October 23, 2022

Those were my chosen words for the day. Virtues that I wanted to mindfully embody today.

My mom called me a Bodhisattva today while I was laying out her meal. I told her not to call me that. I just want her to be healthy and happy. I don’t want her to extol my virtues and then undercut me later nor do I need her to be obsequious and flatter me so that I will continue to help her. It just makes me uncomfortable in general. I don’t help her to make me feel better. On the contrary. The words of warning by my teacher gives me a sense of unrest but who is there to help her other than me? Why is the only child of hers who is willing to help day to day is also the person whose chemistry is supposedly detrimental to her health? Is this her karma?

I continue nevertheless to be her caregiver, albeit reluctantly. And everyday I call upon my exalted self to be patient, wise, and compassionate with my mom but I also I think I need to be so with myself. I satisfied my need for order and control when I spun off into a cleaning and organizing frenzy only to slowly come to a realization that what I was doing was impossible. I was trying to bring into order 20 years of disorder in one afternoon. This whole house is an exercise in patience and moderation. I thought I could tackle one room at a time but even that is too big of a project! I am learning to pace myself and in pacing myself, learning discipline to take small steps incrementally.

Before I exhausted myself in my frenzy, I somehow found some sense and stopped and went to the beach with mom. Even though it was much later than I planned, I was so glad I got out of my rut, my little self imposed prison of a home. We found a new Detroit style pizzeria which was so good, it made me think of SoCal in a better light.

Not sure if I exercised compassion today with my mom though. I was a bit of bull pushing her along the sidewalk and on the boardwalk in her wheelchair. She was bumping along and sometimes gasping in alarm. I wondered what her vantage point was like now that she’s essentially eye level to the cars on the road. No wonder she was anxious. She would later complain of being sore from riding on the bumpy sidewalks. Wheelchairs really need some kind of shock system. And the streets are not friendly to wheelchairs or strollers, with few ramps and the rare ramp being located out of general sight. The world is designed for the able walker and the ramps are an afterthought. I felt like wheelchair bound people are living kind of an invisible existence – it irritated me especially as the able walker who was struggling to push her. On occasion when people opened doors for me or helped push my mom’s wheelchair onto the sidewalk or they smiled to my mom, their kindness filled me with such gratitude. I realize how a smile from a stranger is not insignificant and can bring joy and reminds me to be more of the same. Even small gestures can make a positive difference in another’s life. It’s easy to forget that we all need some attention to make us feel worthy and of value or simply that someone cares enough about us to think of us and make an effort to somehow demonstrate it. We may be alone but we don’t have to isolate ourselves. That is a choice we can make for ourselves.