a “Florida Room.” I wonder, what would this be called in Alaska? They call it a lanai in Hawaii, and I like this word. This conjures up images of palm-thatched teak structures on a beach somewhere, open to the elements, connected to the landscape. I connect to the landscape in this room, the walls on two sides are single-paned glass windows and the roof is channeled hollow aluminum. Every raindrop drums on the roof, the rising sun streams in, the wind slaps the tree against the house. It is very much like living in a tent or a plywood campground cabins. My mom calls my room, "the garage."
The lot we purchased is across the street from a lozenge shaped artificial pond. If we had been overlooking the pond, we would have paid a premium price for our land, an additional $3,000. As it is, we have our own version of waterfront, a tiny creek, or what I call a creek. Really, it is a storm-water drain with a few inches of water. I take my parents out to look at the creek at every opportunity. Someday, I will build a deck under our orange trees overlooking that creek. There, they can sit and listen to the doves on the power lines and watch the egrets hunting frogs.
My mom is eighty-four and my dad is eighty-six. They have many health problems. My mom—always sharp as a razor—now suffers from serious short-term memory loss. She has a difficult time remembering when she took her pills and even what she was talking about only a few seconds before. The worst part is, she doesn’t fully realize the seriousness of this condition. She forgets that she is forgetful. She doesn’t realize that she just told that story or asked that question. It hurts me to see the cloud of uncertainty pass over her face, when she can’t comprehend something.
My mom has no high-school diploma, a fact that she has expressed shame over, yet she is a woman of letters. About the time she went through menopause, she began to write. She mostly wrote poetry, sonnets. She also wrote short stories about her childhood. She was a consummate storyteller; she loves an audience. She often told about the wild places of Kentucky and Washington where she grew up. She developed an early love of nature that she passed on to me. She painted landscapes from memory and still-life pictures of flowers from her garden. She told of the creek by her grandmother’s house and about the wildlife she saw there. I was happy that we had a creek in our backyard. Maybe this would keep her interested in the world; maybe we could control the advancing dementia.
This park and the creek in the back yard are wonderful for spotting wildlife. The raccoon at the Walgreens was just the beginning. Many times, I wake to the sounds of bird song— some familiar, some not. One morning, came the sound of a flute or whistle. Five white ibises probed the grass along the creek. I have seen wood storks, herons and egrets; every night, heard the call of a chuck-will’s widow. There are more than just birds around here. Possums in the park and possibly raccoons tear into the trash if left out at night. Rabbits are all over, fruit rats raid the orange tree and squirrels are daredevils around the cars as they run from one oak tree to another. Feral cats slink by in the twilight.
One morning there was an odd tall bird standing in the middle of the street. It was brown with white spots and shaped differently from the other wading birds. It didn’t seem to be very afraid of the cars that were coming up to it and it looked impassively at a guy honking his horn. I walked out into the street and coaxed it over to the sidewalk. Its beak was shorter and blunter than an ibis and its legs were dark brown, but clearly, it was a wading bird. It seemed taller than an ibis and had a shorter neck than an egret or heron. It was a limpkin. Mom and Dad were just getting up, so I hustled them out to look at this wonder. The morning breeze was cool and felt good to me after the stuffy house, but Mom complained that it was cold and she went back inside. I waited while Dad made his slow painful way back into the house, up the three steps into the kitchen. The field guide said limpkins eat apple snails, but there don't seem to be any of those around here. The limpkin didn't stay long; our lozenge-shaped pond was a momentary oasis.
A dumpster area is on the west side of the park, bordered by Belcher road. One bright day, as I drove at the requisite twenty miles per hour, a sinuous black animal bounded across the street in front of the car. It was low to the ground and very long. How odd, it looked like an otter. At the zoo, otters swim up against the glass a few inches away—I know what an otter looks like. I also know what a weasel looks like, and a ferret. Ferrets are about twenty inches long, generally light in color with short tails. This animal was at least three feet long and dark. Weasels are smaller than ferrets, darker, and have longer tails. By process of elimination, this was an otter.
I sped up my car to where the otter disappeared between the houses and tried to spot it again. It was there, just about fifty feet away; just a glimpse as its long muscular tail disappeared around a corner. It was now running parallel to the car. I tracked it between the houses; and finally lost sight of it by the tennis courts. It seemed to be headed south.
When I got home, I checked on Google Earth to see the surrounding area. Where could it have come from and where was it going? Otters live near water, and it would need a pond or bayou with fish and shellfish to survive. Across Belcher Road is a small lake ringed on three sides by houses. Maybe that was where it came from. To the south, a slough connected to the Cross Bayou Canal, a series of waterways running diagonally across the county, from the Largo Inlet to Lake Seminole and out into the Gulf. I hoped that this otter would end up somewhere nice, like the lake or the inlet.
Pinellas County appears green when viewed from the air. The US Census reports that is has the highest population density of any county in the state. From Google Earth, you can see many areas of the county with no buildings. A few acres here and there, then long tracts of waterways, ponds, lakes, groves of trees. Parks and golf courses make up much of this green space. Bardmore Country Club is to the south of Ranchero Village. This is nature at its most controlled, not even gators venture there. The Feather Sound Country Club is east, where Ulmerton meets I-275. Mangroves and the bay beyond border this exclusive gated golf course; this is the edge of wilderness. It is the ibis Eden I had in mind. Driving past Feather Sound on my way to the Howard Franklin Bridge, I've seen rare roseate spoonbills flying overhead. Surely, this would be a better place to live than Ranchero Village.
Every time my mother goes over the Howard Franklin Bridge, she says, “There’s the dead sea,” or something to that effect. To her, a body of water this large should have surging waves, lots of boats and activity, maybe a few whales or seals, rocks pounded by surf, people flying kites and surfing. The Tampa Bay she sees is usually calm, blue and serene.
She grew up in Kentucky and lived her adult life in Arizona, so the idea of a freeway bridge over open water is frightening and confusing to her. She looks for the edges, the shore; the places where there is action. The bay reminds her of the desert, vast and empty. We rarely drive over the Courtney Campbell Causeway, but I am that sure she would find it more in-line with her image of a proper sea; the water is close to the road and there is lots of human activity. Nevertheless, I know that the action happening in the bay around the freeway bridge is hidden from view. There are pelicans perched on the bridge piers below deck, goliath groupers lurking in the shadows, rough patches of water where schools of mullet and tarpon are feeding, the occasional dolphin surfacing. To see the life in Tampa bay near the freeway, you have to know where and when to look. Moving at seventy miles an hour is a bad time to watch for dolphins or gaze at schools of fish. You need to have quick sharp eyes to see things happening.
The view of the bay from the freeway is a metaphor for my mom’s mind. What is happening on the surface seems calm, and somehow insignificant—subtle. Below the surface, there are currents of memory, surges of emotion, darting schools of slippery thoughts. And there is murkiness. Ten years ago, my mother started losing her memory. It was happening gradually, a fumbled word, a momentary argument, “No one ever told me that.” Then there was an increase in confusion, forgotten details, missed dates. By 2003, her eightieth birthday, anything beyond her usual routine completely confused her. She now has only a two-minute memory. Even the big events and important details are lost to her two minutes after hearing them. Now, Mom forgets that this is her home, forgets sometimes that she has been married to Dad for sixty-two years. She asks, “Who is that old guy and where is your dad?” She doesn’t know that I live here with her, that this is Florida, that she is eighty-four.
My mother was always interested in nature. She always had a garden, always watched birds, and walked in the world to see what she could see. I got this from her—my love of stories and nature, my curiosity about the world. Of the nearly one-hundred poems that my mother wrote, many are about nature, some about death and madness. I learned to live in the world from my mother. It makes me sad to see the world slipping away from her. I want to share what I see with her, the way she shared with me as a child. The stories I tell are momentary delights to her, but fleeting and then gone. The stories she told me are gone from her as well, as slippery as the schools of fish flickering through the shallow waters of Tampa Bay.
Some nights, Mom is restless. She and Dad are both incontinent. Every few hours, one or the other is in the bathroom. Waking from a sound sleep and not recognizing her surroundings, Mom often turns on the overhead light in my room. She always says, "Oh, Annie, are you out here? I didn't know where you were." Some nights, she takes all the pictures off the walls, collecting the family photos and paintings and stacking them in a pile. When asked why, she says she wants to be sure to take these with her when she leaves. But she is never sure of where she is going. Her only answer is, "Well, when we go home again." Dad gets upset with her. He tries to control her, make her go to bed, go to sleep, make her remember. He argues with her reality. On the best nights, they both go to bed early and sleep the whole night. In some ways, caring for my parents reminds me of when my son was a baby. There were sleepless nights, messes to clean, vulnerability to protect, diapers to change. Old age is like infancy in reverse. The sleepless nights will only become more frequent.
Our next animal encounter was just a few weeks ago. There was a horrible noise amplified by the hollow metal roof at three in the morning. There was a yowling snarl and another sound like the whooping of a guinea pig. Cast in moonlight on the wall was the Herculean struggle between two animals, roughly of the same size and shape—roundish and much too big to be cats. They were fighting and the whoop-whoop sounded plaintive and pleading. Then it was quiet.
Something scrambled over the metal mansard trim on the house. A large raccoon climbed down the Norfolk pine overhanging the roof. The animal that remained above cast his shadow on the wall, then continued to walk around and hoot softly. He was up there for the rest of the day, pacing, guarding his hard won territory. We still don’t know what that was—maybe a possum. Armadillos and otters can’t climb, cats don’t sound like that, and it sounded different from the raccoon that climbed down. Can nutria climb? What else could it be? Whatever mammals are living around here, we hear them running on the roof at all hours. Some are heavy enough to make the metal flex under foot, too heavy to be rats or squirrels.
The neighbors say we should call a trapper or exterminator. But, here's the problem: wilderness is a state of wildness, something beyond the control of humans. Even though it is annoying and perhaps inconvenient to have raccoons, possums, and rats on the roof, or ducks and limpkins in the street, this isn't something I need to control. Besides, what would a trapper do with a raccoon from Largo? Would the trapper move him to a new area? Would he have to compete with an existing population? He’d have to learn a new landscape, find food and a way to live. That doesn’t seem fair. This was almost what the owner of this park was going to do to us—relocate us to a new habitat. We would rather have this wildness as a neighbor than not. For all the bother, it is charming to have wild animals living so close by. We opted to live and let live.
Maybe the idea of wilderness comes from a biblical point of view. Wilderness is virginal, the desire for a perfect state, an Eden—a human presence despoils that perfection. Human = sin and corruption. I walk along my creek and wonder about the animals I find there. I wonder, why have they chosen to live here? Don’t they know that a few miles along this slough they can find a place with no traffic? A few miles over there and the ibises can find their Eden. Obviously, something attracts them—perhaps they recognize a kindred spirit in me. Wilderness surrounds us; it never went anywhere. Human civilization is just a thin veneer resting on the world, like a crust—easily swept away. This is not to say that we should do whatever we want, with no fear of the consequences. But maybe we should be less afraid for the birds and more afraid for ourselves.
The idea of controlled nature is an important part of life in Ranchero Village. More than half the residents are snowbirds who travel thousands of miles each year to avoid the bad winter weather of the north. There are daily trips to doctors, frequent visits from EMTs—all to control the advance of the natural aging process. Every spring and fall, the park pays to have the palms trimmed, leaving two or three pale green branches sticking up. I always argue with the trimming crew—it isn't healthy to cut the tree to only a few inches in diameter. Every Thursday, at 7:30 am, the lawn crew starts mowing, edging, blowing and vacuuming the tiny amount of grass that may have dared to grow in the previous week. Even when there has been no rain for a while, they mow. Noise and gas fumes envelope my glass room where I try to write.
I would be just as content to let the grass grow, make oxygen, go to seed, feed birds and bugs. Our house does not comply with the aesthetic of the homeowners association. I get complaints in writing about it. I like wildflowers, they like plastic flowers. As you drive through the park, every house has trimmed hedges, painted shutters, pink and red plastic roses sprouting from the flowerbeds. If wilderness is defined as uncontrolled nature, maybe I am another wild thing here in this park. I don't want to have my habitat controlled, trimmed and poisoned. I want to go to seed. My yard is a wilderness; my flowerbeds are weedy, my bushes overgrown.
Every spring, mallards nest in our bushes and dabble there in the creek, munching duckweed and the other green stuff choking the spot. For five weeks, a mallard drake loitered in our driveway. He stood near the end of the car, not quite on the narrow sidewalk, not quite under the bumper. The metal-flake green of his head was exactly the color of my Saturn.
He stood guard over a nest, deep in the bushes under our front bay window. Though only a few feet from the walkway, the nest seemed like a good location, dry and well hidden. It must have been nerve-wracking for the father-to-be, having cars and people so near. Some mornings, he stood in the street—impervious to the honking horns and concerned elder folk on three-wheeled bikes. My instinct was to protect him and his incubating brood. I fretted about this duck everyday, after I left for school. Would they be okay? Should I try to move them? Was there someone I could call?
I felt this same worry mirrored in leaving my parents alone. Would they fall down? Would they wander off? Would they eat and take their meds? Would they be safe? Each day, I entertained my mom and dad with duck stories. One day, daring a peek at the nest while the drake was on his break, I saw the hen, the color of her feathers blended with the leaf litter under the bushes—there were four eggs.
Finally, the ducklings hatched and the family moved to dabble in the creek. The four tiny baby ducklings had dark stripes and were not much bigger than the eggs they came from. I kept a close watch over them, and checked on them every day. One morning, while watching this little family, I was joined by my mom. She was tickled at the sight of these ducklings. She stood there leaning on her cane, the breeze stirring her hair and she looked more alive than I had seen in weeks.
As we watched the duck family, Mom became concerned, for the babies were getting farther and farther from the parents. It was still the same body of water, but the parents were on the other side of the small bridge. Mom asked me to shoo the babies back toward their parents. They were fast little buggers; I couldn't get ahead of them. I told Mom we should leave them alone, the parents would find them.
A few hours later, on the way to the grocery store, I saw the four ducklings running in a line down the middle of the street. I felt horrified and responsible. After having chased them further from their parents, they were now a quarter mile away and lost. I parked my car, grabbed the lunch cooler from the backseat and a pair of gloves from the glove box. I figured it would be easy to catch them and return them to the creek, they were so small.
All my life, I have heard the expression, “Get your ducks in a row.” Well, ducks like to walk in a row, but if you try to make them stay in a row, they won’t. The babies scattered and if they could swim faster than I could walk, they could run faster than I could run. I was beaten by four-inch high creatures! I finally managed to get two of them into the cooler. The third ran under someone’s house. The fourth went down to the pond and was attacked by older ducklings from another brood.
This was a disaster, just worse and worse. I was near tears with frustration, the two captured ducklings huddled and jostled in the cooler; it must have been very traumatic for them as well. I spent the next half an hour trying to round-up the other two ducklings. By this time, they were swimming in the pond, well out of my reach, and I still had to do something with my two captives. Carrying the cooler, I looked for the parents. Nowhere to be found! Damn! I was stumped.
I walked up and down the creek, looking for the drake and his mate. Finally, I returned to the pond. Thinking the babies would be safer in the pond, and that they could regroup with their siblings, I let them scramble out. They ran down the slope like kids out of school, (or like small animals running from a predator.) The other two ducklings were across the pond on the other side. My two captives battled a head wind and the spray from the fountain. So now, on top of everything else, they were in danger of drowning. Helplessly, I sat on the edge of the pond and watched until they were finally reunited with the other two babies. The four siblings together had a better chance at survival than one or two. Not knowing what else to do, I went back to my car and went to the grocery store.
The next morning, we saw the mother duck walking from the creek toward the pond, leading her four babies. They had all reunited during the night.
So what did I learn? Sometimes, when you think you have control, you don’t. Good intentions aren’t enough. Sometimes, you can’t get your ducks in a row, because they are ducks and will do what they want. Aging doesn't go in reverse. Memories fade, joints tighten, and hearts fail. I can't prevent my parents from falling down, forgetting their pills, losing memories. The closer I hover, the further they run—maybe better to let nature take its course.
Taking care of my parents is often an exercise in futility and brings into focus how little control I really have over circumstances. The best medical care in the world will not bring back my mother's memories. There is no pill or surgery that will heal my dad's back knees and failing heart. Some think aging is a slow slide to entropy. I think it is a daily battle, requiring constant vigilance. It is not a wilderness, but maybe more like a garden.
When I lived in Oregon, I had a beautiful garden. There were fruit trees, a large strawberry patch, tomatoes, lettuce, broccoli, carrots, potatoes, beans, peas, spinach, radishes and kale. It was easy there to grow such a garden, the soil was loamy and there was plenty of water. There was still work to do. Tilling, planting and harvesting all year around but also weeds to pull and pests to guard against. More than once, I lost entire crops of lettuce to deer, cherries to flocks of birds. Even in such a benign place, gardening was hard work. So I try to balance my worry about my parents and my desire to control nature with an understanding that everything ages and dies, entropy envelopes us all. I will let the ducks find their own way home and let the possums settle their own differences. Maybe Mom can just be confused and take the pictures off the walls. I don't need to interfere. She can be wild.
©2008 by Anne Younger
The Wilderness Behind the Walgreens.
Near my house, in the heart of Pinellas County, Ulmerton Road crosses US 19. Running north and south, US 19 is a road that acts like a freeway. This primary route runs along the spine of the entire peninsula from Pinellas Point to Pasco County. Ulmerton Road bisects the county west to east, from the gulf beaches to the I-275 on-ramp and the bay. Over fifty-thousand motorists pass through this intersection each day. It would be hard to find a spot less like a wilderness than this, the very epitome of a hostile urban space, a car-culture gone mad. Yet, nature abides here—even thrives.
I was sitting one afternoon in the drive-thru of the pharmacy on this very busy corner, waiting for my mother’s prescription. Behind the Walgreens on Ulmerton stands a wooded area of about one hundred acres. A small pond immediately in front of the car holds a tangle of cattail and other marsh plants. The late spring sun set behind me, casting a golden light on everything, silhouetting each leaf in sharp focus against dark storm-threatened sky. I heard the metal-on-metal sound of a bird song, “conk-a-lee?” I recognized the sound from my youth in the Southwest. It is a song I rarely get to hear but that I love. Looking around, I see him—a red-winged blackbird perched on a cattail head. His shoulders look like red and yellow sergeant stripes; he is claiming this little piece of Eden behind the Walgreens as his own territory. While watching this bold fellow, I notice a young raccoon shyly peek out from the reeds and tiptoe past to the dumpster around the corner. What gives? How can there be blackbirds and raccoons living on Ulmerton Road?
How does one define wilderness? I have debated this question with my friends, back-to-the-land tree huggers and environmentalists, eco-hippies. They say wilderness is pure state, it is defined by the absences—no motors, no trash, no permanent residents, no humans. My friends think highflying jets and satellites should be forbidden from passing over wilderness areas. To them, wilderness is an ever-advancing boundary that cannot be crossed. Once you are in a wilderness, it is no longer wild. I think wilderness is defined by the word “wild,” as in “not tamed.” In our culture, we have the fanciful notion that we can control the places where we live. We collectively think that we can dump chemicals on our lawns to control what grows there and how well. We move plants and animals around on the landscape, get rid of some pests while inviting the attractive, entertaining or useful species. But no matter how many gators are taken out of a pond, there will always be more that can come back. The animals that live around here don’t know that they live in a city; they simply live where they can find food, shelter and mates. This is just like the rest of us.
I live with and take care of my elderly parents in the Ranchero Village Mobile Home Park in Largo—one of the largest parks in the county with roughly one thousand homes. Ranchero Village was built in 1978 on Ulmerton Road just a mile from that Walgreens. The original owner of this park retired in 2005 and wanted to sell his business. Developers salivated at the prospect of this huge tract of centrally located land. They could build many postage-stamp sized town homes, each selling for over a quarter of a million.
But, Florida law says that the owner of a mobile home park must offer the land for sale to the tenants and that they have a limited time to make an offer. If the tenants refuse to buy the property or are unable to meet the owner’s price, the owner can then sell it to whomever he wishes. He must pay the residents $1,500 for each mobile home on the property. A doublewide home counts as two, so my parents stood to get $3,000 for the $34,000 home they had just purchased two years before. Of course, they could have used that cash to relocate the home, but doublewides are virtually impossible to move. Happily, the residents were able to get together on the deal and come up with a price that we could all afford and that the owner would accept. We were saved from having to move.
The house is actually a two-bedroom home with an added sunroom. In Arizona, they called this kind of enclosure an “Arizona Room,” here in Largo it is a “Florida Room.” I wonder, what would this be called in Alaska? They call it a lanai in Hawaii, and I like this word. This conjures up images of palm-thatched teak structures on a beach somewhere, open to the elements, connected to the landscape. I connect to the landscape in this room, the walls on two sides are single-paned glass windows and the roof is channeled hollow aluminum. Every raindrop drums on the roof, the rising sun streams in, the wind slaps the tree against the house. It is very much like living in a tent or a plywood campground cabins. My mom calls my room, "the garage."
The lot we purchased is across the street from a lozenge shaped artificial pond. If we had been overlooking the pond, we would have paid a premium price for our land, an additional $3,000. As it is, we have our own version of waterfront, a tiny creek, or what I call a creek. Really, it is a storm-water drain with a few inches of water. I take my parents out to look at the creek at every opportunity. Someday, I will build a deck under our orange trees overlooking that creek. There, they can sit and listen to the doves on the power lines and watch the egrets hunting frogs.
My mom is eighty-four and my dad is eighty-six. They have many health problems. My mom—always sharp as a razor—now suffers from serious short-term memory loss. She has a difficult time remembering when she took her pills and even what she was talking about only a few seconds before. The worst part is, she doesn’t fully realize the seriousness of this condition. She forgets that she is forgetful. She doesn’t realize that she just told that story or asked that question. It hurts me to see the cloud of uncertainty pass over her face, when she can’t comprehend something.
My mom has no high-school diploma, a fact that she has expressed shame over, yet she is a woman of letters. About the time she went through menopause, she began to write. She mostly wrote poetry, sonnets. She also wrote short stories about her childhood. She was a consummate storyteller; she loves an audience. She often told about the wild places of Kentucky and Washington where she grew up. She developed an early love of nature that she passed on to me. She painted landscapes from memory and still-life pictures of flowers from her garden. She told of the creek by her grandmother’s house and about the wildlife she saw there. I was happy that we had a creek in our backyard. Maybe this would keep her interested in the world; maybe we could control the advancing dementia.
This park and the creek in the back yard are wonderful for spotting wildlife. The raccoon at the Walgreens was just the beginning. Many times, I wake to the sounds of bird song— some familiar, some not. One morning, came the sound of a flute or whistle. Five white ibises probed the grass along the creek. I have seen wood storks, herons and egrets; every night, heard the call of a chuck-will’s widow. There are more than just birds around here. Possums in the park and possibly raccoons tear into the trash if left out at night. Rabbits are all over, fruit rats raid the orange tree and squirrels are daredevils around the cars as they run from one oak tree to another. Feral cats slink by in the twilight.
One morning there was an odd tall bird standing in the middle of the street. It was brown with white spots and shaped differently from the other wading birds. It didn’t seem to be very afraid of the cars that were coming up to it and it looked impassively at a guy honking his horn. I walked out into the street and coaxed it over to the sidewalk. Its beak was shorter and blunter than an ibis and its legs were dark brown, but clearly, it was a wading bird. It seemed taller than an ibis and had a shorter neck than an egret or heron. It was a limpkin. Mom and Dad were just getting up, so I hustled them out to look at this wonder. The morning breeze was cool and felt good to me after the stuffy house, but Mom complained that it was cold and she went back inside. I waited while Dad made his slow painful way back into the house, up the three steps into the kitchen. The field guide said limpkins eat apple snails, but there don't seem to be any of those around here. The limpkin didn't stay long; our lozenge-shaped pond was a momentary oasis.
A dumpster area is on the west side of the park, bordered by Belcher road. One bright day, as I drove at the requisite twenty miles per hour, a sinuous black animal bounded across the street in front of the car. It was low to the ground and very long. How odd, it looked like an otter. At the zoo, otters swim up against the glass a few inches away—I know what an otter looks like. I also know what a weasel looks like, and a ferret. Ferrets are about twenty inches long, generally light in color with short tails. This animal was at least three feet long and dark. Weasels are smaller than ferrets, darker, and have longer tails. By process of elimination, this was an otter.
I sped up my car to where the otter disappeared between the houses and tried to spot it again. It was there, just about fifty feet away; just a glimpse as its long muscular tail disappeared around a corner. It was now running parallel to the car. I tracked it between the houses; and finally lost sight of it by the tennis courts. It seemed to be headed south.
When I got home, I checked on Google Earth to see the surrounding area. Where could it have come from and where was it going? Otters live near water, and it would need a pond or bayou with fish and shellfish to survive. Across Belcher Road is a small lake ringed on three sides by houses. Maybe that was where it came from. To the south, a slough connected to the Cross Bayou Canal, a series of waterways running diagonally across the county, from the Largo Inlet to Lake Seminole and out into the Gulf. I hoped that this otter would end up somewhere nice, like the lake or the inlet.
Pinellas County appears green when viewed from the air. The US Census reports that is has the highest population density of any county in the state. From Google Earth, you can see many areas of the county with no buildings. A few acres here and there, then long tracts of waterways, ponds, lakes, groves of trees. Parks and golf courses make up much of this green space. Bardmore Country Club is to the south of Ranchero Village. This is nature at its most controlled, not even gators venture there. The Feather Sound Country Club is east, where Ulmerton meets I-275. Mangroves and the bay beyond border this exclusive gated golf course; this is the edge of wilderness. It is the ibis Eden I had in mind. Driving past Feather Sound on my way to the Howard Franklin Bridge, I've seen rare roseate spoonbills flying overhead. Surely, this would be a better place to live than Ranchero Village.
Every time my mother goes over the Howard Franklin Bridge, she says, “There’s the dead sea,” or something to that effect. To her, a body of water this large should have surging waves, lots of boats and activity, maybe a few whales or seals, rocks pounded by surf, people flying kites and surfing. The Tampa Bay she sees is usually calm, blue and serene.
She grew up in Kentucky and lived her adult life in Arizona, so the idea of a freeway bridge over open water is frightening and confusing to her. She looks for the edges, the shore; the places where there is action. The bay reminds her of the desert, vast and empty. We rarely drive over the Courtney Campbell Causeway, but I am that sure she would find it more in-line with her image of a proper sea; the water is close to the road and there is lots of human activity. Nevertheless, I know that the action happening in the bay around the freeway bridge is hidden from view. There are pelicans perched on the bridge piers below deck, goliath groupers lurking in the shadows, rough patches of water where schools of mullet and tarpon are feeding, the occasional dolphin surfacing. To see the life in Tampa bay near the freeway, you have to know where and when to look. Moving at seventy miles an hour is a bad time to watch for dolphins or gaze at schools of fish. You need to have quick sharp eyes to see things happening.
The view of the bay from the freeway is a metaphor for my mom’s mind. What is happening on the surface seems calm, and somehow insignificant—subtle. Below the surface, there are currents of memory, surges of emotion, darting schools of slippery thoughts. And there is murkiness. Ten years ago, my mother started losing her memory. It was happening gradually, a fumbled word, a momentary argument, “No one ever told me that.” Then there was an increase in confusion, forgotten details, missed dates. By 2003, her eightieth birthday, anything beyond her usual routine completely confused her. She now has only a two-minute memory. Even the big events and important details are lost to her two minutes after hearing them. Now, Mom forgets that this is her home, forgets sometimes that she has been married to Dad for sixty-two years. She asks, “Who is that old guy and where is your dad?” She doesn’t know that I live here with her, that this is Florida, that she is eighty-four.
My mother was always interested in nature. She always had a garden, always watched birds, and walked in the world to see what she could see. I got this from her—my love of stories and nature, my curiosity about the world. Of the nearly one-hundred poems that my mother wrote, many are about nature, some about death and madness. I learned to live in the world from my mother. It makes me sad to see the world slipping away from her. I want to share what I see with her, the way she shared with me as a child. The stories I tell are momentary delights to her, but fleeting and then gone. The stories she told me are gone from her as well, as slippery as the schools of fish flickering through the shallow waters of Tampa Bay.
Some nights, Mom is restless. She and Dad are both incontinent. Every few hours, one or the other is in the bathroom. Waking from a sound sleep and not recognizing her surroundings, Mom often turns on the overhead light in my room. She always says, "Oh, Annie, are you out here? I didn't know where you were." Some nights, she takes all the pictures off the walls, collecting the family photos and paintings and stacking them in a pile. When asked why, she says she wants to be sure to take these with her when she leaves. But she is never sure of where she is going. Her only answer is, "Well, when we go home again." Dad gets upset with her. He tries to control her, make her go to bed, go to sleep, make her remember. He argues with her reality. On the best nights, they both go to bed early and sleep the whole night. In some ways, caring for my parents reminds me of when my son was a baby. There were sleepless nights, messes to clean, vulnerability to protect, diapers to change. Old age is like infancy in reverse. The sleepless nights will only become more frequent.
Our next animal encounter was just a few weeks ago. There was a horrible noise amplified by the hollow metal roof at three in the morning. There was a yowling snarl and another sound like the whooping of a guinea pig. Cast in moonlight on the wall was the Herculean struggle between two animals, roughly of the same size and shape—roundish and much too big to be cats. They were fighting and the whoop-whoop sounded plaintive and pleading. Then it was quiet.
Something scrambled over the metal mansard trim on the house. A large raccoon climbed down the Norfolk pine overhanging the roof. The animal that remained above cast his shadow on the wall, then continued to walk around and hoot softly. He was up there for the rest of the day, pacing, guarding his hard won territory. We still don’t know what that was—maybe a possum. Armadillos and otters can’t climb, cats don’t sound like that, and it sounded different from the raccoon that climbed down. Can nutria climb? What else could it be? Whatever mammals are living around here, we hear them running on the roof at all hours. Some are heavy enough to make the metal flex under foot, too heavy to be rats or squirrels.
The neighbors say we should call a trapper or exterminator. But, here's the problem: wilderness is a state of wildness, something beyond the control of humans. Even though it is annoying and perhaps inconvenient to have raccoons, possums, and rats on the roof, or ducks and limpkins in the street, this isn't something I need to control. Besides, what would a trapper do with a raccoon from Largo? Would the trapper move him to a new area? Would he have to compete with an existing population? He’d have to learn a new landscape, find food and a way to live. That doesn’t seem fair. This was almost what the owner of this park was going to do to us—relocate us to a new habitat. We would rather have this wildness as a neighbor than not. For all the bother, it is charming to have wild animals living so close by. We opted to live and let live.
Maybe the idea of wilderness comes from a biblical point of view. Wilderness is virginal, the desire for a perfect state, an Eden—a human presence despoils that perfection. Human = sin and corruption. I walk along my creek and wonder about the animals I find there. I wonder, why have they chosen to live here? Don’t they know that a few miles along this slough they can find a place with no traffic? A few miles over there and the ibises can find their Eden. Obviously, something attracts them—perhaps they recognize a kindred spirit in me. Wilderness surrounds us; it never went anywhere. Human civilization is just a thin veneer resting on the world, like a crust—easily swept away. This is not to say that we should do whatever we want, with no fear of the consequences. But maybe we should be less afraid for the birds and more afraid for ourselves.
The idea of controlled nature is an important part of life in Ranchero Village. More than half the residents are snowbirds who travel thousands of miles each year to avoid the bad winter weather of the north. There are daily trips to doctors, frequent visits from EMTs—all to control the advance of the natural aging process. Every spring and fall, the park pays to have the palms trimmed, leaving two or three pale green branches sticking up. I always argue with the trimming crew—it isn't healthy to cut the tree to only a few inches in diameter. Every Thursday, at 7:30 am, the lawn crew starts mowing, edging, blowing and vacuuming the tiny amount of grass that may have dared to grow in the previous week. Even when there has been no rain for a while, they mow. Noise and gas fumes envelope my glass room where I try to write.
I would be just as content to let the grass grow, make oxygen, go to seed, feed birds and bugs. Our house does not comply with the aesthetic of the homeowners association. I get complaints in writing about it. I like wildflowers, they like plastic flowers. As you drive through the park, every house has trimmed hedges, painted shutters, pink and red plastic roses sprouting from the flowerbeds. If wilderness is defined as uncontrolled nature, maybe I am another wild thing here in this park. I don't want to have my habitat controlled, trimmed and poisoned. I want to go to seed. My yard is a wilderness; my flowerbeds are weedy, my bushes overgrown.
Every spring, mallards nest in our bushes and dabble there in the creek, munching duckweed and the other green stuff choking the spot. For five weeks, a mallard drake loitered in our driveway. He stood near the end of the car, not quite on the narrow sidewalk, not quite under the bumper. The metal-flake green of his head was exactly the color of my Saturn.
He stood guard over a nest, deep in the bushes under our front bay window. Though only a few feet from the walkway, the nest seemed like a good location, dry and well hidden. It must have been nerve-wracking for the father-to-be, having cars and people so near. Some mornings, he stood in the street—impervious to the honking horns and concerned elder folk on three-wheeled bikes. My instinct was to protect him and his incubating brood. I fretted about this duck everyday, after I left for school. Would they be okay? Should I try to move them? Was there someone I could call?
I felt this same worry mirrored in leaving my parents alone. Would they fall down? Would they wander off? Would they eat and take their meds? Would they be safe? Each day, I entertained my mom and dad with duck stories. One day, daring a peek at the nest while the drake was on his break, I saw the hen, the color of her feathers blended with the leaf litter under the bushes—there were four eggs.
Finally, the ducklings hatched and the family moved to dabble in the creek. The four tiny baby ducklings had dark stripes and were not much bigger than the eggs they came from. I kept a close watch over them, and checked on them every day. One morning, while watching this little family, I was joined by my mom. She was tickled at the sight of these ducklings. She stood there leaning on her cane, the breeze stirring her hair and she looked more alive than I had seen in weeks.
As we watched the duck family, Mom became concerned, for the babies were getting farther and farther from the parents. It was still the same body of water, but the parents were on the other side of the small bridge. Mom asked me to shoo the babies back toward their parents. They were fast little buggers; I couldn't get ahead of them. I told Mom we should leave them alone, the parents would find them.
A few hours later, on the way to the grocery store, I saw the four ducklings running in a line down the middle of the street. I felt horrified and responsible. After having chased them further from their parents, they were now a quarter mile away and lost. I parked my car, grabbed the lunch cooler from the backseat and a pair of gloves from the glove box. I figured it would be easy to catch them and return them to the creek, they were so small.
All my life, I have heard the expression, “Get your ducks in a row.” Well, ducks like to walk in a row, but if you try to make them stay in a row, they won’t. The babies scattered and if they could swim faster than I could walk, they could run faster than I could run. I was beaten by four-inch high creatures! I finally managed to get two of them into the cooler. The third ran under someone’s house. The fourth went down to the pond and was attacked by older ducklings from another brood.
This was a disaster, just worse and worse. I was near tears with frustration, the two captured ducklings huddled and jostled in the cooler; it must have been very traumatic for them as well. I spent the next half an hour trying to round-up the other two ducklings. By this time, they were swimming in the pond, well out of my reach, and I still had to do something with my two captives. Carrying the cooler, I looked for the parents. Nowhere to be found! Damn! I was stumped.
I walked up and down the creek, looking for the drake and his mate. Finally, I returned to the pond. Thinking the babies would be safer in the pond, and that they could regroup with their siblings, I let them scramble out. They ran down the slope like kids out of school, (or like small animals running from a predator.) The other two ducklings were across the pond on the other side. My two captives battled a head wind and the spray from the fountain. So now, on top of everything else, they were in danger of drowning. Helplessly, I sat on the edge of the pond and watched until they were finally reunited with the other two babies. The four siblings together had a better chance at survival than one or two. Not knowing what else to do, I went back to my car and went to the grocery store.
The next morning, we saw the mother duck walking from the creek toward the pond, leading her four babies. They had all reunited during the night.
So what did I learn? Sometimes, when you think you have control, you don’t. Good intentions aren’t enough. Sometimes, you can’t get your ducks in a row, because they are ducks and will do what they want. Aging doesn't go in reverse. Memories fade, joints tighten, and hearts fail. I can't prevent my parents from falling down, forgetting their pills, losing memories. The closer I hover, the further they run—maybe better to let nature take its course.
Taking care of my parents is often an exercise in futility and brings into focus how little control I really have over circumstances. The best medical care in the world will not bring back my mother's memories. There is no pill or surgery that will heal my dad's back knees and failing heart. Some think aging is a slow slide to entropy. I think it is a daily battle, requiring constant vigilance. It is not a wilderness, but maybe more like a garden.
When I lived in Oregon, I had a beautiful garden. There were fruit trees, a large strawberry patch, tomatoes, lettuce, broccoli, carrots, potatoes, beans, peas, spinach, radishes and kale. It was easy there to grow such a garden, the soil was loamy and there was plenty of water. There was still work to do. Tilling, planting and harvesting all year around but also weeds to pull and pests to guard against. More than once, I lost entire crops of lettuce to deer, cherries to flocks of birds. Even in such a benign place, gardening was hard work. So I try to balance my worry about my parents and my desire to control nature with an understanding that everything ages and dies, entropy envelopes us all. I will let the ducks find their own way home and let the possums settle their own differences. Maybe Mom can just be confused and take the pictures off the walls. I don't need to interfere. She can be wild.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
July
It has been about a month since I last wrote on this blog, and what a month it's been.
My son, John, and his family came to visit for nine days. He has three kids; two girls, ages six and three, and a baby boy, aged nine-months. Zander! What a great name, and what a great kid. I don't think I've ever seen such a happy baby. We all had a wonderful time, getting to know the kids better, playing, going to the pool and the beach, and all the other fun stuff that goes with kids and Florida.
But, as well as the visit went, it was not without problems. Mainly, I'm having money problems., so we couldn't spoil them quite as much as we would have liked, and we had to cancel the trip to the Disney universe.
I graduated on May 3rd and I've been trying to start a freelance writing business. It is a tough business to get started on a shoestring. I spend hours each day, sending query letters and emails to job listings, but with minimal results. It must be tough for everyone out there, because the competition is fierce.
I originally wanted to go out and get a job outside the home, but Mom and Dad require almost constant care. Rarely a week that goes by where I don't have to take one or the other of them to a doctor's appointment. I also have to do the cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping, banking, and on and on. Dad wants me to work at home, and that seems best for them. In fact, if I go to the library or take too long at the grocery store, he calls to check up on me. "Anne, I just wondered if you've abandoned us?" So I've been trying to find telecommute jobs or freelance writing, editing or proofreading jobs. I've had a few, but for very little (or no) money.
Of course, no work means I need some help on my bills. Dad has stepped up and taken on the extra burden, but I know it is freaking him out. Every minute I spend holding his hand and re-assuring him is a minute I could be making some money.
I don't know if anyone gets how hard this is for me. Not to cry in my cocoa, but I really hate not having money. I get depressed when I don't know how I'm going to pay a bill. Moreover, I hate borrowing money. And borrowing from my elderly and dependant parents is the worst of all.
So here is my quandary; I want to cut and run. Don't worry, I'm not talking about abandoning Mom and Dad. But, I want to get out of the house and get a job. This will mean that I have to hire someone to come in each day and feed them, and so on. I will also need a flexible schedule, so that I can take them to doctors' appointments. Or maybe I can work a swing shift and take them to appointments in the mornings. I would have to earn enough to pay someone, so that rules out any low paying jobs. So where does that leave me? I'm too old and fat to be a stripper, so what else pays over $20 per hour and is a swing shift job? Jewel thief?
See, this is why I wanted to be a freelancer; if I could just get the money coming in.
I'll let you know what happens.
My son, John, and his family came to visit for nine days. He has three kids; two girls, ages six and three, and a baby boy, aged nine-months. Zander! What a great name, and what a great kid. I don't think I've ever seen such a happy baby. We all had a wonderful time, getting to know the kids better, playing, going to the pool and the beach, and all the other fun stuff that goes with kids and Florida.
But, as well as the visit went, it was not without problems. Mainly, I'm having money problems., so we couldn't spoil them quite as much as we would have liked, and we had to cancel the trip to the Disney universe.
I graduated on May 3rd and I've been trying to start a freelance writing business. It is a tough business to get started on a shoestring. I spend hours each day, sending query letters and emails to job listings, but with minimal results. It must be tough for everyone out there, because the competition is fierce.
I originally wanted to go out and get a job outside the home, but Mom and Dad require almost constant care. Rarely a week that goes by where I don't have to take one or the other of them to a doctor's appointment. I also have to do the cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping, banking, and on and on. Dad wants me to work at home, and that seems best for them. In fact, if I go to the library or take too long at the grocery store, he calls to check up on me. "Anne, I just wondered if you've abandoned us?" So I've been trying to find telecommute jobs or freelance writing, editing or proofreading jobs. I've had a few, but for very little (or no) money.
Of course, no work means I need some help on my bills. Dad has stepped up and taken on the extra burden, but I know it is freaking him out. Every minute I spend holding his hand and re-assuring him is a minute I could be making some money.
I don't know if anyone gets how hard this is for me. Not to cry in my cocoa, but I really hate not having money. I get depressed when I don't know how I'm going to pay a bill. Moreover, I hate borrowing money. And borrowing from my elderly and dependant parents is the worst of all.
So here is my quandary; I want to cut and run. Don't worry, I'm not talking about abandoning Mom and Dad. But, I want to get out of the house and get a job. This will mean that I have to hire someone to come in each day and feed them, and so on. I will also need a flexible schedule, so that I can take them to doctors' appointments. Or maybe I can work a swing shift and take them to appointments in the mornings. I would have to earn enough to pay someone, so that rules out any low paying jobs. So where does that leave me? I'm too old and fat to be a stripper, so what else pays over $20 per hour and is a swing shift job? Jewel thief?
See, this is why I wanted to be a freelancer; if I could just get the money coming in.
I'll let you know what happens.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Our trip to the Social Security Office.
Last week, Dad decided that he was confused about a letter he received from Social Security. I don't want to go into a great deal of detail here about the letter or the issue. Suffice to say, it was regarding Mom's Medicare benefits. We had recently changed her insurance and so this made changes to her Medicare, she would be getting more money each month. I spent half a day on the phone getting answers about this letter and found out that it was nothing to be concerned about. But Dad wasn't satisfied with my explanation. He insisted that we go to the Social Security Administration offices. And since it was regarding Mom's account, she had to go along. Of course, it is impossible to get out of the house before noon. But this time, they were in rare form, we got to the place at 2pm.
As we sat there, Mom made what she thought were whispered comments about the people around her, but her whispered comments are in a stage whisper and in the range of comments that a small child might make. In other words, all of the self-censorship that we learn as children was missing, so she feels free to say things like, "Look at how fat that guy is, you think he gets tired pushing that belly around?" I just try not to be embarrassed for her.
After about 2 hours of waiting, a very young couple sat down. They asked me if we had been waiting long, they seemed eager to strike up a conversation. It turned out that they were newlyweds, just back from their honeymoon. Mom and Dad shared that they had been married for 62 years and the youngsters were amazed at that. The boy said, "I hope we will be married that long."
We continued to chat for a few minutes, then Mom did an amazing thing. She got up and in a conspiratorial way, she sat down next to the young bride and tried to force her to take Mom's two diamond rings. The girl was amazed and flustered, and the boy was clearly embarrassed. Dad howled in protest.
Mom said, "I can give these rings to who ever I want, I found them in an old house. They didn't cost me a penny."
Dad said, "I gave you those rings for our 50th anniversary. I bought them at Zales."
And so we went back and forth for about ten minutes, Mom insisting that the rings were essentially worthless and that she could give them away, Dad insisting that he would be very hurt if she did and the young couple insisting that it was far too generous a gesture. I tried to resolve the whole thing but no one was really listening to me.
Finally, the clerk called our number and as we were walking over to her window, Mom forced the rings into the hand of the young man. He then slickly passed them back to me and I put them into my pocket.
Once we got back into the car, I gave the rings back to Mom and she had already forgotten the whole event. Of course, Dad's feelings were hurt, so he wouldn't let it go. When we got home, he got out the receipt for the rings and showed it to Mom. She said, "Well, of course I wouldn't give something like that away."
The funny thing is, the clerk told Dad exactly what the people on the phone had told me. So the whole trip was unnecessary.
As we sat there, Mom made what she thought were whispered comments about the people around her, but her whispered comments are in a stage whisper and in the range of comments that a small child might make. In other words, all of the self-censorship that we learn as children was missing, so she feels free to say things like, "Look at how fat that guy is, you think he gets tired pushing that belly around?" I just try not to be embarrassed for her.
After about 2 hours of waiting, a very young couple sat down. They asked me if we had been waiting long, they seemed eager to strike up a conversation. It turned out that they were newlyweds, just back from their honeymoon. Mom and Dad shared that they had been married for 62 years and the youngsters were amazed at that. The boy said, "I hope we will be married that long."
We continued to chat for a few minutes, then Mom did an amazing thing. She got up and in a conspiratorial way, she sat down next to the young bride and tried to force her to take Mom's two diamond rings. The girl was amazed and flustered, and the boy was clearly embarrassed. Dad howled in protest.
Mom said, "I can give these rings to who ever I want, I found them in an old house. They didn't cost me a penny."
Dad said, "I gave you those rings for our 50th anniversary. I bought them at Zales."
And so we went back and forth for about ten minutes, Mom insisting that the rings were essentially worthless and that she could give them away, Dad insisting that he would be very hurt if she did and the young couple insisting that it was far too generous a gesture. I tried to resolve the whole thing but no one was really listening to me.
Finally, the clerk called our number and as we were walking over to her window, Mom forced the rings into the hand of the young man. He then slickly passed them back to me and I put them into my pocket.
Once we got back into the car, I gave the rings back to Mom and she had already forgotten the whole event. Of course, Dad's feelings were hurt, so he wouldn't let it go. When we got home, he got out the receipt for the rings and showed it to Mom. She said, "Well, of course I wouldn't give something like that away."
The funny thing is, the clerk told Dad exactly what the people on the phone had told me. So the whole trip was unnecessary.
Friday, May 23, 2008
SAIL ON TO DISCOVERY
This is a poem that my mom wrote in 1972, when I was a senior in high school. Mom never graduated from high school, her mother made her drop out and go to work. But Mom was self-educated. This is a Shakespearean sonnet, a very difficult and technical poetry form.
The reason I include this here is to illustrate her dementia. When I graduated from college three weeks ago, we all went out for dinner. Mom could quote this poem verbatim. But, she couldn't remember that we had just gone to my graduation, or that she lives in Largo, FL or even how old she is. So much of her day-to-day stuff is gone, but she can remember these beautiful words that she wrote.
In all, Mom has written nearly 100 poems and many stories, as well. I am in the process of editing and publishing that work for her. I'll include ordering information when it is ready. In the mean time, here is a sample of her poetry.
SAIL ON TO DISCOVERY,
A SONNET
When I despair of all I cannot be,
Since limits set by time and space and man,
Compels me take each passing day to see,
Beyond the dark to life's more noble plan.
Aside from pain and struggling that began,
Would I but in perfection strive to be;
The tuning fork whereon harmonies stand;
As music flows, the ebbing of the sea.
Resound upon my searching mind and heart!
Awaken then , my soul, to rise and rove
from toilsome chores and never-ending strife,
Becoming yet, an integrated part,
Of vessel held, not in the sheltered cove
But one that sails the rugged sea of life!
© By Margaret Reynolds Trapp
August 7, 1972
The reason I include this here is to illustrate her dementia. When I graduated from college three weeks ago, we all went out for dinner. Mom could quote this poem verbatim. But, she couldn't remember that we had just gone to my graduation, or that she lives in Largo, FL or even how old she is. So much of her day-to-day stuff is gone, but she can remember these beautiful words that she wrote.
In all, Mom has written nearly 100 poems and many stories, as well. I am in the process of editing and publishing that work for her. I'll include ordering information when it is ready. In the mean time, here is a sample of her poetry.
SAIL ON TO DISCOVERY,
A SONNET
When I despair of all I cannot be,
Since limits set by time and space and man,
Compels me take each passing day to see,
Beyond the dark to life's more noble plan.
Aside from pain and struggling that began,
Would I but in perfection strive to be;
The tuning fork whereon harmonies stand;
As music flows, the ebbing of the sea.
Resound upon my searching mind and heart!
Awaken then , my soul, to rise and rove
from toilsome chores and never-ending strife,
Becoming yet, an integrated part,
Of vessel held, not in the sheltered cove
But one that sails the rugged sea of life!
© By Margaret Reynolds Trapp
August 7, 1972
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
