Caregiver panic has set in! What’s caregiver panic, you ask. That’s when you wake up at midnight (as I did last night) in a cold sweat over where you’re going to get something called a “gate belt”. (Later found out it's a gait not gate belt.) No, it’s not the same as a belt of fine Irish single malt (though that would have been most welcome). It’s a device that helps you steady a person who needs a bit of assistance with their mobility. Mom’s physical therapist says I will need one when she comes home from rehab next week.

For those of you who don’t know, my mother took a tumble over the front door sill back in November, breaking her shoulder and cracking her pelvis. Since then she’s been in a rehabilitation facility eight miles south of here. They’ve taken fabulous care of her, giving her physical therapy three times a day to get her strong enough to come home. And now the time is almost upon us! Medicare cuts her off within the next week and she’ll be “kicked to the curb” (aka sent home).

I’ve cleared out her room to make way for a hospital bed and wheel chair, painted the room, wired it for cable tv and internet and put up new curtains. I’ve provided special grab bars etc in the bathroom. I’ve sent for a fancy portable access ramp, rounded up a wheel chair, and ordered a cute sort of panic button thingy Mom can push to summon me from the kitchen if she needs a drink of water.
But the panic has, as I said, set in. I’m going over and over in my mind every possible scenario. The what-ifs are driving me nuts. What if she can’t manage to climb in the bath tub? What if she has trouble getting out of her chair? What if, what if. What if she needs something in the middle of the night? And then the HOWs set in – how am I going to get out to buy groceries if I can’t leave her? How will I teach my Wednesday night yoga class up at the church if I can’t leave her? How will I manage to get out for two hours for writer’s workshop on Fridays? How do other caregivers manage????

I’ve done a lot of things in my rather checkered life but NEVER have I ever been in the role of caregiver. Well, except in the early days when my son was young but I was younger then too. Younger, stronger, more laid back. It’s quite a different matter caring for an elderly person. With a kid you can always drop him off at daycare or take him along with you if you have to run up to the store for groceries. What do you do with a frail elderly woman? One who still thinks of YOU as “the kid”?

Oh the joys of being a Baby Boomer! An entire generation is learning how to “parent” their aging parents. At least it’s a comfort to know that I have lots of company in this process. I’m fortunate that my mother is mentally keen and has managed to keep her sense of humor throughout her recent ordeal. She’s recovering well and should be just fine before too long. She’s doing better than I am in many respects. I’m the one getting up at midnight to shop Amazon.com for a “gait belt”! (Which I found, by the way. Less than $15 with two day shipping!)

There are no doubt many considerations that have not yet occurred to me. There will be many more sleepless nights because I want to do the best I can for her and am not at all sure I’m up to the challenge. It’s scary to be responsible for someone else’s physical welfare. No doubt about it. I think of all the millions of people who routinely and gracefully care for vulnerable family members and I’m in awe of them! How do they do it? Do they ever wake up in the wee hours of the night in total mind-numbing, gut-churning panic???? I’ve decided that for my own peace of mind I will assume that they do, that we are all in the same leaky boat and bailing as fast as we can. There is a certain comfort in that.

What the heck happened to last year anyway? It was such a chaotic whirl wind of projects and ideas, heavy lifting and short deadlines, parties and broken bones, sound and fury. I am thinking it's possible I fell victim of the dreaded plague of the newly retired: late onset attention deficit disorder - so much time, so much to do, so many people depending on me, so many dreams deferred for way too long! It was overwhelming! By the end of September right after our big family reunion I hit the wall.

And the poor old blog had run out of steam. I had clear intentions starting out but somewhere in the chaos of events and expectations it had lost focus. It had become a chronology of projects and a bit of a journal - a combo plate that served no purpose well. So I've been letting it get some rest, letting it catch its breath.

This morning I noticed that the garden is just beginning to show some life. Chives are threading up from the cold soil, buds are forming on the hydrangia bush and crows are loud in the fir tree. Certainly winter is not through with us yet but there is every hope it's loosening its hold. Perhaps it's time for the blog to emerge from hibernation?

A Month of Downward-facing Dog

(My first class as a Yoga-Fit Instructor: "The Writer's Workshop Warm-up". Barbara, Mary, Darlene, Peggy, and Miki. Missing from photo are Judi, Betty and Martha. That's me on upper left. The dog is Miki's guide dog, Tiger, who does an authentic downward-facing dog pose.)
This month I became a yoga instructor! Quite a departure from everything I've ever done. Back in high school I was the girl who pulled a sicky rather than go to p.e. class. The most "athletic" I ever got was aqua-robics a few times a week at the local pool but that was the eighties and nineties. Never felt the need to get all sweaty in a gym.

Then I got oldish. Funny how it sneaks up on a person. One day you're light and lithe - next day you drag your creaky carcass out of bed, realize that sometime during the night everything has shifted south and your joints have all the flexibility of a crow bar. Adding insult to injury your adorable general practitioner (the inimitable Doctor Amos Shirman) drops the triple bombshell: overweight, high blood pressure, high cholesterol! And the battle is on.

So a year ago I signed Mom and me up for Low-Impact Yoga at the local community center (of course telling myself it was primarily for Mom) - to my surprise I got hooked on the stuff! Bought myself a mat and a yoga dvd to guide me through some stretches at home between classes. Soon I was on the yoga mat an hour a day doing downward-facing dog, cat/cow, tree pose, warriors 1 and 2, plank, cobra, moon-flower/sun-flower, triangle, child pose etc. etc. etc. Couldn't get enough. It was fun and I felt great! Even better, Doctor Shirman stopped scowling at my numbers.


Something else was going on while I was firming up and getting my blood pressure under control - I began to notice I wasn't the only one fighting the good fight against decrepitude. The class was packed with other Boomers intent on doing themselves the favor of getting and staying healthy. After all, what's the sense in having a longer life span if you're stuck in a nursing home for the later half of it? My generation isn't willing to settle for less than full participation in life. We want to be able to climb a flight of stairs at 100 without a crash cart standing by.

So this Spring I decided I would help fellow seniors be the best they can be in this amazing time of our lives - I would teach yoga for seniors. Since then I've been going to school and doing my practice teaching at the Community Center, as well as substitute teaching in the Low-Impact class where all this started. I finally know what I want to be when I grow up! Pretty exciting isn't it? You bet! And the best part? All the wonderful people I've gotten to know on the mat. What a fabulous, enthusiastic bunch - sweet, loving, supportive of each other. Can't wait for my next downward-facing dog. Namaste!

(Shadow and Shimmer)

Thanks to the poet Barbara Cornwall for challenging our Writers Workshop to write acrostics! Here's mine:

CAT-CROSTIC
Caught in a sunbeam, immobile
as web-snared moths,
the tigers sprawl across the deck,
Shimmer and Shadow
nose to nose, whiskers
an arrangement of filaments
pulsing with each languid breath,
paws relaxed, striped flanks
iridescent with sleep, while
nearby in the ash tree squirrels
gambol and chitter, jubilant
in shady branches, safe
now for the moment from feline
threat, free as hummingbirds
hovering at the begonia baskets,
each animal in its own mind
something special in a nurturing
universe, one with the loving
nature of the summer sun.

This morning it has been exactly two months since I began the much-delayed kitchen makeover. The cabinets have been stripped and repainted, the gleaming new hardware sparkles in early light. There is a new coat of paint on the walls and the shabby old Formica counter top is now a gentle cocoa brown. It has been an enormous amount of work with so much remaining to be done - a new sink to come, new floor tiles, back-splash and counter edge molding . . .

For months I have been totally focused on each minute aspect of the project, taking time out only for yoga practice and writer's workshop, every bit of creative energy directed toward the goal of a reborn kitchen. So many other concerns sitting on the back burner - this blog for one. Today I will restore balance by sitting quietly in my geodesic dome noticing each turn of leaf, each shift of shadow as Summer sun turns the Japanese maples into stained glass panels. I won't go anywhere near the garage where a stack of mill-work awaits my attention. Or so I say over my second cup of tea. We'll see.

RENEWAL

Since last month my kitchen has been an impossible disaster as I strip forty years of ugly paint from the cabinets. It's a task that has niggled my mind since I bought the house back in the last century but before this summer I managed to find a slew of excuses for not plunging into the process.

Oh sure, it would be SO much easier to just demo the entire room down to the studs and start over. The DIY cable shows make it look like a piece of cake: bring in a crew of brawny guys in muscle shirts to heave the shabby cabinets into a boxcar-sized Dumpster, hang the pretty cherry boxes, fit shiny granite counter tops and gleaming sink and faucet. All the fixin's. In a day or two the old kitchen is an unpleasant and distant memory.

But that was not how I was taught to do things. Back in the 1940s my parents bought a Victorian Era farmhouse in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains and almost immediately started tearing it apart. It started innocently enough when they discovered that the "foundation" of the house consisted of wooden blocks - which were disintegrating to mush. Dad figured that was a good opportunity to add a basement. Just dig a huge hole under the house, pour concrete walls and floor . . . well, that was the general idea. Next came adding an edition with three bedroom and a bath, then removing the second story. Followed by building two enormous sandstone fireplaces by hand (We kids learned masonry that summer). Tiling the bathroom. Building a deck. It went on and on, year after year - always something in the works.

Have to admit I resented growing up in that chaos. We kids couldn't have parties or sleepovers because the house was a construction site. I couldn't invite friends to my house for fear they'd kill themselves falling over the stacks of lumber. My bedroom in the attic had no walls, just rafters. When I whined about how crappy my life was all I got was the promise: "When the house is finished it will be beautiful, perfect. You'll have all the parties you could ever want".

I grew up and moved out without seeing that happen. When Dad died in '78 the house was still not "finished". When Mom sold it a few years later the new owners brought in a crew to complete the renovation. Yet now from the vantage point of old age I realize a few things. The experience of watching (and helping) my parents work on that miserable wreck of a house provided me with an unparalleled education in self-reliance. I learned to hang wallpaper, drive a nail, run a floor sander. I know what a two-by-four is and how to mud Sheet Rock. I am not afraid to get dirty or put in a new light fixture. I absolutely LOVE painting! Nothing makes me happier than repainting a shabby room. Such a feeling accomplishment!

And a lesson in how to live - the importance of continual renewal. Nothing is ever "finished". Living is a process - as soon as you complete one project there is another on the horizon to engage your attention, spark your creativity. Get your juices flowing. The minute you decide there's nothing left to do is the minute you die. It's as easy as that. Maybe not physically - at least not right away - but dead in your own dusty attic. Once you are not creating, or re-creating something in your life you have left life. Knowing this, I keep tearing things apart and putting things back together - better, brighter, cleaner, more efficient . . .

I'm in the midst of renewing myself as well. This past weekend I completed the second series of trainings toward becoming a yoga instructor. Today the muscles are still a bit sore but I feel I've come a long way in the rebuilding process. One thing yoga teaches is that a person is always learning, evolving, and becoming. As soon as you think there's nothing left to do or learn something falls apart, peels off the wall or shorts out and you're off on another project. And hurray for that I say! Drop on by and I'll hand you a paint brush.

Solstice

(Photo: sugar peas in bloom at Summer Solstice)


After nearly a year of "retirement" I'm wondering what ever happened to the silly notion that without a paying gig I'd have so much more time to write. Took a gander at my "Done" list. (That's the list of completed items from my "To-Do" list. I also have a "Maybe Someday" list and a "Not Hardly Likely" list. I'm big on lists.) In the past 12 months I have:

Re-covered the geodesic dome
Re-barked the garden (7 yards of medium bark)
Redecorated my office and the bathroom
Replaced all the bedroom ceiling fixtures
Re-stained the back deck
Polished the fireplace insert
Painted: deck chairs, umbrella stand, one wall each in kitchen and hall, two bookshelves and a file cabinet.
Repaired my bedroom window screen
Cleaned and organized the garage
Hauled 4 carloads of "usable items" to Value Village thrift store
Spread 10 bags of compost on the back garden
Set up a disaster survival storehouse in the garage (see previous post)
Renovated the front courtyard fountain . . .

That's not the full list but you get the idea. And somehow while up to my tushy in household projects AND full-time elder care for my mom AND teaching Friday morning writers workshop I succeeded in squeezing an hour of yoga into each day. What I haven't managed to do is fit in all that writing I envisioned I'd be free to do once I left the 40-hour-a-week grind. Really MUST put that on the To-Do List.

But right now I'm in the process of stripping 40 years of ugly paint from the kitchen cabinets. (Whoever painted the kitchen algae green in the 60s must have been on acid!) Figure it will take me another week before I get it repainted. Going to put up new moldings and shiny new hardware. Kevin, my next door neighbor, has promised to help me install a new stainless steel sink and faucet. It's going to be gorgeous!

In honor of Father's Day I bought myself a cool DeWalt orbital sander - 45% off! Just the thing to help with my next project: refinishing the hardwood floors.

As soon as I free up my calendar I'll get back to that novel I was working on last November. Promise. Of course it won't be right away because tomorrow I have CPR training and then there's yoga instructor training and after that . . . . . Some retirement this turned out to be!