If you’ve read a few of my other posts, which you probably–ok possibly should have, you may have noticed that many of my photos contain water/beachy-type stuff. That’s because I live in a waterfront town, along Florida’s Gulf of Mexico (even though Mexico isn’t up the corner and down the street or anything). I don’t really like living here, but I figured I’d better try to make the best of it cuz this is where I’m at for now. Me being who I am, I’ve decided to try to find some beauty in this place. And it really is a gorgeous place (to visit). I live a short 5 minute drive from the beach and a short 5 minute walk from my door to an inner waterfront/boatslip. Soooo, I have begun frequenting some of this beauty.
I was walking along the waterfront as I was thinking and babbling some nonsense to myself. I’m sure it went something like this: “Gawd, I have NO life. I eat lunch alone everyday as I sit in my car and listen to AM radio talk shows. But I’m supposed to be practicing this beauty-finding stuff, so here I am, back at the waterfront. Maybe I need to stop being a wimp and get out and meet folks and visit new places. Yeh sure, but for now, I’m back at this waterfront.” As I began my walk (picture a woman looking lonely and poorly dressed with a faded bandana on her head), I looked out to the pier. What sat at the end of this pier made me laugh out loud. Literally. This is what I saw:
What you may be able to see is a little old lady in a wheelchair. She’s fishing with a man, possibly her middle-aged son, who is taking a smoke break just on the other side of the landing. My very first thought was, “Wheelchair locks, don’t fail me now!” I just had to get close enough to snap a pic without being detected as doing such. Had I a better camera with some nice zoom on it, instead of my cell phone, I’d have been able to get this pic without having to walk halfway down the pier and act like I was simply looking at my phone while texting and such. I was fake smiling, making texting-like finger movements, and all. I needed some reason for why my phone was out and held upright while I was diligently concentrating on the screen. That stalker feeling was horrible; knowing that there are people who do this regularly and with a smile is creepy. But I got the best pic that I could.
This was like a sign to me, that I should consider a chuckle even if it’s unexpected. It certainly changed my hum-drum-wanna-be-beauty-hunting mindset. I covertly snapped my picture and then left the pier to continue my walk along the waterfront. On my way back from the waterfront, I noticed that the little old lady was now parked along the sidewalk. The man had wheeled her there while he went to get their stuff from the pier. Once I made my way onto the sidewalk from the sand, the little slightly hunched over lady looked up at me with a huge smile and said, “Did you catch anything? Did you catch something? Anything?” I wasn’t expecting her to really notice me, let alone speak to me, let alone smile at me, let alone ask me the same thing 3 different times. But…she did. I immediately smiled, and not because I’m just usually friendly–which I am–but because her smile was so pure. And because she noticed me, either while I was playing paparazzi or just at this very moment. Or maybe she just assumed that anyone on that waterway must have been out there fishing. Who knows? Maybe she does? Maybe she doesn’t. I told her that I wasn’t there to fish, but to just enjoy the view and fresh air. She looked pretty unphased by that. Her next words were, “Well I don’t think they put fish out here. They forgot to put the fish out. Can you ask them?” Still looking into her face, I felt that I was very familiar with this scenario and that unphased and unbiased look in her eyes. I assumed that maybe she had a memory-deficit issue, like Alzheimer’s. I didn’t know what to say to her, and I didn’t feel like doing what I usually do at work (I’m a nurse) when I’m in this situation. Usually, I’d first try to re-orient her to person, place, time, and event. Then, if it’s obvious that this isn’t going to work, I proceed to stepping into her world. I just go with the conversation as if it’s related to what’s really accurate. So, I would’ve said something like, “Nope, didn’t catch any fish. Maybe they did forget to put any fish out. You know how they can be sometimes!” To many of my colleagues, this is NOT the right way to handle this situation. But I’ve found that it usually puts my patient at ease and they feel comfortable dialoguing with me as I participate in their care. I’ve also learned A LOT about history because during the early and middle stages of the lives of such patients, short-term memory seems to be effected, but their long-term memory is still somewhat intact. Trust me, you find this out when you’re referred to as colored!.
This got me to thinking…are people with memory loss still able to have a sense of “self?” And if they do, is their sense of Self limited only to what they are able to remember? My mother once took care of a lady with Alzheimer’s. When I would go take Mom lunch while she was working, the little lady (let’s call her Sandra) would say to me, “You’re such a pretty little colored girl. What’s your name?” This happened like 98.9% of the time. And she’d always talk about her Daddy, whose portrait hung proudly on the wall in her living room. I always wondered what stories were told around the hearth in his home. My mother usually corrected her, and would say something like, “She’s not a colored girl, she’s my daughter. Her name is Tracy.” Though my mother is also brown, like me, Sandra never referred to Mom as a little colored girl. Not even colored, at all. I would imagine a young Sandra playing in huge grass-filled fields, a la Laura Ingalls, with her little colored assistant. Perhaps Sandra liked her assistant, but knew that her being colored meant something less than snazzy to the society in which she lived. Hmmm….
So back to the pier, this little old lady, and Tracy (ME!). Something about this lady’s smile seemed genuine. I think she genuinely just wanted to know if I had caught some fish. Nothing more, nothing less. Her smile seemed to be a reflection of, what I thought, might be her soul. I’ve taken care of some memory challenged folks who are just plain MEAN. Confused, Alzheimer’d and all…just MEAN. Sometimes in my mind, I think that if you’re confused and treat people like crap, then you’ve possibly always been that way. But this lady seemed gentle, soft-spoken, engaging. Soon after I walked away, I texted Daniel and asked him what he thought about this. He said, “I think her sense of self is probably off and on, but just cause it might be off sometimes doesn’t mean that it’s gone for good.” I think that I may have met the essence of who this woman was. And I, too, believe that she does still have a sense of Self. No matter the level of the mind, I think that the soul has secrets of longevity that outlive the body and its parts–namely, the mind. I’ll bet the soul first sees beauty in things, even without a memory; the mind first questions things because of a memory…or lack thereof. For the sake of myself, I sure hope this is accurate because should I ever be in a wheelchair on a pier, I really don’t want to think about what would happen should my brakes fail.
But while my mind is still able to remember things, I’ve asked for this for Xmas!:
1. Was I wrong for thinking about Wheelchair brakes and water-entry?
2. What are your thoughts on the mind and soul? Same thoughts, used interchangeably, or completely different?
3. What about the camera?! I’m new to photography, so I have NO clue what kind of camera is good, but the Best Buy man seemed to think the specs of this one should do me just fine.
samenewsame 