Thursday morning is my regular meditation class at the Mansion, the meditation students usually number between six and eight, sometimes nine. I’ve been playing a recorded and guided meditation lately, a series on happiness, and one on anxiety and health.

I’ve found the residents to be keenly interested in meditation, and it’s used to calm anxiety, loneliness or depression. This has surprised me.

In so doing, all of them are conceding they experience all of these things, topics that are rarely discussed in assisted care. They are very open to these conversations, and I always try to suggest or start one.

They are all waiting for me when I come, and attentive while I speak. During the first five minutes, I talk about my own experiences with meditation, my attention to my breathing, the idea of inhaling air (life) and exhaling resentments and fears.

Sometimes we meditate in silence, sometimes I play the guided meditation.

Today, Madeline talked about sex and death, two of the pillars of concern in people’s lives, she said. I was startled but pleased to hear the subject of sex being raised.

The other residents seemed startled, but also interested.

Nobody else wanted to talk about sex, but they do talk about death. And about the idea of focusing on breathing when they wake up at night worrying.

They all come wearing the meditation necklaces that I got for them, Madeline loses hers every week and has no memory of ever getting one. So she gets a new one each week. I can’t imagine where the others go.

Sylvie won’t attend the meditation classes any longer, because she is a Jehovah’s Witness and her church doesn’t practice meditation.

But the group is consistently present, and I see they are working on their slow and methodical breathing. I appreciate these sessions, we usually talk honestly and openly, I’ve learned a lot about the fears and frustrations of older people in assisted care.

(Photo above, Madeline in meditation.)