photo credit: joiseyshowaa
Cover me city. Push me hard until I bleed and fall. Don’t let me get to close too anyone. I’ve lost too much already. I don’t want to lose any more. Keep me busy city. Fill my planner with classes and workshops and lunches and dinners and jobs that exhaust me so that when I come home I will be bone weary and won’t have any energy to think about what I am losing. Don’t let me face the Alzheimer’s that is stealing bits and pieces of my mother. Tire me so that I can tumble into bed. Bring fatigue to wash over me. Let me sleep. Don’t let me look at what is happening.
The city grabs you, jabs and pierces you, swallows you up so that pain is there, but it’s numbed, no longer at the forefront. I think that’s why I moved here thirteen years ago. I wanted to be insulated on all sides. Padded and pressed hard against concrete and buildings and parties I could get into and those I couldn’t. I wanted to be teased and seduced by the constant possibility of “what if?” New York is, if nothing else, a city of possibility. One can become anything here with a little elbow grease and persistence.
Speed and guts count. There are never ending trains and buses to dash behind or in front of, long lines to get into, advertisements on store windows that whisper as you innocently walk by, “You are not enough. You are too thin, not thin enough, too plain, too dull, too boring. But, if you buy this, THEN you’ll be enough.” If you’re lucky, perhaps you have some extra energy after working several jobs to make art (the reason you ostensibly moved to the bustling city in the first place).
I lived like this for a long time. Running. Bracing myself hard so as not to feel. God forbid, I feel, for if I do, I will break or evaporate. Must go faster. Must try harder, I thought.
But, then I found yoga.
What I find is that yoga does not ask me to go faster. Instead, it sweetly suggests that I take my time. Explore, trust, let go. What is Savasana at the end of any yoga class but a call to let go of the muscle and the mind and to surrender to that which can not be named?
What happens when we learn to relax? What happens when we begin to trust that things are unfolding just as they should?
Yoga teaches me to be in this moment.
To look impatiently for the next one is missing the perfection of the one being lived now. Besides, who says we get a next one? Death comes with the same vigor that life does.
I see my mother die a lot. Parts of her fall away. She can’t remember what I’ve just told her. She can’t find the dinner table unless someone helps her. In such moments, I am tempted to harden out of fear, but I am learning to be soft. I attempt to stop wishing for what she used to be and instead meet her where she is. This minute. I am learning to stop begging for reason where none can no longer be found and instead to feel her with my being, not my mind. Minds no longer carry us, my mother and I.
Perhaps that is the highest gift we can give another? To just be with them as they are. Not ask them to change or become wiser or braver. But, to simply say, “I see you as you are. I love you as you are.”
Who are we when mind and body change and disappear? I don’t think the answer can be spoken or understood. I think it can only be felt.
Very beautiful post – love it! Thanks.
Great article! Thanks for sharing and hope to see many more from you in the future!
Rachel,
As you know, and we’ve talked about, my mother seems to be on the verge of Alzheimer’s. This peace really speaks to me and gives me a new perspective on how to face that with her – the meet her where she is as you say.
Thank you.
I work in a nursing home singing songs for the folk there every week. Rachel, this is really a provocative post. Being with people as they are and loving them where they are at is the essence of "union" ("yoga"). Not a posture, but a posturing.
My dear sister,
Somewhere in heaven, our father is showing your article to his editor and saying these words, ” Rachel Bennett is my daughter and she is one hell of a writer.”
Somewhere in NC, your brother is reading your article and forwarding it to his friends with a simple note, “Rachel is my sister and she is a wonderful writer. And I am proud beyond words of her courage and talent.”
Your adoring brother,
Patrick
My dear sister,
Somewhere in heaven, our father is showing your article to his editor and saying these words, ” Rachel Bennett is my daughter and she is one hell of a writer.”
Somewhere in NC, your brother is reading your article and forwarding it to his friends with a simple note, “Rachel is my sister and she is a wonderful writer. And I am proud beyond words of her courage and talent.”
Your adoring brother,
Patrick
The last sentence really hit home. As I too navigate the losses and sorrows of losing a loved one to Alzheimer's, I find that as the mind/personality dissolves, something else, her essence, can only be greeted with an open heart, or as you say, felt with your being. Centering myself helps me meet her as she is in the moment, and since that changes A LOT, yoga has been a valuable tool. Many blessings on your journey with your mother.
Thank you for a beautiful essay. My challenging relationships are different in specifics but the same in the need to meet and love others (and myself) where they are.
Beautiful and heartfelt…thank you for opening up your heart and sharing.
Well done! Can't wait to get more insight!
Lovely and insightful. If we dare to open ourselves, this concrete jungle will break us and crack into the core where the real gems sparkle, inside. I am grateful for its energy but we all need the balance of activities like yoga to sustain us and bring us to a greater, deeper awareness of the now. That is where true compassion is found and like you, hopefully we can all learn, little by little, to love in the now and accept our friends, colleagues and family members just as they are. Fingers crossed!
You are so brave. Beautiful!
Beautifully written, brave prose. Thank you, Rachel. Please keep sharing.
This is so beautiful. Wonderful job to see the serenity and beauty within the pain in this very personal experience you are having with your mother. I think you are amazing. So much Love Rachel!
Rachel, this is beautiful and heartfelt. Thank you so much for your emotional honesty – this really rings true.
Brave, inspirational, and heartfelt.
Thank you so much for sharing this, Rachel. A lesson and something I can relate to in my own life and a wonderful mantra for the new year – to meet someone where they are. I look forward to reading the book you are working on!
This is a heartfelt and lovely posting, Rachel. Your gift for writing, your passion for the arts, yoga and being true to yourself and what you do, and your love for your mother are all beautifully encapsulated here. If this is any indication of how your book will be, then you will have a bestseller in your very near future. Your thoughts and the way you phrase them on the written page will help a lot of people out there.
Rachel has written a highly poignant, piercing impression of her life in New York; and, with deep feeling and grace she tells us about her challenges caring for her ill mother. Her description of yoga as a practice that allows her to be in the moment, calm and relax is inspiring and provides hope to all of us to find our way to a more focused life while in the moment of it.
Lisa Capps, PhD
This is absolutely beautiful! Thank you for sharing Rachel!
Courageous, honest, poetic and loving. Written with feeling. Looking forward to reading more.
Jessica Sue Burstein
Writer/Director/Actor
Wow, very touching and moving. the real heart of yoga is being present and you are modeling that. thank you for your inspiration!
True, brave, and so honest. Yoga has brought so much to the lives of us oft frantic city-dwellers, searching for peace in all the wrong places.
Thanks for writing. I look forward to more.
Wow this Is a beautiful post. It's refreshing to read something so honest and heartfelt. Extremely relatable.
"I attempt to stop wishing for what she used to be and instead meet her where she is. This minute." So beautiful. I am touched. Thank you Rachel.
Your tribute to yoga really resonates with me, Rachel (as so much of your philosophy does!). We each carry with us our own unique assortment of baggage… stressors and tensions that constantly threaten our equilibrium, vying to keep our attention focused on pain and suffering and the ever-looming twin fears: there's-never-enough and I'm-not-enough. Yoga tries to teach us that we can live free of these wasteful obsessions — but we have to be willing to listen. To try. To open up to the possibilities. Thank you for bubbling these ideas back up to the forefront of my consciousness today (a day when I really needed the reminder). xo, as always!
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Your article is so inspiring. Thank you Rachel.
This is a lovely article showing deep truth, hard won personal growth and great human bravery. Thank you for sharing.
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Rachel, this is beautiful writing. In one short piece you've managed to capture the essence of yoga, life in New York and life when one is losing one's mom to Alzheimer's and connected all three very elegantly. Keep writing and keep sharing, looking forward to reading more…
Roona
India