I went to the Mansion this morning to teach my Thursday morning meditation class, I brought a 10-minute recording from a meditation app I like, it was about “Deep Rest Into Sleep,” and the residents loved it and said it was very helpful for them to hear it.

We also practice breathing – inhaling and exhaling – as a way of calming down and centering. I am surprised by how much the meditation classes mean to the Mansion residents, it is one of the most satisfying and meaningful things that I do.

Afterward, we talk about the stress and sadness that comes with living in an assisted care facility.

The meditation opens them up. It means a lot to me also.

There were a lot of requests this morning.

Nancy needs leggings, and they must be a special size because she doesn’t have full use of both hands. She needs some sweatpants as well. John needs a full-size bed sheet.

The aides need flavored and regular and decaf coffee and hot chocolate and tea pods for their Break Room coffee maker. Nancy and Georgina want cigarettes, but they are too expensive for me to buy too often, so I will do that when I can.

The Meditation workshop has opened up a deep vein in me and in the residents who have come so faithfully to the sessions. We talk on a much deeper and more open level now, this is something they want and need.

The elderly live in fear all of the time – of getting sick, losing their friends, being forced into a nursing home, of death, of leaving the Mansion for good. People can’t live out their lives at the Mansion when they need a lot of care, they have to leave. It is one of the cruel twists of the assisted care system.

Of course, meditation is a natural fit for them, it teaches grounding and peacefulness.

Evert day at the Mansion is a meditation for me. When we breathe together, we feel as one.

Zinnia chewed a bone in front of me, and then settled in and visited the residents, who were in a circle around her, and then went to sleep. Outside, we stopped to visit Georgianna, who was having a smoke in the Secret Garden.

If you wish to support this work, you can do so via Paypal, [email protected] or you can send a check to Jon Katz/ Mansion Fund, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. Thanks.