Slow Walking

A sculpture of a sketcher

A sketcher of sculptures

During the days that I stayed with my parents this week, my main activity was taking care of my father while my mom had an in-patient cancer treatment in Baltimore.  Each day, my father and I headed out for walks.  When the heat of a Washington summer reaches its peak, my dad and mom will walk the long corridors of their apartment building.  This week, though, has been cooler, mostly in the eighties, so we’ve been able to venture outside. It has taught me some lessons.

Today we decided to go on more of a nature walk.  About 500 yards from the building’s front lobby, we turn off the sidewalk onto a paved trail through the woods.  We walk at a pace that’s only slightly faster than the Tim Conway “oldest man” character from the old days.  It’s a stark contrast to the walks I take with my wife and our dogs.  In those, we’re trying for exercise.  This is different.  My father’s walk is not vigorous.  It barely raises the heart rate.  In some ways, it’s more of an exercise in patience, but it does give us a chance to be together, enjoying the space around us. We can point to all of the trees that neither of us can identify.  “What species is this one?” I ask.

“I’m not sure.  I used to know,” my dad replies.  Nonetheless, we speculate, marvel at the heights of the trees in the midst of this heavily populated area, and slowly move on. Street noise is replaced by the buzzing of cicadas, and the air cools noticeably.  We pass dog walkers and women with strollers.  To be clear,  we don’t pass anybody unless they’re going the opposite direction.  A creek flows through the woods, and we can spy houses through the branches.  It’s not an extensive trail, but it gives my father a chance to wander without the danger of cars and without getting too winded.  Looking down at the path, I spot a twig  with a few leaves and an unusual fruit and suddenly realize I recognize it. It’s a tree that we used to have in our backyard when I was a kid.  My dad looks at it and sighs, “Tulip.”

“Right,” I agree.  I had forgotten all about tulip trees.  “We don’t have those in Connecticut, We just have the tulip flowers.”

“Too bad,” he says.  “You’ll have to keep visiting us to see them.” He smiles.

When we emerge from the woods, we head up a sidewalk that leads to the little community center.  There’s a fountain and a small plaza.  My father informs me that there’s a farmer’s market in this plaza every Saturday.  As I turn back toward the fountain, I notice a very realistic sculpture of a woman sitting on the ground sketching the community center.  I’ve passed this little plaza many times, but I’ve never noticed the woman before.  I stop to take a picture and check out her sketch.  Suddenly it reminds me of a photo of one of my students.

Each fall, I take my fifth grade class on a trip to Storm King Art Center, a spectacular outdoor art gallery on 500 acres of rolling hills, fields, and woods,  Yes, it also has amazing sculptures.  Before our trip, I try to prepare my class by letting them take a gallery walk in our classroom, stopping to sketch when something catches their eye.  I implore them to slow down, not trying to see it all, but trying to know a few things well.

This walk with my father gives me a chance to heed my own advice.

Mindful Moments

I have to admit, I’m not entirely comfortable with the concept of the mindful moment. I’m fully comfortable with the idea of becoming more observant, aware, alert, and attentive to the world around us.  It seems, though, like such a personal thing, that I sometimes have trouble with the idea of a large group setting aside one small block of time to be  mindful together.  I feel the most mindful when I’m alone, not concerned with the people around me.  In groups, I easily fall into self consciousness.  Today, I’ve retreated to my father’s study after a day spent in silence and conversation with him.

My dad is 86.  He doesn’t hear well.  That’s a condition that I’ve become  accustomed to.  It is still frustrating at times, but I’ve taken to pulling out my tablet and using it like a white board.  I write what I have to say.  He responds orally.  It’s slow, but it works.  Now, though, the challenges have grown.  He’s becoming more and more concerned that his mind is deteriorating.  Tomorrow we’re heading to the doctor for his physical.  I’m accompanying him, partly for safety, partly for comfort, and partly to listen and interpret.  My father has some questions he wants to ask.  My mother wants him to ask as well.  The questions have to do with Alzheimer’s.  My dad has noticed his memory failing.  He has trouble retrieving some words.  In my denial world, I’ve developed several rationalizations for that phenomenon.  For one thing, my dad is bilingual, having grown up in Sweden, but having lived in the U.S. for almost 70 years.   He still reads the Swedish newspapers every day on the computer.  This has meant that for all of the time I’ve known him, though, he has sometimes had to think longer about the words he chooses. He lives in a more challenging word-retrieval world than I do. Two file drawers through which to search.

The other rationalization has to do with his hearing loss.  As a result of this disability, he has retreated more and more from the social interactions that he always used to have. He was a very good conversationalist in his hearing days.  I grew up in a family that had debates on every imaginable subject nearly every night at the dinner table.  Without the ability to hear the other side, though, my father became more reserved.  Eventually, he really retreated from most interactions.  I think this meant that he didn’t really have to exercise the word retrieval part of his mind as much.  There seems to have been a sort of atrophying effect.  He continues to read, but I think that’s a different process,  receptive, rather than generative.

Whether my rationalizations have any merit, it’s clear that my father’s mind is not as acute as it once was.  Our conversations are slow and mostly factual, not very deep or abstract.  He worries that he can’t do simple math like figuring a tip.  “I can’t hold the numbers in my head from one operation to the next.”  I’m not an expert, but this does sound like things that people have noted in Alzheimer cases.  Clearly he’s afraid.  I am too.  I worry about my father, my mother trying to care for him, and my sister who lives in the same building.  It’s a lot to be mindful about, not just for a moment, but for every moment.