freedom fighter

hear it in the stairwell: Radiohead- The Bends
Esther is one of my residents who doesn’t sleep very well at night. She had all of the age-typical complains- swollen joints, achy back, dry mouth, difficulty hearing. Many nights I’ll spend much of my time sitting in her room with her. Sheila, the woman I work with half of the week, has an affinity for BET and I’ve been subjected to more horrible black comedians than one very white girl should have to in a lifetime. I avoid Sheila and her african american oriented jokes about wellfare, debt and chicken by escaping to Esther’s room. And through our late night hours of visiting, I’ve learned so much from Esther. She was one of the only women in the US Army in the early 40's and has either lived or traveled everywhere in the world. I asked her where I should use my flight voucher to travel to next month and she gave me a synopsis of every great city in the west. We’re still deciding where I should go. I ask her advice on boys and she remembers them all by name, asking my every day or so how things are. She never ceases to let me know to follow my heart and worry about consequences later. “You’ll regret holding back” she tells me. “Burn more gasoline, shower less, cry more, hug your friends, swim every time you get a chance!” is her advice. She told me I need to go skinny dipping while I’m still young and cute:)
I’ve just began to grasp the fact that she’s been “elderly” for more years than I have been alive. I haven’t quite figured out exactly how old she is (she can tell me what shoes she wore to her wedding and how to iron an Army uniform but cannot remember what year she was born!) But I would guess she’s in her mid-eighties. There are times we’re sitting in her room and it’s quiet- I’m reading and she’s just resting- and she breaks the silence with a completely random bit of open-ended timeless wisdom. “Some days you can, but then there are those days...” she says. Or “You might never know, but do you need to?” and “Often we say ‘maybe’ and we really truly mean ‘absolutely!’”. And I don’t think she’s necessarily directing any of this at me- I feel like she’s just voicing the 80 years of wisdom she’s acquired and releasing it into this horribly confused and misguided generation of mine. I will keep sitting with her in her room at night, I will soak up ever bit of life-guidance I can, I will laugh when she calls me “honey”, I will intently listen to her memories of war, depression, Woodstock, steam engines, and girdles. This is what true education is.

On a lighter note, I met with the Physical Therapist I’m going to start working with. He and I will develop a plan to integrate Massage Therapy into our retirement community more effectively. Although I’ve had quite a few telephone conversations with him, I hadn’t met him face-to-face until this morning. I read in my psychology book just a few days ago that most people make judgements on people in the first 30 second they meet. I didn’t like this statistic when I read it. The book also said that about 85% of the time the assumptions people make in those first 30 seconds are correct. I was given a real-life trial of this today. Randy is his name and in the first handshake and the lingering stare that followed I assumed he was creepy. He’s one of those people that asks you and question and after you answer it he still just stares into your eyes a few seconds longer than necessary. I’ve always just assumed that any late-20's male who had a title with the word “physical” in it would want to work hard not to come across creepy. I’m clinging to that 15% whose initial assumptions aren’t correct. But yeah...more Massage Therapy work! How exciting.

And I’ve discovered a close second to the amazing cuteness of guys who are good with kids...Kurt, the 23 year old medical student who comes every Wednesday to take his great grandmother to breakfast:)