Doña Quixote wants to commission a retablo: “with the sun in my face and the wind in my hair…”

Featured image: Retablo, Oil on tin, 2007. In Mexico and other Spanish-speaking South American countries, a retablo is a devotional offering—using iconography from Catholicism—painted on a panel to hang in a church in fulfillment of a vow or in gratitude for divine intercession. The text on the image says, “My sentimental life was in chaos. I was very sad and depressed, then my uncle gave me his old jeep and I give thanks to the Virgin of Guadalupe that he did that because now with the sun in my face and the wind in my hair, my depression disappeared and the speed makes me feel free and happy.”

The vehicle of my depression’s diminishment was not an old jeep, but a rather a state of mind described by a dementia-blogger, Wayne, when asked how often he writes for his website said, “[I used to do it quite frequently but now] I’m spending so much time living life I haven’t got time to write about it any more.” Given that I wrote my previous post over 4 months ago, I suppose I can recycle Wayne’s statement for myself. His phrase, however, has double meaning—on the positive side, one can spend a lot of time living happily because you are engaged in activities that you find meaningful; on the negative side, with dementia you can also spend a lot of time living in frustration because completing your tasks of daily living have become so onerous that they take the lumpen part of your waking day. While there have been days over the last 4 months when the teeter-totter of my mood unexpectedly  dropped and I hit the ground me with my teeth clacking and pain from my tailbone rocketing out the top of my head, for the most part I soon regained my balance, so that my mind satisfactorily hovered in the invigorating-sun-and-wind zone.

4), The two young women and one young girl in our family shine

Our daughter Marissa was one of 25 finalists in the 2024 Utah Women in Tech awards. The group’s academic qualifications included 5 PhDs, 15 masters degrees, a law degree, an abundance of STEM degrees, and even a Master Gardener certification. We were invited to attend the lunch and award ceremony at The Grand America Hotel. To Marissa’s great surprise, she won the award for Data Innovation, for which she has a patent pending. (I’ll let her have her own word at the end of the post).

Our granddaughter Aliya tried out for her high school dance team and got in. She worked very hard during the summer to overcome a fear of doing a backward flip without touching the ground. She mastered it before the school year started. We have enjoyed going to two of her performances since she started 8th grade. She is the girl in black at the front of the photo doing a jump that seems impossible to me!

5), Dante and I read and talk about books every Sunday afternoon

First row of photos, Dante, school-assigned books that we have discussed since school started. (After finishing Homecoming, we”l have read and discussed 900 pages.)  It has been a great joy for me over the last months to spend  time philosophizing with an 11-year-old (12 in January) sixth-grader who has an incredible memory for information about the world (want to hear his opinion on Limited Liability Corporations?) a rich—if not altogether practical—imagination (how he would survive if he were homeless), and a kind heart (Tom Sawyer should not have been so mean as to let Aunt Polly think he had drowned).  Second photo, Dante was reading when I got there last Sunday. The good thing is that the book was the right side up…

6, After my cortisone shot for arthritis in my right hand in March, all my joints have been mostly pain free for 9 months. However, last weekend I was preparing a slab of salmon for Peter to do on the grill when my back went out. I did nothing other than slide the pan about a foot to the right of the counter, yet my lower back locked in place. Peter wasn’t home. I stood still for a while, then massaged my tailbone area with my hands as well as I could. After a few minutes I tried a small step sideways. Still agonizing, I could slowly walk my way to the living-room couch where, eventually, I was able to sit down. When Peter came back, he fed me ibuprofen and when I could risk a walk to the bedroom, he massaged my back. He is very good at that—but I screeched dramatically when he touched the areas where the muscles were in spasm. Afterwards, I could lie down on my back. I felt terrible until Halloween, Friday, but am a lot better as this new month starts. I’m still keeping up the piankillers and Peter is continuing twice-a-day massages. (So grateful for him.) I can now even sit down and do handwork like sewing for a while during the day. When I am happily occupied, so is Peter.

7, Cl0sing thoughts

My now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t back pain seems like a metaphor for the see-saw of my depression

My injured-for-no-observeable-reason sore back is a reminder that my mind can pull that trick too: an upswing of mood followed by a precipitous downward drop has been a pattern for me since my dementia diagnosis over 12 years ago. Before I injured my back, I was so high on my long-lasting depression-free reprieve that I could not stop working on things that interested me and for which I magically I had energy most days. I unwillingly admitted to myself that my feverish busy-ness is like the high end of the bipolar pattern of my depression. I was and still am overdoing things to a point when a crash would not surprise me. I felt and still feel so down at times that I think “Here the Doña goes again…”

I end on inspiration from my daughter Marissa

Before the Tech Awards, the organizers suggested that the finalists all prepare an acceptance speech just in case they won. Here is Marissa’s:

“I started kick-boxing in my mid-thirties because of a Groupon. It took 3 weeks to go—at my age, it was uncomfortable being a beginner. The classes were uncomfortable—30 torturous minutes of conditioning followed by the pure joy of hitting things. Eighteen months in, I started sparring. Because I am tall, that meant mostly men. Again—uncomfortable. Ramon, 6’ 5” and built like a linebacker bloodied my nose the first time. Seeing the read streaks on his white gloves was frightening. But it was okay. All those months of being uncomfortable and acting anyway enabled me to go to the bathroom, stop the bleeding, and jump back in—this time with my hands up higher. The “Ramons” in tech leadership are many—though feedback, projects with short timelines, business-critical processes failing at the wrong time. Just last week it felt uncomfortable to push back on strategic goals based on my team’s capacity. But I did it, and it was okay. Feeling vulnerable, feeling uncomfortable and still doing what you need to do—this lesson from Muy Thai has made me a better leader and a better human.”

When my back-pain is not yet totally over and I still at times feel the depression cloud descending, Marissa’s words remind me that this was just another one of  my dementia’s “6’ 5”-and-built-like-a-linebacker Ramons.” But so far, I am managing to “still keep doing what I need to do.” My mood is inching up the positivity ladder again. “Hou duimvas vir my,” as we say in Afrikaans, Hold thumbs for me.

I give the last word to a wise Mexican mother who commissioned a retablo with a meaning close to the Afrikaans saying, “Moenie die bobbejaan agter die bult te gaan haal nie” (Don’t fetch the baboon from behind the mountain)” or don’t mourn events that haven’t happened yet (and thus possibly making them happen).

Mexican retablo, 1985: “On the day of my daughter Dorita’s wedding her fiancé didn’t come, and she was completely depressed. I prayed to the Virgin of Zapopan to relieve my daughter’s pain so she wouldn’t suffer of the humiliation she went through. The Virgin took mercy upon her, and then we heard the wonderful news—Jose Antonio, the fiancé, had been hit by a truck and got in the hospital. I thank the Virgin of Zapopan for the wedding was canceled due to this accident and not because Jose dumped my daughter.”