Mind and Soul
I’ve just come back from visiting my parents. It is a difficult time; my mother is in a “moderately advanced” stage of dementia, and it is odd to see the layers of mind falling away like autumn leaves. The experience has caused me to reflect. What part of us is the sturdy trunk? the living sap? the invisible life energy?
The Trunk. The trunk is movement. The still-myelinated neural pathways of small habitual movements, ordinary activities, can remain intact. For instance, the night before I left, I was preparing food for my parents' freezer. My mom offered to make the hamburger patties. As she patted and shaped, each one became perfect and round and identical to the next. She must have made hundreds, maybe thousands, of hamburgers in her life! Doing this simple task made her happy.
And I found that the songs we learn in childhood stay in the mind/body system are bedrock! During a stressful car ride, one thing that calmed my mom was singing the songs she had learned as a girl at a summer camp seventy years ago. Do your ears hang low, do they wobble to and fro . . . All the gestures came back to her, too!
The Sap. The sap is relationship. Most activities make my mom very anxious. I’m making too much food, where will we put it all? Her brother is coming to visit at noon, she wakes up at 4 AM to get ready. Nothing comforts her, nothing changes her mind.
But the things my mom is willing to do, are things that she does in order to stay in relationship. On the negative side, she is afraid of relationship being withheld if she doesn’t cooperate. And on the positive side, she will seek out ways to be with the people she loves.
She worries about whether relationship is truly there. Once, when I said, “I love you, Mom,” she just looked at me. ”Do you?”
“Yes,” I assured her.
“Deep down?”
How much of my life have I spent being critical or judgmental, angry, hurt? How much of that has been the texture of my relationship with my mom? What a waste.
The Energy. The energy is soul.
My last night, my mom was hanging out on the bed with me, as I packed. She was quiet, which is not her norm any more. As soon as she falls into a moment of rest, she galvanizes herself back into some kind of anxious action.
But this night she was quiet. I wasn’t looking at her or talking to her, but I felt her nearness. It felt companionable. It felt like my mom.
Everything we think we love about someone – the face, the hands, the things they do, the way they talk and think - we love only because the soul shines through them. But when mind and body deteriorate, the soul remains intact.
My experience with my mom shows me that, developmentally, we may end as we began. As early childhood educators, as parents, we have a lot of influence over those beginnings. What we do, lasts.
Being with my mom now is like a super-special needs child. It makes me realize that nothing – not middle C, not balancing on one foot, not any kind of competency at all – nothing we teach a child is as important as the quality of the relationship we are having with that child.
And, conversely, that everything we teach children – music, numbers, picking up toys, covering a cough, going down for a nap, everything – is merely a delivery system for relationship. And relationship is the medium of the soul.
How much time do we spend with children, simply being with them? How many of our minutes and hours and days together are spent in a state of quiet mind, without expectation? How often do we meet their stress with compassion? How often do children feel that they are loved “deep down -” not because they perform, but just because?
Comments
Wow, this is beautiful.
I was just thinking about this. I take care of my 2
year old grandson, Arlo, frequently. Early on in his
life I realized that my role as a gramma was to make
him the most special person in the world. We go
places and do things, but we also just hang around a
lot. Just being with him is one of the best things in
my life right now. Ah, the things we learn as we
age!
Thanks, Rick!
and Carolyn - that “just hanging out” is the best gift
you can give your grandson, or anyone! It’s been on my
mind as a topic for a future post . . .
Dear Eve,
Thank you for this gem of love and reflection on your
relationship with your mother. I was very moved
and will share it with friends who are in similar
places with aging parents.
I hope I’ll meet you in person at the AOSA National Conference in Pittsburgh. I have enjoyed your blog through ECMMA. It is wonderful to encounter a music educator so tuned into the importance and nuances of movement.
Thank you, Greacian! Please do introduce yourself to me at the AOSA conference in November. I’ll be presenting on a few topics: Music Through the Midlines, which will involve simple ways to add integrative movements to your curriculum. I’ll also be doing a workshop on working on babies. I look forward to meeting you in person!
Hi Eve,
Thanks you for sharing this from such a soulful place. When my mother was very ill before she died, I completely slowed down to her rhythms teaching me to be more observant, patient and appreciative of life around me. As a result of this, my relationship with the world and myself deepened making profound changes in every aspect of my life including my teaching. I met you at the ECMMA in Kansas last year. I’ll look forward to seeing you at the AOSA conference in November.
It is good to be reminded of the “hidden gifts” we experience in the kinds of situations no one would wish for . . . I remember in Kansas we did some “slowing down” together, which really helped me to be present for the rest of the conference. I look forward to seeing you at AOSA.
Thank you, Eve. I was very touched by your thoughts. I enjoy all our posts. They are insightful and thought-provoking.
Thank YOU, Julie. It really helps to know.
Rick Townsend Watertown Sep 24, 2011
Thank you for this reflection, Eve. Few things focus our perspectives more than experiencing a parent’s transition from “care giver” to “care needer.”