I’ve started teaching meditation to the elderly, it is a powerful experience to be teaching something I always thought I had to be taught. That feels good.

Every Thursday, at 10:30 a.m., I teach a meditation class for between six and eight residents of the Mansion. Most Thursdays, three or four of the residents are at the doctors. Or some forget, or are not feeling well.

I’ve come to feel that this is among the most important work I do at the Mansion. I am surprised by the people who come and how much it means to them. Yesterday, I began conducting the guided meditations myself. Breath in through the nose, out through the mouth.

Let your mind go where it wants to go. If you don’t like where it’s going, pay attention to your breathing. There is no right or wrong, no way to feel. Growing older is challenging and stressful, every single day. Here may be a way for you to calm and steady yourself when you need to. Meditation, I tell them each week, is an ancient practice, it promotes health and peace of mind.

I know they forget things, so I go back to the beginning each time. I bring a bag of meditation beads, because they lose theirs, or forget what they are for.

I bring my own Tibetan bells, my own meditation beads. I wear four colors on my rope wrist bracelets.

I ring to start, I ring to stop. There is a lot of background noise when we meditate, people and staffing coming into the dining room, people talking loudly a few feet away, people asking what we are doing.

I confess to being a little surprised when the residents tell me that this has helped them.  I’m not secure about it. That’s good, I think, being arrogant turns them off.

Ruth was unhappy, thinking of a loved one who died. Alice returned from a short hospital stay.

Wayne comes faithfully, but doesn’t talk about why. Katherine says it helps her to feel steady. Tim thinks of his creative projects. Madeline talks about seeing her father murdered by her brother when she was eight years old and her subsequent life in an orphanage in the Bronx. Carol and Jean are always silent, but I see them close their eyes and sit up straight.

After the 10 to 15 minute meditation, we all talk about how we are feeling, what meditation did for them. Madeline says it makes  her feel safe, that is her mantra. After all, she says, it’s not every day you see your father murdered. We all nod at this.

Madeline is the most vocal and articulate about her meditation. “I say the same thing every time, I am safe here, no one will hurt me.” I said that is a mantra, and I tell her about mantras.

Alice speaks this time, she says she goes to a soft and quiet place it is restful. Ruth says it makes her feel a little  better, “but not so much.” Several said it is important to stop sometimes and just think, somehow, they never get to do it.

I have learned a lot in my Mansion work about the complexity of being old, of dealing with never-ending health problems, of worrying about family, sickness, death, loss, memory.

I see that meditation helps. I see that is something I can teach, when I always thought it was something I had to be taught, even after doing it for 20 years.