Beginning to End

I sit at the front window in my rocking chair. If I am reading, I see nothing that happens on our street. In fact, even when I sit facing the front steps and the stoop, I am unaware of a visitor standing at the door until she rings our (loud) doorbell.

 

So for me reading trumps paying attention. But I don't always read with such intensity. On some days I read a paragraph and then I raise my head and look out the window, where wonders await, even on our predictable, ordinary street.

 

For the past few months an elderly man has walked past our window every day with his caregiver. I call him, just to give him a name, Harold. He slowly pushes his walker along the sidewalk, his caregiver by his side. Occasionally he stops for a rest.

 

Half a block away from us, beside the subway entrance, is a small day-care. In good weather the teachers and aides take the little ones out for some air, and sometimes they walk along our street.

 

One day I looked up from my reading and saw life itself, from start to finish, before my eyes. On our side of the street were Harold and his helper, Harold leaning on the walker as he took a break from his exercise. On the other side of the street, headed in the opposite direction, was the day-care parade: four super-sized strollers, each holding three or four little ones (under 18 months), bundled up to the eyeballs in winter clothing. Each day-care aide pushed a giant stroller and at the same time tended to a few ambulatory older children, who clutched the hem of the aide's jacket as she used both hands to push the heavy stroller. When this long group was just opposite my window they too stopped to rearrange or reorganize the babies.

 

So there before my eyes were the end of life and the start of life, both groups supported by wheels. Harold and his helper, taking a breather, watched the little ones, but the little ones took no notice of Harold, focused as they were on their own needs and their immediate surroundings. Nor did their caregivers see him, for they were too busy to see anything but their charges.

 

Only I, with my little eye, could spy both groups at once and take note of their superficial similarities and their equally superficial differences. Just two points along the continuum of life.

 

 

Copyright 2013 Ann Tudor

www.anntudor.ca
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

Between the Ears

Between the ears lies the silence of the mind, when I can achieve it. And when I can, when the moments of grace

allow me to sit in my body without the usual accompaniment of mind's meandering chatter (mind can't bear to be left out!)--when a moment like that comes I wallow in the peace of silence. At those times I tingle with the recognition that my body senses what is beyond the mind, and in such sensing offers me a glimpse of other worlds. I have no words to tell you more than this, except to say that it is clear that the body is the key.

 

Glorious as these moments are they do not last. Mind sooner or later asserts itself and reverts to making lists or planning meals. Just the same, here's what remains: I know the source of the forbidden fruit.

 

 

Copyright 2013 Ann Tudor

www.anntudor.ca
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

A New Stage of Incompetence

I have officially joined the ranks of the incompetent. I managed for a long time to maintain the fiction that I could handle things, but no more. On August 6 I happened to look at the calendar I carry in my wallet. That was when I saw it: on August 3, I had had an appointment with Oona for a haircut, and I had completely missed it.

 

In my defense, let me remind you that this was the summer of the open-heart surgery in May, and that our summer activities were consequently and deliberately curtailed to the point of non-existence—which is to say, we did nothing all summer long. And when you are doing nothing and going nowhere, there's not much need to consult the walk-around calendar.

 

Ideally, whenever I make an appointment while away from the house, using my little wallet calendar, I make it a point to record the appointment immediately at home on the big family calendar. But I had forgotten. And (see above reasons) I didn't open my walk-around calendar once between May and August.

 

I could accept an isolated mistake: I goofed. But this is the third time in two years that I have missed an appointment with Oona. Perhaps it's just that the appointments become less and less important as I have less and less hair, but we won't make that part of today's discussion. Besides, if I don't see Oona regularly I will soon look like a tonsured monk whose back hair has grown to a straggly un-holy mess.

 

So now I have had to ask Oona to put me on the call list to remind me of my next appointment. This, to me, is the height of irresponsibility. It means I can no longer keep on top of my events of life, and I see it as a very real downgrade.

 

However, when I asked Oona to put me on the "to call" list—thinking, oh, what a come-down--she told me that 95 percent of her customers ask that she remind them.

 

I guess, in addition to thinking of myself as officially incompetent, I must also acknowledge that I have finally joined the mainstream.

 

 

Copyright 2013 Ann Tudor

www.anntudor.ca
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com