3/19/2022

 My days start slow, moping, low.  

I do my sadhana, now to Todd's (Norian) recordings.  His voice helps me get through this, all this.

Mom has camped out on the couch since her anger at dinner, her lack of gratitude for my service to her.  No clue.  Her being there now much of the time, as she tells me she doesn't want to go upstairs, who the hell are you to boss me around...  I come down and ask her once to go to bed, but no, no, looking up at me with more anger.  Well, mom, if you're not doing anything but just sitting there, why don't you do the dishes?  GO TO HELL, she shouts at me.

Well, it was leftover Canale's for dinner.  I don't understand why she didn't enjoy it more.  The usual, I'm starving, I haven't eaten in three days as she comes into the kitchen.  A quick zap of lemon artichoke chicken and then into the toaster over, along with the chicken parm cutlet, and a meatball, and half the baked potato for mom.  Okay, maybe I served dinner late.  I try to get her upstairs, and by that time, with two glasses of Montalcino in me, I need a nap, just to shut down, meditate, think of Tantra yoga.

I don't sleep well.  In and out.  Mom has stayed down on the couch, and I'd rather just hide than go back down to the kitchen, maybe write a bit, drink more wine, no, I'm getting tired of that.

I do my sadhana with Todd Norian on my iPhone screen, after passing by mom on the couch to get a mason jar of the green tea from the fridge.  Don't talk to me, she says, after I soak the dishes in the tub, as I go back upstairs to the cluttered study where if I love the air mattress I have some space for sitting cross legged.  And it turns out to be a beautiful practice.  

I come down, we speak cordially, I ask her if she's hungry, she asks for a glass of water, I put a blanket over her thighs, turn the heat up slightly, and she is fast asleep after I make soup, scrub the soaked dishes, two casserole dishes perfect for reheating things.

Maybe I'm allergic to wine, or to beverages alcoholic in general, as liberating and seemingly soothing as they seem to feel to me.  There's always the light headache afterward, the sluggish feeling.  I drink to get through things I don't always feel like dealing with, like late night customers, or phone calls, intrusions in general.  I've always liked my peace, unfortunately.  Loneliness is acceptable in the Tantra Path.  A vehicle for continuing Enlightenment, itself an ongoing process, a voyage of self discovery.   Nothing is a problem, just accept it with a positive attitude as I go along my journey.

And everyone else has left me alone here to deal with the mom situation.  They are living their lives, which leaves me entitled to lead my own, as my followed heart sees fit.

And after my sadhana, a new mantra dedicated to the chakras, and rigorous pranayama breathing exercises, chakra rising sound chants, oh, oo, ah, aa, ee, mm, mnng, I do indeed feel better, allowing the main shoshodana channel become filled with light, expanding wider.

I can't blame myself for mom driving me to drink, this whole shitty situation, alone, but this too is part of the path as I must completely accept it.

For a long time, back in my lonely life back in DC, the bartender barman of the neighborhood wine bar, I read up on monkish readings.  Kerouac, Dharma Bums, Desolation Angels, Big Sur.  Merton.  Alan Watts.  Suzuki.  Biblical accounts.  That was where my tastes ran.  I felt they made my mind open.  As if to say, this is what I want to be doing.

57, it's not too late.

St. Patrick's Day looms.  Do I go out and play music...  Mom... I get her soup, as a man from the power company comes about a matter of billing concerning solar energy.   I sit down and eat with mom, after serving her, soup, water, pills, a slice of pizza when the landline phone rings, Sienna College, a woman with a mild speech impediment asks me questions related to the economy and my perception on inflation and so on.  Mom glares at me, angrily.  Mom, I'm answering questions for a survey about the economy.  Better off a year ago, better off now...  The man before has tired me out, as far as getting back to my thoughts, then the survey which goes on for a while, mom continuing to stare and glare at me.

And then afterward mom accuses me of trapping her.  So I go back to explaining how all this happened, a year ago, last November and it's March now.  The neighbor, the big woman who had the baby next door, she called the paramedics on you because you didn't know where you were, because you went into their apartment...  Then they wouldn't let you out of the hospital, so I had to come up here, to take care of you.  I do the cooking and the cleaning...  I want my life back.  Mom, remember when we went down to see Doctor Heather, down in Fulton and she asked you some questions.  Mom, it's not my fault.  You were diagnosed with mild dementia, I'm sorry, that's the way it is.  But I'm getting better, I'm fine.  No, you're not.  That's why I give you these pills, so you won't get worse.  

She tells me I'm keeping her trapped, or down, or that I'm trying to destroy her.  Okay, mom.  It's better than you're here with me taking care of you then you being in a nursing home, or assisted living.  That's the way it is.

She gets angrier at me.  Okay, fine.  You don't want me around, you don't want me taking care of you, fine.  See you later.  l

She glares at me.  

Fine, blame Ted.  Ted is the only one who does anything for you in this family,  fine blame him.  Everyone else does.  It's all my fault.  Sure.

Well, the dishes could be worse.  The cat's been fed.  It's raining out.  A few things to get at the grocery store.

I see the demanding people in my family march across my mind, stubborn, headstrong, poor at listening, quick at judging, good at plans, structured, but...

They wouldn't understand me, and I don't really understand them either, after taking it so long.  Occasionally a whiff of tolerance from them, suggestions, certainly.  And all that is blocking me from my own path, as strange and different and seemingly unique (but actually Universal) as it is.

As the day progresses, after the sadhana, the spirituality is hard to see, hard to find.

I go to the library.  I try writing for a bit, but the day, with all her craziness that brings me back to when I was a kid listening to her explode and being held hostage by it, it makes me lonely.  I go upstairs to take a pee, the library clerk comes out from the children's book desk to unlock the restroom door, because of the homeless people, and I end up finding a copy of On The Road in hardcover.  I pick it up in my hands, open to the end...  It still reads so well for me.  Part of my karma...

Now mom is reduced to sitting on a couch babbling to herself, angry with me, won't take her pill unless I plead...  Where's my hat, she asks.  On and on and on.  Oh, my poor legs.  How did I get mixed up with this bastard...  Don't turn the light off.  On and on.  

St. Patrick's Day was hardly a success.  We get there at six, but the sign up sheet is full, last spot I sign on, 9 pm.  I had a few glasses of wine just to get mom here.  Don't even have a clear game plan.  Lots of Irish songs under my belt, but I don't have any inspiration to play at all.  The crowd has gone home.  I end up feeling like a public drunkard.  I ask the kid next in line to step up and play.   I remember the look John McConnell the emcee gives me as I come up with guitar to the mic and plug in.  None of these people know what a shitty time I'm having these days.

And the next day my nervous system is tired and jittery enough that I must take Chuck up on his offer to come over for a drink.  He's been a solid friend all along.  He'll be out in Indiana doing a job, refinishing a bridge over a railroad track, rust prevention painting job.    Chuck shares some with us.  He has his beer, Busch Lite, I have my wine, and he gives me praise for what I'm doing here, taking care of mom.  You're doing the right thing.

It turns out my idea, my dream, to be a writer in the Kerouac tradition wasn't such a bad idea after all.  The guy is spiritual, after all, you can't deny him that.  He's got the bases covered, from Zen to Jazz, to the Catholic sweet surrendering fervor to Christianity principles.  The Beatitudes make it in.

But I wasted years surrendering to other people's dreams, that of the chefs and the restaurateurs.  The customers themselves.  Tirelessly did I wait on them.  I slept into the afternoon so they could have their way with me.  

It's been two years since I've worked.

Mom continues to talk, on and on.  "Sweet Jesus..."  Cooing at the cat again.