Silence would be golden
Monday, 20 June 2016 10:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
carose59I Have A Rock Garden. Last Week Three Of Them Died.*
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Yesterday my mother told me the same story four times.
I know it was the same story because of the hand gestures. They weren't identical. No, each time they were a little more precise, a little more nuanced. If those motions had been words, their emphasis and enunciation could have cut glass by the fourth time around. It was like she was speaking to a slow child.
Except, of course, she wasn't speaking.
People have told me to humor her. That doesn't work, anymore than it worked when she'd pretend to have understood what I said when she was tired of me repeating myself. We know each other too well. Smiling and nodding isn't an adequate response, and neither are generalities.** We're precise people. We're word people.
I'm aware that I'm now in a position similar to hers: when she speaks, I hear only mumbling, mostly. It does not make me more sympathetic; it pisses me off. When she couldn't hear me, she could yell at me to talk louder or to lower my register. I can't tell her to stop mumbling and use real words. If you're thinking, well, she can't help it,this is outside her control, I agree. But how deep and loud I'm able to speak isn't something I have a whole lot of control over either. I did my best, but it wasn't enough.***
I wish, I wish, I genuinely wish she would just shut up. I'm so tired of looking at her with my very best expression of devoted interest while she mumbles incoherently. In so many ways I am my father's daughter, inappropriately pragmatic. What is the point of wasting my time listening to my mother express ideas in sounds I cannot understand? If she was getting something out of it it would be different, but we're both frustrated.
But I have to be there because she wants me to be there, no matter how unsatisfying the experience is for both of us.
*Richard Diran
**The most bizarre thing about all of this is, she seems to be able to hear better. I have no idea how this is possible, but some of the staff members have commented on it.
***Please, put this on my tombstone.
-:- -:- -:- -:-
Yesterday my mother told me the same story four times.
I know it was the same story because of the hand gestures. They weren't identical. No, each time they were a little more precise, a little more nuanced. If those motions had been words, their emphasis and enunciation could have cut glass by the fourth time around. It was like she was speaking to a slow child.
Except, of course, she wasn't speaking.
People have told me to humor her. That doesn't work, anymore than it worked when she'd pretend to have understood what I said when she was tired of me repeating myself. We know each other too well. Smiling and nodding isn't an adequate response, and neither are generalities.** We're precise people. We're word people.
I'm aware that I'm now in a position similar to hers: when she speaks, I hear only mumbling, mostly. It does not make me more sympathetic; it pisses me off. When she couldn't hear me, she could yell at me to talk louder or to lower my register. I can't tell her to stop mumbling and use real words. If you're thinking, well, she can't help it,this is outside her control, I agree. But how deep and loud I'm able to speak isn't something I have a whole lot of control over either. I did my best, but it wasn't enough.***
I wish, I wish, I genuinely wish she would just shut up. I'm so tired of looking at her with my very best expression of devoted interest while she mumbles incoherently. In so many ways I am my father's daughter, inappropriately pragmatic. What is the point of wasting my time listening to my mother express ideas in sounds I cannot understand? If she was getting something out of it it would be different, but we're both frustrated.
But I have to be there because she wants me to be there, no matter how unsatisfying the experience is for both of us.
*Richard Diran
**The most bizarre thing about all of this is, she seems to be able to hear better. I have no idea how this is possible, but some of the staff members have commented on it.
***Please, put this on my tombstone.