Mike's death; Betty's life...

Monday, September 7, 2026

Wednesday, November 6, 2024

I didn't get much done this morning. I was down in the dumps. I didn't have enough to do. Like my mother, I need to be busy to feel okay. Sitting around, reading, and listening to music leaves me feeling wasted. Also, I'm energized by social contact. Spending a lot of time alone isn't good for me.

Before my morning walk, I moved Jospeh's and my cars out of the driveway onto the strip in front of the house. I was expecting the county inspector today; I wasn't sure if Provision Solar was arriving to start installing the panels or if they would wait until after the inspection. It was a good thing I moved the cars. They were here. The Inspector also slipped in and out during the day.

My alarm went off at 10:50. Thank God I remembered to set it. I had an 11:30 hair appointment. If the alarm hadn't sounded, I would have forgotten about it completely. The lack of activity leaves me lost in time.

Jean, my Hanai sister, had an appointment with a neurologist coming up. She made it because of a tremor in her hand. The medical staff at the retirement community asked her to get a check on her mental functioning. I warned her to make sure she checked the day and the date before she met with the doctor. My lack of activity leaves me disoriented. I have no idea of the day, the date, or the time, even though I have Zoom tutoring sessions, and I write these updates. I get lost in the lack of activity.

I made it to my haircut appointment in plenty of time. Being in the presence of someone I hadn't seen in a while brought home how terrible I felt. I was in deep grief. It keeps getting worse instead of better over time. I'm not an embedded member of any social group. That hurts like hell. It rings the loneliness bells loud and clear.

Randee had dyed half her bangs and forelocks orange. I loved the way she looked before. Her hair was dark and shorter. She looked like Micelle Dockery, Lady Mary from Downtown Abbey. It was a great look for her. I told her I preferred her natural hair color. I don't think Randee took that well. Of course, my delivery may have reflected my terrible mental state and sounded particularly harsh. I explained I was in bad shape. She had an unusually indifferent to the annoyed response. Something might have been amiss in her life, too. She didn't look as cheery as the last time I saw her. She seemed on edge. I couldn't figure out if it was triggered by my mood or if I just made it worse.

One of the Provision installers warned me he would have to turn off the electricity for two hours to do rewiring. When I came home after my hair appointment, he told me the electricity was still off when he finished. He turned the electricity back on, but nothing happened. He said it looked like the grid was down. I called Paulette, who lives up the street, to check if she had electricity. I wanted to make sure it was the grid and not something the workers did. The electricity was down in the whole neighborhood. It was off for four hours today, from 10 am to 2 pm.

The crew was a delight to have around. One of the men told me I could sell the old panels. The cost for new ones was one dollar per kwh. These were 310 panels, worth $310 new. I could sell them for $100 each. It would be better than nothing.

I was only sure about the quality of seven of the panels. Their border design was different from the rest. Beth from Hawaiian Solar, the original installers, gave me the dates of the replacements and the number that were replaced at that time. Seven had been replaced in 2023. The edging on those seven panels was different from the edging on

That left me with 28 panels I couldn't be sure of. All the panels with the scored borders had the same final digits on their serial number: 11-02. Was that a date? Of the 28, six were already failing, and one was dead as a doornail. The men carried all the panels into my house. We tried to sort them from moss built up on the edge. It wasn't an effective way to tell the difference. They found seven with unscored borders they were sure were replacements. I posted them for sale at $100 a panel. That would be a good saving for someone and an unexpected profit for me.

Tuesday, November 5, 2024

Presidential Election Day 2024. I didn't listen to the news. No matter who won, I wasn't expecting a good outcome for the country.

I slept well last night. Even if I do think of issues that trouble me, I haven't been falling into virulent ruminating. The first order of the day was getting my car and Joseph's out of the driveway. Provision Solar was coming today to start work on dismantling the solar panels Hawaiian Solar installed in July of 2017. The panels that were installed were lemons. They started breaking down by 2019. The company was reliable and replaced them when necessary. Nineteen out of the original 34 were replaced. The company gave up as they continued to break down, and the 310s were getting hard to replace. They had an excellent warranty plan. I could continue with the original company, getting replacements for defuncted panels, keep the money for a college fund, or get the panels replaced. I chose option C. It's been a long process. I was hoping to have it all completed before the election. I was expecting chaos, the end of life as I had known it. they missed that date.

The installation team from Provision Solar arrived early in the morning. There was some minor confusion over the racks. Were they going to be replaced or used for the new set of solar panels? The old ones were 310s, and the new ones were 400s. When they called the company, that got straightened out. As I thought they were going to use the existing racks. Only one set had to be dismantled and used in a different configuration.

I learned today that I could resell my old solar panels. The going price is one dollar per kwh. My 310s were originally worth $310. I wasn't expecting that kind of money. It's too bad I hadn't been told that before they shut down the system. I could have determined which panels were defuncted and which were still functional using the online app. No, I couldn't put them in the usual trash. I would have to go to the electronic recycling center. I might have to pay something for them to take it.

I met with fourth-grade LG today. I see problems with his thought process. He keeps on insisting the 2-5=3. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to get it through to him that that was impossible. He doesn't see a connection between the abstract and the concrete. He gets it when I tell him he can't give someone more than he has. He's confused when I write that as an algorithm, 2-5=, and tell him it can't be done.

The algorithm is a story written with mathematical symbols instead of words. It is another language. I wrote several stories to illustrate the principle in words:

LG went to school with two candies in his pocket. The class bully approached him and said, "Hey, man. I know you have candy in your pocket. Give me six on them, or else."

LG said, "Hey. I only have two candies. I can't give you six."

The bully said, "Tough man. Give me the two you have, and you owe me the other four."

LG wants to buy a soda from Costco. The soda costs $6. He looks in his pocket and finds he only has $2. He needs four more.

He got the story when written in words but was still confused as to why 2-6 didn't equal four. I asked him to explain why he didn't get it. He said, "When I put 2-8 in the calculator, the answer is 6." Holy cow! The answer is -6, which means something different from 6. How long has this been going on? Given his intelligence, probably since first grade when subtraction was introduced. I showed him negative numbers on a number line. He finally got it. It took an hour and a half to break through his misunderstanding. While LG is a remarkable young man, he may have given me a clue about what may be confusing a lot of kids.

I ran into Josh in the driveway. I had told him last week that we would be without solar energy until the county planning department had inspected the job. That could be one day or two months. That would be a pretty penny since we run 45 to 60 kWh daily. I told him I would help cover the immediate bill. We could settle the difference when we did our annual reconciliation in April.

Monday, November 4, 2024

I’ve been sleeping well. I might wake up around 4:30, but that’s an acceptable time. I can always nap during the day. Napping is a favorite activity of mine. If I don’t get enough sleep during the night, I can make it up with a delicious nap during the day.

As I doze in the morning, I continue observing the vibrations in my body. I may be feeling them more because of the bodywork I’ve been doing. I’ve been correcting my posture with the Gokhale method. As a result, I’ve been releasing tension in my upper back, shoulders, and upper arms. When I was a child, I dealt with my fear by tensing my body, clamping down on those pesky sensations.

Lauren Bacall explains how she got her sexy look. She clamped her chin down to control the shaking in her body. Fear can make us look good, really good, given Bacall’s looks.

Eli, the gardener, finally came over to plan what we would do with the area where I had the Ficus trees dug up at great expense. I had several feet of mulch dumped on top to suffocate the remaining roots. I had to wait several months for the mulch to process. It’s time now. Eli calculated I would need three rows of plants with fourteen in each row. I planned to plant Hawaiian hibiscus, a shrub with a white flower. He gave me the name of the company that sells the black drip system. I will buy the hoses on my own and lay them down. There’s a faucet right nearby that works. I’ll hook the drip system up to that.

I worked with Twins. Twin E is progressing better than twin A, although she is still half a year behind her sister. The school repeatedly says they need more phonics. They don’t absorb what they hear. The more I encounter memory problems, the more I believe the problem is with the attention system rather than memory. Students have no idea how to pay attention to get the information sufficiently embedded in their minds to be remembered in the first place. Steve, who served as a principal in UN schools in Asia and South America, said he’d seen an increase in memory problems.

Telling the twins something repeatedly doesn’t work. It goes in one ear and out the other. I don’t know how often I’ve told them, “When you don’t know a word, you first find the vowel letters. Then you figure out which ones make a sound and what the most logical sound might be.” Then, when I ask them what is the first thing you do, they don’t have a clue. it seems to help when I tell them to repeat my words. I have to remember to do that. So many of these kids have memory problems. They remember little of what they see or hear that wasn’t triggered by a strong emotional response.

I usually work with fourth-grade MH on Sunday. She took off from school on Monday because her mother had to do work on the Big Island. There was no one to take care of her on Ohau, so she had to accompany her mother to the Big Island today. I agreed to a Zoom session at 11. I put it in my calendar, but I didn’t set my alarm for 10:50, giving me plenty of time to set up.

I incidentally checked my phone. There were two calls from MH’s father. OMG! I had forgotten about the session. I continued with E.B. White’s The Trumpet of the Swan when we connected. The language is much more complex than Stuart Little and the story is more engaging. Working on this book exposed her cognitive weakness. She doesn’t use the information provided in a sensible way. She picks out isolated bits of information. Other students do that, but hers feels different. I think this problem plagues her in interactions with friends and family as well as in reading.

Sunday, November 3, 2024

Church was interesting today, or should I say watching a family interact was interesting. A woman sat with two of her children and a man I had never seen before. The kids looked a little like him and seemed very comfortable with him. I suspected he was their father. The mother looked subdued.

The first time I saw the woman was in church when I attended Mass at a small church that held no more than 75 people. She came with a different man than the one she was with today. She sat toward the front of this small church where she was easily seen. She couldn’t keep her hands off him while he sat there stoically. I was struck that she behaved that way in front of her child. That compelling attraction was a sign of a new love. He was not the father of her children.

One day, while walking through the neighborhood, I saw her coming out of a driveway. “ Do you live here?” No, she lived somewhere else. I assumed with the hunk from church. This is where her children lived. I subsequently ran into her ex-husband’s grandmother, who lived with him. I mentioned the woman’s name; Grandma had a few choice words. I concluded the woman had left her husband for a new lover.

Today, she stood with the man I assumed to be the father of the children. He kissed her lightly on the lips and held her hand during the Our Father. He looked joyful. I could feel his love for her. She looked depressed. I can’t begin to imagine how the other relationship panned out. She left him because while he was sexually exciting, that was it. Or he left her for whatever reason. Either way, she’s back with her husband, recovering from a failed adventure.

The sermon today was on love and forgiveness. Love in today’s sermon was wishing someone well for their sake, not ours, wishing our worst enemy a good life, and being happy for someone you have nothing to do with and wants nothing to do with you. That pretty much eliminates wishing our kids well. We’re too invested.

I generally wish others well. However, I have trouble when I resent them for having something I don’t have. In my case, that’s always the nerve to pursue something I want. I want to broadcast the information on the reading methods I have developed. If I did that, I would be okay. It is possible I would be okay even if no one paid attention. At least, I would be there for me.

When I think of self-centeredness, I remember an ad for the Yellow Pages, which ran in the 80s or 90s. It could never be run today. The ad was for the Yellow Pages, illustrating some items in the phone book. This ad illustrated vanity cases, a heading in the directory. It featured an effeminate gay man saying, “Well, enough about me. Let’s talk about you. What do you think of my outfit?” I roar with laughter whenever I think of that ad. It was clever and spot-on- but it had nothing to do with the vanity cases in the phone book.

One slight misunderstanding between me and another person, and I’m off and running. As I write this, I don’t even remember who the contretemps was with. I don’t see people as judgmental unless they tell me they are. I see people as not responding well to something I said or did. I don’t like to make people uncomfortable, but I do things meaning to be funny. Sometimes, people don’t find what I do funny. Mike would sometimes say, “You’re not funny,” when the reality was that he hadn’t found something I said not funny. Otherwise, he often found me amusing. Like any comedian, I must adjust my behavior to my audience’s taste or find another audience. That’s what compatibility is about.

I’m willing to make adjustments, but some people find that abhorrent. Most people like that I have known have trouble in intimate relationships. Relationships either work or they don’t work. When they work, all’s good; when they don’t, they’re out of there like a shot or prepared to stick with it unhappily. I had a happy marriage. I loved it.

I met Mike in a therapy group. It was my first day in the group. Mike came rushing in late, wearing a jacket and carrying a briefcase. I thought he was cute. He apologized for being late. He was visiting his girlfriend in the hospital, who just had a hysterectomy. I thought, “Forget him. He’s in a committed relationship.” That day was the Wednesday after the 4th of July 1973. Our first date was November 8. The rest is history.

Mike might not have been quite as satisfied as I was. The more controlling someone is, the less likely they are to be happy with life circumstances. They have difficulty adjusting. Where I’m brittle, I am unhappy. Ah, it comes back to craving and aversion. Being controlling is another way of categorizing people who crave having things go their way and have an aversion to things not going their way.

It would be hard to know where I fit on the scale of reactivity. I think we all feel discord, literally two chords that don’t harmonize. No two people can be in constant accordance. What are the variables? There’s our internal one; some people are hyperreactive in all situations because they’re controlling. Some people are selectively reactive. I think I fit into that category. I have worked hard in therapy to be less sensitive. There are external causes; some situations are more injurious than others. The death of a family member probably gets a pass. If someone laughs at us rather than with us, that gets high points for being a cause of distress. If someone shuns us, good luck with not reacting to that. We’re wired to be sensitive to shunning. When someone does something that triggers rejection, that’s a tough one for all of us.

Trust is a significant factor in our reactivity. How much can we trust the other person to be committed to our well-being. I trusted Mike to want to be with me as much as I wanted to be with him. Our dependence on each other, mutual respect, and caring made the relationship work. Others saw him put me down. I heard it, too, at the beginning of our relationship. I assumed he was venting a bit but never assumed he could possibly mean the things he said. My blindness got us through the first few years, maybe the first ten.

Mike was arrogant when I met him. I saw that in his expressed opinions of others. I didn’t like it. But I trusted his attachment to me. Sometimes, a dependence like that can make a person horrible. The dependent person hates their dependency and seeks to destroy their partner, so it’s clear they’re the one lucky to be in this relationship in the first place. Mike may have felt that way at times, but he didn’t push it to the point where he made his position clear to me. I was shielded by a positive set of assumptions. He eventually became the man I thought he was. He never betrayed me or put me down in ways that were irreparable. Lucky me.

I wasn’t with Mike because I trusted him to agree with me, but I did expect him to respect my point of view. As it turned out, he admitted he thought he was right about everything at the beginning of our relationship. Really. That’s crazy. Not that he disagreed with me, but that he actually believed he was the only one capable of being right. He couldn’t have been as happy in the relationship as I was if that was his point of view. He had to see himself as someone who gave in to me even though he knew better. He was right about many things, but assuming you’re right about everything is pure hubris. Holy cow!

I went to Petco after Mass to look for a new brush for Elsa. The one I had broke. It has a plate at the bottom of the metal bristles. When I was through brushing Elsa, I pushed a knob at the back of the head of the brush. The plate slid down the bristles. The hair sat on the plate, free from the bristles. The one I had broke because I pushed the plate too far. It passed the tips of the bristles. There was no coming back from that.

I was going to Costco to pick up some items. I was nearly there when I decided that having the food sit in the car or even in a bag while I did the sound bath in air-conditioned Unity wouldn’t work. I turned around. I arrived at Unity at 11:30. I shared some food the members brought after the service. It’s always a potluck.

Sadly, I was still in rumination mode during the sound bath. I never got my mind under control. However, later in the day, I could remember some of the sounds and feel the impact on my body.

I drove Joseph to the airport. He’s off visiting a friend on the mainland for ten days.

Saturday, November 2, 2024

I’ve been listening to Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller. The subject of her book, David Star Jordan, was an advocate of eugenics, the policy of sterilizing ‘misfits’ to prevent them from passing on their genes. I was shocked to learn that the US Supreme Court made it legal to forcibly sterilize those deemed misfits. The US beat the Nazi government to the punch with this legislation. The Nazis copied us. The policy was in place and acted upon in the USA in the 1960s and 70s. I was in my twenties and thirties. People selected for this treatment were those who behaved in ‘socially inappropriate ways.” It hit women hard. If they cursed or were promiscuous. We are talking about the 70s. Promiscuity came into its own in those years. It was also generously applied to non-white races. The woman who was the test case for the Supreme Court who ‘proved’ mental incompetence was inheritable had a daughter, who was also sterilized, who made the honor roll in school. The law making forced sterilization legal is still on the federal books.

Man is the only animal that chooses to control ‘natural selection.’ Dean says that fragilities that lead to disease and death are eliminated in the rest of the animal kingdom. These animals don’t choose who lives or dies. Perhaps you can say God does. My opinion of my species is sinking daily.

Several people in my life have perfection issues: students, friends, and family. One young man used the word perfect six times in a single breath. I told him I would wash his mouth out with lye soap if he uttered it again. Students argue they haven’t improved because they feel they are not doing something perfectly. Students mentally collapse when they don’t understand what someone said ‘perfectly.’ I have friends and relatives who need to be seen as perfect, as in always right.

Perfect can never be used with the future tense, as in I will do it perfectly or even it will be perfect. Used in the future, it guarantees failure because perfection is impossible. Perfect can only be used in the present tense, as in this newborn baby is perfect, and in the past tense, our vacation was perfect. In that context, it always means it was good enough. That’s all available to us, good enough. Good enough can be delightful, a great joy, but it can never be perfect. That’s God’s domain. In God’s domain, everything is perfect by decree. If it is from God, it is perfect. Those who expect that order of respect or acceptance think they should be God. They live with a great deal of disappointment. They are hoisted on their petards. (I learned a petard is a bomb. I had thought it was a sword.)

I felt like I did nothing today but did some significant things. I gardened and wrote a lot. I reviewed my ad for Craig’s List and published it. Mama K posted her endorsement of me, singing my praises. She rewrote my blurb, deleting my comments on her twins, as was appropriate. I had included information that they were in fifth grade and still three years behind to be posted anonymously, and then I sent her that version. She didn’t want to broadcast their deficits.

Three people responded to K’s post, two for kids in high school having trouble in math. I told both that I didn’t feel qualified to tutor high school math. One parent responded her son’s problem was with reading. I assume he didn’t understand the directions. I felt confident I could help and told her so. I asked her to call me. We’ll see.

A third has a twelve-year-old with severe learning disabilities: dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia. Holy cow! I want to see his evaluation. He must have had one if she had all those terms at her fingertips. Is he cognitively impaired as well? I have difficulty believing he isn’t, but we’ll see. I asked her to call me. If nothing else, some of my approaches may be helpful. Since she is homeschooling him, she would be an ideal candidate for using my methods.

Friday, November 1, 2024

My mom would have been 121 today. I'm so glad my parents and Mike are dead and don't have to deal with the current political situation. My parents were both refugees from Nazi Germany. They watched a dictatorship rise. My dad talked about preventing it from happening again. Good luck! The voices of objection are loud and clear here. How do you stop a tsunami?

I just finished listening to Tied Up in Knots, a biography of Don Knots written by his daughter Karen. The last chapters are somewhat interesting as she talks about performers and shows I knew. The book's first part reads like a third-grader's report on their parent's childhood. It's a list. It goes something like this. Dad was president of his graduating class. His dad's dad became mentally ill and threatened his dad's mom with a knife. Dad went to the lake with his friends and got dirty. His brother Shadow died of asthma. Each item was given equal weight.

The book has a point of interest that has a bearing on the current political situation. People voting for Trump want life to go 'back to normal." Karen writes about Mayberry festivals all over the country. Everyone thinks life was really that peaceful once, that free from strife. It certainly was more predictable. But it's not always better, aside from that. Unpredictability is a huge stressor for all of us, but worse for some than others.

When I moved to Ohio in 2003, I got a job in a rural town just outside of Columbus. I taught English to children from Somalia or born in the US to Somali parents. Somali was their first language. The woman who hired me told me the school was all white and Protestant five years earlier. There weren't even any Catholics in the school. The rural population suffered a significant shock. Many small rural towns have contact with people of different cultures right on Main Street, USA.

Ten thousand years ago, we traveled in small bands. Everyone knew everyone else. The rules of conduct evolved and changed in the interaction between the group members, the same way language developed or changed over time. Everyone was under the watchful eye of everyone else. They all conformed to the agreed-upon set of rules or else.

Once groups got large enough that everyone didn't have regular contact with everyone else, some form of government developed. The rules were codified and enforced by an overseer, a chief and his council, a king and his.

When the population of the groups or tribes got big enough that the different tribes had frequent contact with each other, conflict arose. The rules were different for each tribe, and each tribe was out for itself. There was anarchy at the tribal level instead of the individual. Someone came along and organized all the tribes under a single head. What the majority of the tribes accepted or were forced to accept became the rule of law. Many groups were organized under religious banners.

We're too diverse now for most people to cope. I don't recommend the Chinese method; destroy any group that doesn't conform and send them to reeducation camps. Or the one the US government used when forcing the American Indians to stop being so Indian. Why couldn't they go on being what they were? I'm unsure why their ways of being were considered such a threat. The pursuit of 'purity' motivated the Germans in the 1930s.

We see whites as being the major enforcers. The Chinese in China aren't white; they've done a bang-up job eliminating challenges to the Chinese culture as dictated by the Communist government. I have no solution. I'm not very optimistic. Prayer is the only thing I have to offer, and money for the least bad option.

I met with fourth-grade LG this afternoon. The other day, I spoke to his father, and he supported my theory that LG panics when he doesn't understand something perfectly and blocks all input. His brain freezes, and he is in a state of painful confusion. I introduced an aspect of the BrainManagementskills in this session. I drew a picture of a head from a side view and two blobs, one representing the conscious mind and one the unconscious. Whew! That threw him for a loop. His panic is definitely a problem, but I don't know if he has learned to panic because of an actual learning problem or if all his learning problems can be attributed to his panic.

Friday, September 4, 2026

Thursday, October 31, 2024

In my last session with Shelly, I worked some on the lingering damage from my relationship with my dad. Mostly, I work on the damage from my mom. I did not have terrible parents. They were caring, and we were well taken care of physically. My mom was clearly damaged goods. No one missed that. My dad's problems were more subtle. My issues around my dad come up every once in a while. Therapists think I ignore them. When I do work on them, I come right back to Mom. Whatever damage I suffered, it always comes back to 1/5 dad and 4/5 mom. She had some serious screws loose. I feel I have to explain she suffered a torturous medical procedure to save her life in her first six months. That she came out with any sanity is a tribute to her life force.

I suffer from terror, as did Mike. It probably bonded over that. The causes were somewhat different, but just a little. We both had hysterical mothers. I think his was actually worse than mine. Mine was capable of love. I don't know that his was. Her children were there to boost her ego. My mom's injuries were younger. I had one therapist describe her as pre-narcissistic.

Aside from all the psychological boundary violations inflicted by someone who considers it a put-down if you don't agree with them on everything, and I do mean everything, she was always in a state of urgency. Like most people with PSTD, she was good in a crisis; that's the state she lived in.

I've had therapists say I adopted her viewpoint on the world. That never sounded right. I didn't agree with her point of view, and that's what saved me. She hated my outgoing, trusting nature. I always assumed the best.

In most cases, I was rewarded for my trust. Last week, I thought it wasn't her point of view I adopted; it was her energy. I was bathed in it along with the amniotic fluid. I am constantly vibrating at a point of outright terror, the terror she must have felt as an infant. It's knitted into every cell of my body. I am trying to deal with it now.

At least I'm trying to deal with it directly. I'm trying to feel the indiscriminate terror instead of attributing it to some life circumstance. When I silence my racing mind and deal with feeling, my body feels like it's vibrating. When I lie in bed, it feels a little like an earthquake. We have plenty of them here, hundreds a day. Most are small and so subtle as to be unnoticeable- unless you're paying close attention. Then, you may catch one. It's much like the feeling when all thirteen pounds of Elsa shifts on the bed. I wouldn't feel it if I was not focused on my body. Or maybe I should say I wouldn't register in my awareness.

I suspect we all have this feeling when a conflict arises with another person. We're reassured and quickly calm if we feel confident in their commitment to us. If it's someone irrelevant to us, we can dismiss it.

We all experience different people as irrelevant. If we tense up and feel fear or if we put the other person down, dismissing them as worthless, we've reacted. If we've reacted, we consider them relevant. The response to an irrelevant person is immediate calming, reacting as we would with someone we trust deeply. Any conscious response or behavior means we're triggered. We are triggered because the person has value or because they commented about a trait in ourselves we feel makes us worthless. They've triggered shame. Again, we know they have if our minds go into overdrive with self-protective messages. "He's just some drunken homeless bum." "She's that nasty lady who lives down the street." "I didn't do anything that bad. I don't know why they were angry at me." The underlying feeling is fear. The cure: sit and observe the sensations on your body with equanimity.

Brilliant Buddha developed the idea of sitting with a feeling of equanimity. That means staying calm and not judging our actions, their actions, or our feelings as either positive or negative. Just observe the sensations on the body with mild interest. Does it itch? Is it warm or cool? Does it feel tight or loose? Preferably, observe only a small patch of skin at a time. Wait till the sensation changes and move on to the adjacent patch. Do not invest in liking or not liking the sensation. Stick to describing it. That's tough.

I can feel the vibration in some areas of my body with complete neutrality. It isn't connected to an emotion. It's a little like observing the pressure on my back as I rest against the back of the chair. The sensation is neither pleasant nor unpleasant. Whatever it is, it doesn't intrude on my consciousness. It occupies no mental space. Resolving old issues requires a neutral mental state. I've done it enough to know it works, even on physical pain with a purely physical cause. It's easier to apply this process to physical pain than psychological. It is a truly remarkable process. Only it's difficult to attain, especially when dealing with strong emotions.

Since I feel some vibration in areas of my body that don't feel like distress or terror, I'm starting to think that's the natural state of our bodies. That would make sense. Our bodies are chemical and electrical factories, humming away. There is always something going on. Stand close enough to a high-power electric wire; you can hear it buzz. All sound produces vibrations. If that sound is inside our bodies, we should feel the vibration. Also, blood is constantly moving through our bodies. Swoosh! Swoosh! Is that what I'm feeling? I can't tell the difference between those spots where the vibration feels neutral or like fear, but I can feel how I react to the two sensations. The best I can say is that the fear vibrations feel at a higher pitch. It's torture.

Buddha says it's not pain that bothers us but something our minds bring to the pain, such as craving or aversion. He says we feel less pain if we can neutralize craving and aversion. Maybe it would be better to say we can avoid agony and only feel pain.

I left for Ulu Wini shortly after doing some major weeding. While I was heading down the road, I thought, "Wait! It's Halloween! No one is going to be interested in tutoring." I called Shauntel to check. She wasn't going to work today because of a backache. She thinks it's from activities she's done with the kids. I think it's from the changes in her posture and gait due to the brace on her ankle forcing her to limp. She couldn't take it off. There was no point in warning her. Maybe I'll tell her when I see her again. She needs to get that brace off and get physical therapy. She thought the kids would just be coloring today. When I got there, none of the tables had been set up. the program had been canceled for the day. i

Didn't even get out of the car. I turned around and went home.

I called Provision Solar for an explanation for the additional ten notifications from the building permit department on my solar panels. There was a glitch in their computer system, and they were sending out multiple copies of the same permit. By multiple copies, I mean something in the order of fifteen and counting. I spoke to Jamie today to make an appointment to install the new system. I texted Yvette, Josh, and Brian that we would be without solar energy for at least a week starting on November 6, to use electricity during the off-peak hours as much as possible, and to not run air conditioners or fans when not at home. It takes at least a week for the permit department to complete their inspection of the system. Once that's finished, the solar system can be turned back on.

Mama K texted me to say she found a friend living in Kona who would be traveling to Hilo on Saturday. She sent me her name and number. I called Jennifer. She said she would be by around 3 after she picked her son up from school. She was heading further north to Waikoloa to do face painting for a Halloween event. She could pick up the package on her way north. I told her I would leave the package by my front door with a large piece of red cardstock with her name on it. it should be safe there.

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

I slept very well. I got up briefly during the night to pee. If I go through the night without peeing, I know I didn’t drink enough water during the day. I don’t think I have to fear insomnia now. I know fearing it will make it worse.

Yesterday, I made an unsuccessful trip to town to deal with the bank and my Target purchase; both were a bust. The bank was closed, and the online purchase I arranged to be picked up in Hilo by a friend didn’t go through. It reverted to the Kona location.

I stopped at the bank first. I didn’t see the sign-up sheet for the waitlist to speak to one of the managers. I approached one of the desks. “Where’s the sign-up sheet?” “We don’t do that anymore. Everything’s by appointment.” “How do you sign up?” I asked with concern. Anytime I’ve called the bank, it has been impossible to get through. “you make the appointment online.” Good to know for future reference.

Pat, who sits at one of the front desks, asked what I wanted. She was willing to help me. When I got an account balance statement from the teller the other day, I was shocked at how low it was. I was hoping the bank could help me figure it out. Pat found the answer. I sent two large checks to Provision Solar for the solar installation instead of one, checks 1043 and 1044. In my register, check number 1044 was marked as void. Apparently, I had sent both to the solar company. Well, no harm done. I had paid off two of the three installments.

I headed to Target. The customer service clerk said I had to go back to the Target app, delete the order, and place a new one. Fortunately, he helped me do it. When he tried to enter the Hilo pick-up location, it said there were no more of those sale items available at that store. I just took the item with me.

When I called Kea and told her what happened, she said the Hilo store hadn’t been out. The clerk there told her there were sixteen of the items left. The online app didn’t agree. Fighting with the app is worse than fighting with City Hall. (Some of my update readers have never heard that reference but can probably infer the correct meaning.) Now, we had to figure out how to get it over to the other side of the island.

Hilo is only an hour and a half away, crossing between two volcanoes, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, on Saddle Rd, a well-maintained highway. It’s not a terrible drive except for what the pressure changes do to your ears. I understand people do the trip daily as they commute to work. However, it is not a trip that most of us take lightly. Kea posted a request on her Facebook page to see if anyone was planning to travel from Kona to Hilo. She was born on the island. She has a ton of friends all over this island.

When I got home, I discovered an email from the Building Department, releasing the permit for the solar systems. It had been over a month since the Provision Engineering department submitted the plans. Spencer, the customer service rep for the company, told me that the turnaround on permits on Maui is 48 hours. Here, on the Big Island, it can take over a month. First comes a statement of approval, next comes the bill, and finally, they release the permit. There are weeks between each step. Today, they released the permit for pick up.

I called to make sure Provision got the notification of the release. Spencer said he had received seventy emails from the permit department. He was sorting through them. I had received seven. When I checked them, they all looked identical.

I met with fourth-grade LG in the late afternoon. I was looking forward to the next step in our math work. He could successfully fill in the equation for both addition and multiplication for the same array. Yay! That took three half-hour sessions. Today, I introduced the commutative property of addition in contrast to subtraction. I wrote 2+8=10 and 8+2=10. Are the two problems the same? Yes. Okay, so far. Then I wrote 8-2=

And 2-8=. Are the two problems the same? Yes. This boy is in fourth grade. I would never have started this way if I thought he didn’t recognize the undoability of the second subtraction problem.

Some of the problem may have been because he was unusually uncomfortable. It was a hot day. The issue here is humidity combined with still air. We usually have lovely breezes to offset the heat and humidity. This is the most uncomfortable time of the year. Yvette always told me it broke about mid-October. Others say it lasts through to November. Either way, he was complaining nonstop. His focus wasn’t the best. Still . . . 2-8= should stand out for him. Okay, maybe not. The schools always teach what is correct. They don’t teach what is not correct at the same time except when you get the wrong answer. Then, they expect the student to figure out why it’s wrong. Okay, back to the drawing board.

His mother got on and read the results of his report card and his iReady reports. It’s not good. She planned to send them to me so I could work on what he was missing.

I met with sixth-grade RH at 6 o’clock. She was supposed to meet with me on Thursday afternoon, but school was canceled on Friday, and she was leaving on a Girl Scout camping trip for the weekend. She was unusually disengaged. I found out later that she had been going nonstop since the morning and was exhausted. I hope she gets to the point where she can share that information with me.

She did say she thought she was doing better at discerning the difference between b and d. When I started to work on her u/n confusion, she said she never had problems with them. Her mother told me she had issues with u/n and w/m. When I asked about the w/m confusion, she said it hadn’t bothered her in a long time. Mom wasn’t quite up-to-date.

Tuesday, October 29, 2024

After being up most of the night, I spent the day sleeping or listening to my book on Audible. It’s scary when that happens.

The story in Magic Hour was healing. I identified with the wild child and absorbed the loving attention the therapist/ caretaker poured into her. As the author wrote about the therapist, I also identified with her thought process. She didn’t have a formula for dealing with the child, a list of objectives for her to conform to, or a list of strategies to achieve those objectives; she listened carefully to the child and looked for openings. She gave her all the room she needed to feel heard and safe. It is what I try to give to my students. I try to give it to everyone I encounter. That’s my goal. I’m much more successful at it in the context of my students.

In a professional role, I have more power. They come to me with their deficiencies; I come to that relationship with my strengths. It is an unequal relationship. They are more dependent on me than I am on them. I don’t expect them to be as attentive to me as I am to them. I don’t expect them to appreciate what I do for them. In my sixty years of doing this work, fewer than a dozen children have said thank you or verbally acknowledged that I helped them. Most don’t want anything to do with me after the sessions end. I represent their bad ole selves, the ones who couldn’t read or do math, the person they don’t want to remember.

While I would like to be more of that person in my peer relations, I have a more significant investment in these people. I want them to like me and care about me. They all do that in one way or another; otherwise, they wouldn’t be my friends in the first place. There has to be some joy in the relationship. It can’t all be hard work and pain. If it becomes that, the relationship has to end.

I’m generally willing to work things out with people. Sometimes, that becomes impossible. Either they have cut too deep to make relationship repair possible without hard work, which they are unwilling or unable to do. I’m okay with hard work, but not from me alone. Just forgetting about a bad moment is possible if the injury isn’t too deep.

My dad raised me to ‘work out’ each and every issue. I had to talk about everything with someone. My sister rescued me from that cul du sac. She said if there’s been a bad moment, the other person wants to forget about it as much as you do. Just go on as if it didn’t happen. That piece of advice has saved me from a lot of social drama. But there’s the opposite extreme with people who never want to hear what I have to say and never want to discuss situations that are not easily resolved by ignoring them.

I agree with my critics that I have over-emphasized awareness and attention to unresolved situations. There is much to be said for compartmentalization and denial. They are not just rivers in Egypt or otherwise. Compartmentalization and denial are valuable tools in our coping tool kit. Ones I’ve had to deliberately incorporate. It’s done wonders for my complexion.

Monday, October 28, 2024

I was exhausted by 8:30 and in bed by nine. I woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed by midnight. It would be a difficult night. I did some belly breathing and fell asleep again. The next time I awoke, it was 2:30. I dozed or meditated for the rest of the night. I feared insomnia. That was my life after my dad died until my first night in my freshman dorm room. I was alone with my mother, without any protection or assurance that I was okay in someone’s eyes. That was three years without a single good night’s sleep. I wouldn’t wish insomnia on my worst enemy.

I have been wrestling with my tendency to obsess about difficulties in relationships. Some of that, I was sure, was just the natural reaction to not being embedded into a social unit; in other words, I’m lonely. I’m welcome in many groups but am not an embedded member of any social unit. I believe that’s difficult for all human beings. Evolutionary psychology assumes that the evolution of our brains influences our social and cognitive behaviors as well as physical form. Our brains developed 11,000 to 21/2 million years ago. Social behaviors are embedded in our brains. While all this is theoretical, applying the theory has borne significant fruit.

One of the theories is we are social animals. Being alone, unembedded in a social unit, means our very lives are in danger. When our brains were developed, that was true. If we were alone, no one had our backs. We couldn’t rest for a moment. We were fair prey for any animal seeking its next meal. I believe fear and terror underlie loneliness.

Since aloneness is more a psychological state in our modern world than a physical one, it took me three years to feel that Mike was really gone and I was alone. There have been incidents that brought home how unprotected I am. If Mike had died before my mom, I dread to think what would have happened.

I have been wrestling with my tendency to obsess and ruminate, whatever you want to call it. What can I do to interrupt that pattern? I’ve been listening to books on tape. It commands my mind and overrides the pattern of my default brain. I’ve also been trying to sit with the fear which underlies the rumination.

I started by welcoming Christ’s love into my heart. I watch people who have this deep belief in Christ successfully take refuge in Christ. I wasn’t raised with that notion. Quite to the contrary, I was taught that religious beliefs were nonsense. I’m not fussy. I don’t have to be right. I’m good with it if it works and does no harm. The Buddhist meditation hasn’t quite worked for me when dealing with fear. I did find bringing in Christ’s love helpful.

This morning, I started just saying “I love you” to myself. This mantra is incorporated into EFT: “I love and comfort myself.” I have tried deep self-love before. It didn’t work because I couldn’t forgive my young self for having irritated my mother. I knew intellectually that irritation was more on her than on her infant child, but that didn’t cut it. Now, I could accept that self-love.

Note: this is not a self-love based on something I am or can do. It’s not because I’m wonderful. It’s simply because I am. It doesn’t make me better than anyone else. It’s the love all human beings are entitled to, regardless of what they are or what they’ve done. It’s the self-acceptance the salvific religions teach. Even a few moments of it are lovely. It’s the substitute for or the supplement to imperfect human connection. It allows us to stand alone as individuals without terror.

That meditation calmed me. I slept. When I woke, it occurred to me that my mother didn’t just pass on that fear through her behavior, her reactions to the world at large, and to me specifically. Her terror was a result of the draconian medical treatment she received in the first six months of her life. Terror was set as her normal frequency then. I was bathed in it along with the amniotic fluid. How do you undo that order of fear learned at that early age? Here, the Buddhist practice of Vipassana comes in. You watch the sensations on your body, patching them at a time. You don’t go into the feeling deep in your viscera. You focus on the surface of the body and the skin, and you observe the sensation on a small patch at a time. That way, you’re never overwhelmed.

When I got up at 3:30, I listened to a book on Audible, Magic Hour by Kristen Hannah, while I did my morning yoga. That blocked my mental machinations. I also worked on the updates.

It was raining heavily where I lived 800 feet up the mountain, and I wondered if it was raining at the shoreline. The weather is usually different at different altitudes. The temperature up here is often five to seven degrees cooler than between here and Queen K, which is three miles lower.

I decided to go to the beach for my Monday morning Chi Gigong session. It was just Clyde and me, as it had been all summer. He spoke to Roger, who leads it during the winter season. Roger said he was practicing a new sequence with 100 moves. Right! The one we’re doing now has four. He’s dreaming if he thinks our motley crew will be interested in going through 100 moves.

After we finished, Clyde talked briefly about the political situation. He is a card-carrying member of the Unity Church. I thought the people of this church were all open-minded liberals, so I assumed he would be Democratic. Not only is he voting for Trump, but he believes his progressive wife is naïve. He described her as simple-minded. His reasoning was interesting.

I asked Clyde if he wanted a dictatorship. He said it was time for a change. Democracy wasn’t working anymore. Wow! This was a new one. I don’t disagree with him that all the existing political systems aren’t working, but I don’t think Fascism is the cure. The global world requires a global solution. How does that work?

I dropped off some plastic cushioning material at UPS and went to the bank to get cash to pay Dan when he trims the trees. Then, I was home for the rest of the day. I slept and listened to Magic Hour on Audible, a book recommended by my friend Jean. It was profoundly appropriate. It’s about a wild child found in a small town in the state of Washington, cared for by a psychiatrist willing to give her life for the job. I think it helped me adopt an attitude of self-love.

Besides that, I slept for most of the day and finally did some gardening at the end. I sprayed the weeds against the fence I shared with Mei and Peter with vinegar. They let their patch be a mess. I spray over the fence, hoping to get some of their weeds as well as the ones on my side.

I had a session with fourth-grade LG. He is experiencing a big difference in math. He had three sessions to connect the abstract math algorithms with concrete examples. His mother texted me his homework for the night. It had to do with solving for partial products. For those of you who don’t know what that means: Given 456 x 2=, you solve the problems by multiplying 400 x2=, 50 x2=, and then 2 x2, and then add up all the partial products. He had no difficulty with the exercise. He was brimming with confidence.

I spoke to his mother briefly. I told her about the progress he had made in math and handwriting. Had she seen his handwriting? She said she knew about his handwriting. Had she seen him write since I worked with him? No. I asked LG to write his name in front of her. She was duly impressed. LG said he wanted to do more work on handwriting. We worked on writing the names of all his family members. Once we had worked on the names of his mother, father, sister, and him, we had covered thirteen of the letters in the alphabet.

I have developed the most effective method of teaching stroke patterns using the computer screen. Using a broad stroke, I form the letter slowly while the student follows using the index finger of his writing hand to start. LG started with that but preferred to use a pencil in subsequent lessons.

When I went to the bank, the teller gave me a statement for the balance in the account. I was surprised. It was much lower than I expected. I had deposited all the money from the warranty for my faulty solar system into that account. I checked my checkbook to see if I could find an explanation. I could find no payment that would explain it. I decided I had to check it with the bank. I drove down there with two objectives in mind. First, speak to a bank clerk to find an explanation. The second objective was to stop at Target to buy an iPad for a friend who didn’t have ready cash. She lived in Hilo. I would try to arrange for her to pick it up there. When I arrived, the bank was already closed, and I went directly to Target.

The clerks in the electronic department didn’t know who to arrange for a pick up in Hilo when the store was in Kona. I was told to go to customer service for help. I was there for an hour, holding up the line. I called my friend to tell her it had been arranged. When she went to the Hilo Target to pick it up, they said there was no order. When I checked the order I got in my email, it did say the pickup was in Kona, not Hilo. Back to the drawing board.

Sunday, October 27, 2024

Mike would have turned 8 today. I woke up feeling fear about the outcome of the coming election. I'm not just scared about who's going to win. I think things will be bad regardless. I've been speaking about the end of civilization as we know it, if not the end of the human race, as we destroy everything around us in the name of preserving ourselves. I suppose it's possible there won't be violence after the election.

I heard what I thought was thunder as I woke up. We rarely get thunderstorms. But sure enough, that's what it was. Around 6 am, all my appliances made a squawking noise. I went out for my morning walk shortly before 7. When I returned, the electricity was off. This is the first time we have lost electricity since the solar system was installed. Even now, while the electricity was off for two hours, we were without for only one. We had enough power in the battery left to cover it.

I saw two friends at the 9 am mass, sitting on the lanai where I always sit rather than inside the church where they usually do. They hugged me and commented that today was Mike's birthday. The mass was said for him today. They probably attended this mass because of that. I was overcome. I started sobbing. Sadly, I don't cry easily. When it comes, I try to give in to it. My mother couldn't tolerate us crying. It upset her, and we were encouraged to stop, sometimes kindly, sometimes not so kindly.

I got up from my seat and stood behind a pillar to avoid disturbing everyone. A woman who does a lot for the church saw me and came over to offer comfort. I told her I was Mike's wife. She was great; she just stood with me. She went off to get a box of tissues for me and directed another woman who is also highly involved with the church to stand with me. She was not as sympathetic. She patted me in that stressed way that signals discomfort and a need for me to stop crying. She proposed telling me a funny story. At that point, I backed out of her grasp and asked her to stop. What she was doing wasn't helpful. I don't grieve easily. I needed the opportunity to do it. The grief builds up in me, and I deal with it by obsessing about all the things that are wrong. When Mike was alive, he was my comfort place. I felt safe with him even if he couldn't protect me from negative outside voices. What he protected me from was my inner voice, that helpless feeling that comes when you're alone in the world.

All the fears I lived with as a child were overwhelming me. When I was young, before I left my mother's home, I didn't realize how scared I was; it was part of me. The fear was partially because of the way my mother treated me. It was also because she lived in a constant state of terror and passed that on. If your mother is afraid of dogs, you will be too. Even if you never have a bad experience with one. My mother was triggered by everything. I don't think she ever got to the point where she was aware she was afraid. She just thought the world was a dangerous place. She may have been better off than me with my awareness that something is amiss with me.

I remember a dream when I realized I accepted Mike as my life partner. I dreamt I was lying on a bed that was twenty years big. Funny, that may have been accurate. Our marriage went through a ten-year rough spot at the twenty-year mark. I think it was because Mike lived in D.C. while he studied for his second Ph.D. at Catholic University. I think he realized he wasn't as dependent on me as he thought. We weren't inconsiderate of each other during that period. We just laughed less. When it finally broke, we were better than ever.

If Trump wins, his first order of business will be revenge against all those who opposed him. He will punish states that didn't elect him. He will punish registered democrats. I think this man is as close to evil as one can come. He is prepared to launch a full-throttle attack if he doesn't get what he wants.

My friend Melissa called; she is an OB/GYN who works as a substitute doctor in low-income hospitals. She doesn't think she will be called to cover for vacationing doctors as much in the future. She anticipates a surplus of doctors in the hospitals she is willing to serve. While she will never perform an abortion because of her religious beliefs, she is not opposed to it for others. She won't work in a state that prohibits it because the restrictions are draconian and put mothers at risk. Doctors are fleeing anti-abortion states. They are seeking employment in the hospitals where she has been working.

Melissa is opposed to Trump, as I am. Our concern is beyond his politics. We think the man is mentally unstable. He vows revenge on everyone who opposes him. He admires 'strong' leaders. He is scary.

I shared a theory Lutz told me. He said the super-wealthy are supporting him because they plan to have him killed once he is elected. They feel they can completely control Vance. This is what the industrialists thought when they put Hitler in power. Vance is no Hitler; Trump has that personality. Melissa, who travels abroad, said people from other countries believe that.

Saturday, October 26, 2024

I mowed the lawn today. It takes about half an hour. I can’t do the edges because the chickens have dug holes where the lawnmower gets stuck and shuts off. Because it’s an electric mower, it easily starts up again. This machine is a treat to work with. In the end, the mower was covered with dusty soil. I thought it could be safe to hose it down rather than dust it off. As long as I removed the battery and gave the machine enough time to dry before I used it again, all would be well.

Dan came over to give me an estimate for trimming my trees. We do it here to preserve our views. Dan was upset. Two of his dogs had killed his favorite cat. They had all been together for three years. They played together and slept together. Then, two of his dogs, siblings, ripped that poor cat apart. Dan was beside himself. The cat was his favorite. Dan takes in rescue animals from the humane society; they have his number of speed dial. He didn’t know what to do about those dogs. He would have to get rid of them before he killed his other cats. He wanted to beat them for what they had done. He said his dad used to beat the animals. My guess is he beat Dan, too. I knew if he did beat them, he would see his dad in himself; it would not be good for him.

Dean and Nina came over to continue with our Saturday Sorry game. I won handily today. I was the only one who ate ice cream. Usually, it’s Nina who eats it and wins. There is a correlation between eating ice cream and winning. I always enjoy their company.

I napped a lot, resisting doing anything uncertain, like writing or trimming large branches off the shrubs. I got some writing down. At the end of the day, I forced myself to go out and cut off large branches of several shrubs with a chainsaw.

Darby came over to walk. I had to wait until sunset to go out because I needed to light the yahrzeit candle for Mike at sunset. Tomorrow would be Mike’s 84th birthday. I miss him more with every passing year.