A rainbow

"There's a beautiful rainbow," she said from the office door.

It took a moment to process it. I'd been sitting with my back to the window, typing away at the notes for the Staff Council meeting I had attended a few hours before.  I was dimly aware of a brisk damp breeze blowing through the window.  I had weighted down my notes with stapler and tape dispenser, but I hadn't turned around to see what was happening.  Now I did turn, and saw a golden light through the slats of the window shades.

I grabbed my cell phone from my pack and walked quickly to the east door of the building, the Library's unofficial entrance.  Facing east, I saw the right leg of brilliant rainbow.  I came further out, and there it was,  a complete bow, arching from the middle of the Taos mountain  range to the north and ending at the southernmost  campus building.  It was immense and perfect, and I couldn't hope to capture it with my little cell phone.  But I tried.  I walked through the spattering of raindrops to the north and west, trying to get a clear view of the mountain with this incredible prism dropping to its peak.  When I got to the point where I could see the peaks clearly, I was also able to see the setting sun.  It was a bright orb at the rim of the earth, with a golden haze above and a few glittering clouds to the side.  Over there, the sky was almost clear.  North, east, and west, the sky was filled with clouds, some dropping rain, some clumping up around a few specks of a cerulean blue.

But the rainbow filling the eastern sky took control, and I could only look away for a short time.  It absorbed the mind and the emotions in a way that could not be analyzed, only felt.  It was so big, so perfect, so semicircular.  In this land of big skies, the rainbow seemed to carve out its territory and make the sky even bigger in the process.  The wind whipped my hair around my face, and the rain spatters became a little stronger.  I was chilled, and I had to go back to work.  But I couldn't focus, so I pulled up my pictures and tried to edit them to show the glory .  It was futile.  All I had was a dim indication of the glorious awe I had experienced.

Later, when I left work, the sun had set, leaving a pale blue streak along the horizon.  A huge bank of clouds covered the southern sky.  It was edged in white, surrounded by the dark blue sky, still clear of stars.  I could tell a full moon sailed behind that cloud bank.  To the east, the clouds lit up with lighting flashes, and as I drove home, I watched similar flashes to the north.  If there was thunder, it was too far away to be heard.  The wind had died down, and all was still.

Still later, I walked out into a silvered landscape:  the moon was clear of the clouds, or the clouds had drifted away, while I was eating dinner and washing dishes.  I strolled down the road, listening to the not-so-distant barking of coyotes and dogs, watching the lightning, which was still outlining the northern and eastern edges of the sky.  I drew a deep breath and wondered again why I ever want to leave this enchanted landscape.

Watching Time

I watch through the doorway as the humped-over woman in the wheelchair grips the arm of another wheelchair-bound woman.  They are facing each other, wheel to wheel, but they are not looking at each other.  She holds the other woman's arm tightly for several seconds, almost a minute, pressing hard enough, it seems, to leave bruises.  The skin on the arm hangs down in white flabby wrinkles. The arm's owner makes grunting noises, but says nothing.  When the first woman finally lets go, the other woman wheels herself backwards and away.  There is no comment from the attendants at the desk, and none at all from the two women.

My guess is that the one woman got in the other woman's personal space.  There may even have been some wheelchair bumper car action.  I had been knitting and looking occasionally at my client as he dozed, so I missed the beginning.  And, it's not for me to do anything:  these are not my clients.

This particular assignment is both easy and difficult. Easy because I don't have much to do, and difficult for the same reason.  Since I began working as a weekend caregiver for a national organization, my assignments have been regular 3-hour stints, and none have required the training I went through in April.  I have not transferred people using the belt, I have neither bathed nor diapered anyone, I have not wiped any butts.  I've only done a few household tasks (emptying the trash, making a meal, washing a dish or two, brushing a cat.). Mainly, I've kept someone company or driven someone to an appointment.  My main KSAs have been the ability to drive, a flexible attitude, and a nice smile.

My current client spends most of his time dozing.  Once in awhile he opens his eyes, looks at me with a puzzled and direct blue-eyed gaze and says, "What are you making?" or "Do you like this place" (he doesn't, he feels "captured"), or "You're a good girl."  I smile and answer ("a hat, yes, thank you") and he closes his eyes, wipes his mouth sideways on his pillow, and falls back into his doze. Yesterday when I left I asked if he needed anything else and he said "Only you."  This made me feel good and depressed me, in pretty equal measure.

The economics of caregiving are interesting.  I get paid $9.25/hour for unskilled work (aka companionship) and another buck if I have to do any Personal Care (aka, wipe a butt.) I think the company charges around $20/hour for my services.  Trained nurses get more, and so they should.

Not all my clients are in their own homes, which I would think is the main purpose of my job:  to keep them out of the nursing homes.  But, some of them need the assistive care, and they want to know someone will visit them regularly.  Family usually cannot do that, so enter the paid caregiver.

Who pays for this?  Not all my clients are wealthy, and health insurance only pays a certain amount for skilled nursing.  My role is not easy to define, and thus not easy to evaluate in financial terms.  In Victorian England I would be the poor relation or the paid companion, and I would not be respected much.  Financially, I'm still not respected much.  In many ways, I consider it a volunteer gig, like the Dove Lewis Therapy animals visiting the hospitals and libraries and assisted living facilities.  Only, I think I'd rather be visited by a dog than a knitting 57-year-old.

These people have pasts, they have the present, but it seems they have no future.  Any conversation, especially with the Alzheimer's and dementia patients, does not cover the future, and it doesn't deal in numbers either (how long have you been here, how old are you, how long were you married to her?). For some odd reason, 5 is the magic number.  I remember E used to say her mother died 5 years ago.  It's a number that conveys a reasonable amount of time, but doesn't put it too far back, because otherwise, why would we be talking about it?   At least, after some pondering, that is what I've finally decided is going on in their brains. I can't fault them:  in many ways 5 is my magic number too.

I took this gig because I wanted to see if I like caregiving, per se, or if I just liked E and the Co-op.  Well, I do like caregiving, in the same way I like my library job:  I'm good at it, and it makes people's lives better.  It's a community service.  Unlike my library job, though, it does not utilize my brain or my creativity.  It just utilizes my time.  As I sit and watch my client, I don't think.  I'm just marking time until the 3 hours have passed.  Then I go back to G's condo, fill out the online record-keeping for my boss, and settle down with my iPad.

It's not a bad use of my time, but it's definitely not a long-term solution to my search for a meaningful existence.