DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

8/2/16

Albany Care

One memory I have of Albany Care is falling asleep on top of my covers on my small twin bed in front of the television.  Often times at night I would leave my television on, to the reruns of shows like Friends and Family Guy, so that the WGN Nightcap would lull me to sleep.  Whenever I did this I got much of a lesser deep sleep than when I took the time to turn off my TV and get under my blankets that my mom bought me (a lot of the rest of the residents didn’t have this luxury, and had to sleep with the white sheets and thin maroon covers that the place provided).  When I got under my covers I think I got a much better REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, with copious dreams, as opposed to the lesser of a deep sleep that I got sleeping in front of the television, with less dreams.  It felt like when I slept in front of the television I never really fully went under, but being able to sleep with that ½% of reality still letting me know that I was, in fact, in front of the television, listening to Monica and Ross fight, knowing that Brian was professing his love for Lois in front of his family and never fully understanding that it could never be because he is a dog, was one of the more comforting aspects of my experience at the halfway house/nursing home.

The residents there were one in a million (or around 300 in the population of Evanston).  I gave them unconditional love most of the time; the only time I was mean to them was when I was trying not to think about the reality of the possibility that I would never get out of there.  Most were older than me, but that didn’t stand in the way of the friendships that formed, as all of us living under the same roof provided the opportunity to get very personal, to the point where we could almost read each other’s thoughts (or at least they could almost penetrate the thoughts that came from my young and vulnerable mind).  The staff was always very kind.  The staff’s leader was a guy named Jonathon Eastman, someone who bunkered in his office to the left off the front entrance much of the time; someone who showed how he was and felt on the same level as everyone: the staff, the residents, the visitors, and me.  I have many a memory of him giving me $5 gift cards to Subway after I earned 1500 points from going to groups, activities and outings.  My favorite groups were music and art therapy; one time me and my friend who I assume was partially Native American Indian, like me, pounded on our musical instruments, much louder than the other residents who didn’t have the genes of originality in their veins, and we almost scared the shit out of the PRSC that led the group, while the other residents just sat, listened, and watched. 

Most of the more personal relationships I formed were with the younger residents who were around my age.  Probably the only exception to this was my best friend, Carol, my roommate for about 7 ½ of the eight years that I spent there.  Me and her made many a trips to Jewel after we received the $30 when our SSI checks came in at the beginning of the month.  We ordered many a deep dish cheese pizzas from the local Evanston pizzeria, and we spent many late nights watching Friends and Chicago’s Best, before and after all the residents were provided with flat screen televisions with cable.

The person that I will always remember from Albany Care is a girl named Elizabeth (she said only her mom called her Liz when I asked).  When I first met her, she had long blonde hair and was very shy.  We went on an outing to a play together, and this is where I figured out she wasn’t as shy as she first seemed.  It was the night that President Obama passed through Chicago in a limousine, in Lincoln Park, past the McDonalds closest to my school. I remember her asking the staff if we could get out of the van so she could buy both of us ice cream cones from McDonalds as we waited for what seemed like forever until the President passed us and the road block the police made.  On the car ride, she showed me pictures of her and her family, and she talked about her old life in Rockford, and how she lost her driver’s license after getting into an accident.  We sat next to each other in the Steppenwolf theater, where I held my breath after an actress that reminded me of grandma forgot her lines for almost a full minute. 

Her and her friend Peter were German; I knew this through intuition and their looks.  They were a pair that I knew were very close because of their background and their attitude towards the place.  I remember they would hang out in the lounge room on my floor, sitting on the couches near the television, doing almost nothing.  One time Peter bought a bag of edamame from someplace like Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods, and sat in the seat/couch in front of me, facing me, eating the snack, while Elizabeth sat to my left on the same couch as I.  I remember that it was the seat that had a stain on it (at the time or after) that I had a phobia of sitting on, and it showed when I habitually hesitated to sit on it for the split second before I sat on the cushion on the right (the right when I sat on it).  That day she was also eating edamame.  I told her I had never tried it before, and she offered me some, showing me how to open up the pod and eat the green circles inside.  I remember feeling a little afraid of Peter for some reason (maybe it was the situation, maybe it was the energy of the place), but the informality and the kindness that she showed me made me feel better, happier, about her and my being there. 

I remember giving her a pair of pants that I had outgrown.  She waited in the doorway while I looked through my stuff and gave her a pair of my mom’s old pants, after telling her that they didn’t fit me and they were my mom’s, so she could have them.  Another time she came in for some reason that escapes my knowledge, and we talked while my television blared, probably the news.  Her eyes looked really bright while she asked me about the bus pass that many of the residents got because we received circuit breakers.  I remember saying something about how I needed a new one, and she told me that instead of waiting for it in the mail and getting it from the staff I could go downtown and pick it up myself.  I think I remember her giving me directions, telling me what bus/what street to go down to get there.  My back faced the television so I couldn’t see what was going on on the screen, while she stood almost directly in front of me, in front of my bed.  We stood facing each other, and I remember feeling more than just communicating through dialogue; it was kind of like we shared a moment where we knew what was going on because we had the type of relationship where we knew each other because we were both in the same situation.  I wish I could remember what went on during those moments, because it kind of sticks out in my memory as the marker of where I figured out the reality of the place, the truth of the residents and the staff (which were “good” and which weren’t- an aspect of my mind that keeps on snowballing into something bigger every day).  That time with Elizabeth was one of those moments where we kind of shared a psychological energy and understanding, something that continues to grow in my perception of reality (I know this sounds crazy but I don’t know how to explain it).

This happened with the staff sometimes too.  I remember one of the times when I had the psychological energy that existed in the place was when the boss, Jonathon Eastman, helped me to get my computer working again when we couldn’t get the internet working.  Sometimes certain floors didn’t get good Wi-Fi, and at the time when I tried to go online with my laptop on my bed I couldn’t get Wi-Fi reception.   I found Jonathon (all the residents and staff called him Jonathon, as he was a staff member; the residents called the staff by their first names, something that I will always remember that demonstrated the high level of informality and connection that existed among everyone) and he came into my room to help me fix the problem.  I remember him putting the laptop down on the center of my bed and configuring it until it worked, and the website he chose to go to was ESPN.  He looked deep into the red of the background for a moment and told me the problem was solved.  I remember him sitting on the left of my bed (on the same or different occasion; this was one of the times where I felt the same level of friendship he had with the other residents, maybe even closer because he was one of the staff that knew that I didn’t need to be there) and after looking at his phone or the computer, he told me that it wasn’t going to rain, after I asked him (or he told me without me asking; either that or he told me it was going to rain).  This was a moment when I felt like he was kind of my friend.  He was German, the type of German that at the time I associated with the almost orange skin that at the time I sometimes saw those types of German get with their rush of energy.

Yes, my times at Albany Care were extraordinary, more extraordinary than one would think that one would be able to experience from living in a nursing home.  Sometimes it felt like I felt so isolated that I felt like I lived on a different planet; one different than outsiders would live at, from the “them” that the residents and I knew as almost all of the people in the world that lived outside of the place.  Once I moved out, a part of me changed; I feel like I have evolved into a new person and lost a part of myself that I found from living there all at the same time.  I often wonder if I will ever know that type of situation again, if I will ever know those types of people again, if I will ever belong to such a community as that again, and feel like I did while I was there again.  Sometimes I think of going back there and living there again just for the fun of it, to spend my Saturday nights at the socials and playing gin rummy, listening to the rap and hip hop songs from the staff’s CD’s and Ipods, and hanging out with the people that I still consider friends.  I wonder if they ever think of me, and what they used to think of me.

 

 

 

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.