| beginning latest entry |
Somehow this helps me deal with the current chaos of life. I'm not going to write it here, even though I think I'm the only person who now reads this blog. I will know what I mean. Aging, parents, and I'm flying to Indiana for several days this week. No, this was not planned.
I put it on while driving to the ferry to go see my grandchildren, then going from there to SEATAC and a flight to Indiana. Oh my father.
The piece is optimistic somehow, but it's an odd, melancholy optimism. It sounds courageous to me. So it seems. I started to cry.
A week ago this past Sunday, my sister and I learned that my father's dementia had progressed to a point where my mother could no longer handle him. He had been suffering with symptoms for awhile, but Brenda and I did not realize how bad it had gotten.
We knew of a really good care facility just down the road from where our parents live, and we were able to scramble and get it all ready for our dad. The staff at the facility and my father's primary-care physician were uniformly wonderful. My sister did an heroic job of getting things like furniture, toiletries, etc. all ready (she arrived the day before I did).
We thought we had things set, but at the last minute Dad decided he would under no circumstances go with us. It spiraled out-of-control. My sister and I did not lose composure, but Dad had a psychotic breakdown. Paramedics came, and the police, and they finally got Dad calmed enough that we were able to drive him to his new home. Again, the staff at this place were absolutely wonderful. The paramedics and police involved were stellar, too. I was able to say good-bye to my father (what remained of him) for now, and I told him I loved him. It was one of the worst days of my life.
92 years! And I think life will now be better. We really love you.
Lian and family were out here this past weekend for the annual "Lego Extravaganza", complete with swimming in the pool and finding 'crab metropolises' (large number of small crabs under rocks) on the beach. The weather wasn't great, but perhaps the payoff for the cool temps and rainy sky was a massive viewing of about 15-20 orcas. Shai and Naomi finally got to see them! And they were close! And BIG! Despite the weather, it was a terrific visit.
And a nice send-off for me. Tomorrow I fly back to New York for the term. I am looking forward to it, although I'm pretty wound up. Sleeptalking, that stuff. Jill says she thinks I'm giving lectures in my sleep. It will be terrific to see my NY friends and colleagues.
Plus the election, oh my. I'm jazzed! The Democratic National Convention was downright exciting! I hope the momentum and good feelings can last through November and deliver a great democratic -- in all senses of the word -- outcome.
It was probably bound to happen. Because Apple is SO ANNOYING now in not allowing you to replace any internal memory or hard drives, I had this drive affixed to the outside of my laptop with a short cable running into one of the USB ports. It would often get jiggled and disconnected, and I guess it was just a matter of time before it got unplugged while writing some critical disk information. Or the cable shorted and did bad things (not using that cable any more!).
Fortunately Amazon was able to delver a new drive the day after it happened. I also had a relatively recent backup, so I only lost a few items... like my most-likely-the-best-ever blog entry. Oh well. I'm back up and running now, and classes did go smoothly. As in the past, I'm discovering that I'm getting a lot of work done, being alone in our apartment without much else to do. I'm not sure why, but I'm not as keyed-up as in the past with the new term happening. Probably fallout from the Dad experience. Dad is doing well in the new place, although he does miss home a lot. Darn. I wish he didn't have this horrible disease! I'll be visiting out there in a couple of weeks.
To add fuel to the memory-fire, I put on Terry Riley's Shri Camel, and the piece Anthem of the Trinity is playing softly in the background. I have written about this particular memory-goad before. I feel multiply-dislocated, but it all just flows.
But it was sharply tinged by a streak of melancholy. I had called and spoken to Dad earlier. The conversation was actually really good. Dad was really proud of having helped one of his fellow residents in the memory-care facility. He was so proud! This terrible disease, dementia, that Dad has. If only he could be that happy Dad we love! But it can quickly turn to "Mr. Hyde", and it is awful. Because of this, the memory-care facility is now his home.
He can't go back. We are in the process of selling our glorious Wood Lake home, where Brenda and I grew up, because Mom is moving out to be be with us on the East Coast. She can't handle the house on her own any longer. Yes, joy: Mom will be with us much more, for holidays, even just for day-to-day living. But also that melancholy. I have been saying to people lately: "you are in a certain part of your life, and you think that it will continue like this into the indefinite future. It never does." Here I sit, awash in those feelings.
Dad was still pretty random. Some good, some bad, and the bad is hard to take. I feel sadly for the upcoming holidays, but I cannot imagine something different. Dad really needs the care he is getting. And Mom needs to move into an assisted-living situation herself, She was able to recognize that.
Speaking of last weekend -- actually last Tuesday -- I think I won't speak of it right now. It was truly awful. Our country is much worse than I thought it was.
I hadn't done any music for awhile, save for several 'demo' VR projects that I may post later. Usually about this time in the semester if I haven't been able to create some new pieces, I get kind of antsy. So the composition ants did visit, and this was the result. Fueled by my election dismay, of course, but with a different musical reaction than the earlier FDT pieces I did back in 2016.
This morning we packed up what we had done, loaded Mom into our rented SUV and flew from Indianapolis to LaGuardia. Mom is now with Brenda and John heading to Longmeadow, where she will move to her new residence at Glenmeadow on Tuesday (today is Sunday, by the way).
We'll be back in January to close things up completely. We visited with Dad a few times while we were there. As I've said before, he is in the right place getting the care he absolutely needs.
All these changes. I'm not sure I've truly 'processed' them, or if
I ever will, I'm older now, and life has a slightly more indefinite
quality, somehow. When we left Roosevelt, I didn't really get lost
in melancholy nostalgia. It was time. I feel the same now.
The class presentations were amazing. We do have the best students in the world at Columbia. Now I have only one more semester to teach!
So this is life, changing again. The holidays are rapidly approaching, and soon I'll be with my family out on Whidbey Island. I'm playing my Christmas music again, and the memories and feelings are flowing through. Despite the tensions of the past few months and some of the on-going sadness about Dad, these memories/feelings are good. Really good. More to come, I hope.