Expect Nothing. Clarice Bryan

      TWO

      ONE OF MY GREATEST TEACHERS

      Let none find fault in others. Let none see omissions and commissions in others. But let one see one’s own acts, done and undone.

      Dhammapada, verse 50

      John came to live with me after his father, my brother, died. John didn’t get along well with anyone but his father. John had been diagnosed as schizophrenic, though not violent nor terribly disabled, just socially different. He had finished high school, and he’d lived at home all his life. He was now in his forties. I have a little studio house on my property, so it seemed logical that he should move in with me. And that’s where he lives.

      John has a fantastic memory, especially for numbers and dates. He’s a Star Trek fanatic and forever tries to tell anyone who will listen about some of his favorite stories—from years back or last night’s show. And he can recall these stories in great detail, which I assume is accurate. He has Star Trek cards, buttons, books, and he even goes to Star Trek conventions. Fortunately, I like Star Trek, but not all the time.

      He also has some fundamental knowledge of cars, house repair, and carpentry, although it’s often not appropriate to the situation at hand. After several minor disasters, involving broken hoses in the engine of my car, fingers nearly cut off, goats eating the flowering plants instead of their own, tools and equipment left out to rust, and stuffing up the attic air vents in the belief that he could make the house warmer, we now talk about each project beforehand. We see what will work and what won’t. Even so, I often need to supervise closely. John would never make a good cat burglar because he never puts things back where he finds them. I can trace his every move.

      John is generous and polite. He bathes and takes care of his clothes. And he means well, which is probably why we get along. Sometimes he gets a fixed idea of what should be done, and no matter how I try to convince him of the errors of his logic, he will often go ahead and muck something up anyway. But sometimes he is right, so I listen.

      When he first came, I tried to make him part of my family. I didn’t charge him for room or board, but I did expect him to do things that needed doing by a strong man, which he is. I expected him to water the garden sometimes, but he was too inconsistent about it for most plants to do well. I expected him to weed, but that didn’t work at all. We rototilled and planted a vegetable garden for him to take care of and call his own. It soon became a marvelously thick green growth of tall weeds. I expected him to help me put up some fencing for the goats, which he did, but with much moaning and groaning.

      In fact, moaning and groaning accompanied any hard physical labor. He helped me enclose the front porch so we now have a sun and plant room, but there was plenty of wailing and gnashing of teeth. I did not feel good when he moaned and groaned. I did not feel good when he failed to do something easy that I asked him to do.

      I wanted him to find some way to develop self-respect, because he could do many things, just not always at the right time or place. I kept trying to think of things he could do that might ultimately lead to a job or productive output. I knew his father had taught him a lot about bricklaying, but he didn’t want to have anything to do with that.

      He’d already tried classes at his own community college, apparently without success. So those suggestions went nowhere.

      I tried to interest him in making copies of my bird feeder, which has a beautiful oriental design, so he could reproduce it and sell it to local nurseries, but that never got off the ground.

      I offered to buy a premade, do-it-yourself little barn that he could put together for when and if we have miniature donkeys, but he was not thrilled with the idea.

      He must have thought I was the aunt from hell.

      To keep the goblins from making a mess out of my stomach when he didn’t meet my expectations, I quit having expectations. It didn’t look as if I could change him, so I would have to change me.

      Now I charge him rent, though not board, but I only feed him dinner and snacks. He has a kitchen of his own. And now he can choose to do some of my chores or not. I pay him $6.00 per hour when he decides to. When he decides not to, which is often, I hire a graduate student, who is much more efficient and knowledgeable, for $10.00 per hour.

      I cook dinner and he does the dishes, which he leaves all over the kitchen counters, even though he knows where they belong. He will weed-eat the lawn edges about once a month, take the garbage up to the street once a week—most of the time. He’ll even clean the goat barn sometimes. He records TV shows he knows I like when I’m going to miss them, often Star Trek.

      And now my stomach is happy. I’m happy. In many ways, I do live close to Nirvana, not just in my dealings with John, but by applying my John-learning to everything else. And I think John is happier, too. His aunt found her way out of hell and into his real world, such as it is. We get along well and understand each other’s failings.

      I have quit trying to make John into all I think he could be—or even some of what I think he could be. He may already be all he can be. That’s not for me to know, let alone expect.

      The Tibetan Buddhists believe that there is no greater vehicle than compassion and forgiveness to counteract suffering caused by the self-grasping attitude.

      Dalai Lama and Phil Borges