present tense ghosts

a diary of my mother's stubborn resistance to accept help

15 March 2025:

Joel dragged/encouraged me into the world to hear music—to wash my molecules in something other than mother-worry. The night before I’d again woken in the dark, the dog curled near my ankles, Joel quietly snoring beside me. A bit of streetlight through the crack in the curtains. Drinking wine every night, which is not my normal, is a bad plan.

All this worry, this concern and sorrow is needless. If only… as we all age I encourage us to make choices when we have still have agency so we end up in a place we wish to be. Okay, so the food may not be our favorite, but I bet our tastebuds will be diminished at 85. And maybe the air will be heavy with fabreze, but our olfactory capabilities will also not be so sharp. I’d rather sit around with pals and watch a movie than be alone yelling at the news or asking the empty room where I put my glasses. The most important things for me: people, a natural-light filled room, healthy plants, clean space.

On sleepless nights, I worry… am I exaggerating my troubled childhood to myself? If I only focus on a scary and hard past it’s somehow easier for me to make decisions my mother would hate. A new friend, a therapist, tells me these thoughts are the longarm of gaslighting. “Natalie, you’re still pretending things that happened growing up were normal.” Ugh. The weight on my chest grows.

Hence, the glass of wine. It’s an easy crutch at the end of a stressful day of conversations with my mother’s psychiatrist, nurses, social workers, doctors, dog sitters, house cleaners, realtors.

At the jazz club with Joel I ordered a modified toddy, old lady hot lemon water (my favorite beverage) and a sidecar shot of bourbon which I licked with a cat tongue. The Cuban fusion band was a true delight. The lead guitarists sang through a sideways smirk, his hand strummed loose and lax. I thought, that is how I want to feel in the world. I closed my eyes and tapped my foot, When I opened them, in the vein of no matter where you go there you are… the drummer was a doppelganger for my mother’s GP. A bongo playing present tense ghost.

Ghosts are one of my big fears. I do not want to be haunted by remorse when this crisis is over. Years ago I had a therapist who told me she would body block me if I ever invited my mother to live with us. And she was right, I know. But I do wish my mother comfort and a light filled room.

I try to move and act with equanimity, with kindness, with grace. To help, I’m amassing a list of all the lovely things I remember from my childhood:

Winnie-the-Pooh, Aesops fables, Swanson’s Chicken Pot Pies, Thanksgivings, playing with Barbie’s on the lawn at the Hollywood Bowl at a Jose Feliciano concert, sitting on the dressing room floor while she tried on dresses at Orbachs, A Chorusline in NYC, the string leading to a purple bicycle in our bathtub one Christmas, Gin Rummy, her make-up mirror, the way she made an O with her mouth when she put on mascara, her delight in her friends, moving us from LA to Santa Cruz, reading Kurt Vonnegut, coffee w/2 sugars and a glug of cream, spaghetti with clam sauce, charades, Carmen McRae, her joy!