During Bikram, Heather announced that I was 79. People applauded; then, I applauded that I had made it to 79. Then there was that tightening of my throat and heart as I thought that Mike didn't make it to 79. Oh, well. I wonder if moments like this will go on forever.
As I turned over to get myself to my feet at the end of the Bikram class today, I felt a familiar pain on the top of my right hip. It's the one that had me flat on my back for a while. I knew there was no way I could get myself up. All I had to do was say, "Oh, oh," and there were people at my side, helping me. It took three people to get me up. Carla was at my hips, Jen was supporting my right arm, and Bill my left. Once I was on my feet, I could crab-walk out. Someone carried my mat, towel, water bottle, and a tennis ball for me. Jen went and got my car and parked it at the front door. I made it to the bathroom, crab walking. Coming back to the studio, I had to step down. That was out of reach for the moment. I saw Carla about to get in her car and asked her for help. She came running over and supported me as I shifted my weight to lower myself down one small step. When I got inside the studio, I announced, "All help is appreciated" It was Lisa that carried my stuff out to the car. Have I already told you how much I love this Bikram community? I am so grateful to have it.
As I was about to get in the car, Maite noticed my dented front bumper. She asked what happened. I told her the story of the accident. (See Thanksgiving's day entry if you missed it.) Dynan was listening as I told the story and mentioned how a friend of mine from the east coast imagined that everyone honked as the other driver and I stood in the middle of the road, hugging. They both shrugged. Dynan said, "No one honks around here." She said she once got distracted at a red light while fussing with something inside the car. When she looked up, what had been a green light was changing back to red. No one honked at her. It's just not done.
When I first moved here, Josh told stories of how two drivers going in opposite directions on a two-lane road might stop and talk, and no one behind either car would honk. It's really just not done. I hope it stays that way. It's lovely.
I went to the Carpet Care Center to pick up the floor attachment the lady had ordered for me. As someone was coming out of the shop, I asked him to help me carry the wand in. The lady ordered a universal attachment; it doesn't have a hole that fits over that pop-up button on the wand to secure it in place. However, it looked like the fit was tight enough to hold. I took it.
I went home, showered, did some work on the blog, and went to school. I was concerned that I would be in pain while at school, but I was so excited about my work with some of the kids that I pushed myself. This excitement is partially because of the great progress the kids are making, but it is also because I developed something new with two of them. Teaching is my creative outlet; I problem solve and develop new ways of addressing old problems.
I worked with R. in Mrs. D.'s class. She had missed one week of school. She told Mrs. D. it was because she had boils on her knees, but there were no marks there. Something was wrong with her story. She read Sassy the Cat, the first story in the Carpenter series, with considerable ease. She read his correctly several times, and when she made an error, she was able to self-correct. A huge difference! She asked to read Little Lad, the second story in the series. She struggled with it and made several errors reading his as him and not self-correcting. Okay, two steps forward and one step back. She told me how many copies of the stories she wanted to copy the words on her own. It seems to be doing something but not much and not quickly.
B. and N. came to the door as I was working with R., looking anxious to work with me. When I was finished with R., I worked with B. first. Yesterday, he had made the sounds, and I had given the name of the letter and written it. Today, I proposed he provide the sounds, I give the name of the letter, and he says the sound, the letter, and writes it. He was good with that. He wound up saying the sounds, the letters, and writing them without input from me. He did a little bit better spelling the words, but it was amazing how he did it. He was producing sounds, remembering the letter which represented them and writing it on his own. He was excited about his progress. He said his mom was, too.
Then N. came out to work with me. I told Mrs. D. that I thought his problem was that he had no recall for narrative, called episodic memory. She asked if his problem wasn't just that he didn't pay attention. I told her what I had experienced yesterday, and there was no question that he had paid a great deal of attention, answering my questions using the text the day before. He really had no recall.
I had told him to use the right side of his brain. Reading the McGilchrist book on the function of the two hemispheres is helpful. I was just reading about it last night. He says that it is the right brain that produces images, passes those images over to the left brain, and translates those images into words. Words are the domain of the left brain.
I told him to use his right brain to create images and to ask his right brain to recall those images when he answered questions about the story. He was excited. We went over the first chapter again. I wanted to flesh out the images before I moved on to new material in the second chapter. We only worked on that one chapter. When we finished with that, I asked him if that was enough for the day. He said yes. He wasn't bored; he was cooked. This is demanding work. They can only take so much at one time. It told him how brave he was. There's a mystery in this book. We both predicted the solution to the mystery. I am genuinely curious if either of us is right. I asked him if he wanted to take the book home to read. The other day, he took the book and didn't read it; today he looked like he couldn't wait to get started. We'll see. His excitement is a move in the right direction. It would be enough for one day.
Then I went to Mrs. B.'s room. I worked with I. first. Still no recall for words. When I got him to listen to what his brain told him the word was, he came up with the wrong word: for his he came up with she, for she he came up with they. The crazy mixed up files of I.
I asked him if he had problems when he first started reading. He said yes. Poor kid. He admitted it was scary not getting it the way his classmates did. I asked him if there was spinning in his brain. He said no. Okay. Back to the drawing board. I got the image of letters jumping up and down on the back of the right side of his brain. When I asked him if it described his experience, he said yes. When I showed him a vertical zig-zag pattern, he said yes. The movement started on the back of the right side of his head and then moved over to the left. Well, that would explain his problem. We had to find a way for the right brain to stop interfering with the left brain's work. I showed him how to do a spin release. He identified the spiral pattern he experienced; it moved from the center of the spiral out and got faster. I showed him how to release that spin. That wound up being enough for one day. It didn't make a difference in his reading. We'll see the next time I work with him.
When I got home, I spent a lot of the afternoon playing FreeCell. Then I started emptying the guest room to make it ready for the carpet installer on the 20th. I checked the suitcases I unloaded from the guest room closet. There is a huge one that still has tags on it from Ross for Less. I am going to try to return it tomorrow.
Sandor and Meaali'inani stopped by to pick up a warm jacket of Mike's that has writing on it like "Witness for Christ" and "Catholic Diocese of Honolulu," not the type of thing I want to see a homeless person use for sleeping in the rough. Although, if no one wants it in the diaconate, that's where it will go.
As they were leaving, Sandor and Meaali'inani noticed my dented bumper. They gave me two pieces of information I hadn't had. First, it is considered rude to honk your horn around here. I can't imagine this applies to Honolulu, but I don't know. The second piece of information was that the truck driver did have some liability because he shouldn't have had the hitch attachment on. It's supposed to be removed when you're not using it. However, I see lots of trucks with hitch attachments left on.
I also told Sandor the story of Jacquie, a parishioner. Her husband died recently, and her step-son and his wife gave her a month and a half to get out of the house. Jacquie, who is a devotedly religious woman, confessed to the church pastor that she was angry at her husband for not protecting her more. The pastor, who usually never comments on issues like this, said, "I'm angry, too." We're all distressed by her circumstances. As with everything, there is an upside to even the worst circumstances. For Jacquie, it is the response of the parish and even the broader community. Everyone is working to help her.
Sandor commented that she wasn't looking well when he saw her in church. I told him that she was suffering from styes. He said, "Send her to me." Sandor and his wife, Meaali'inani, are both optometrists. He said he had a machine that helps with sties, "Tell her to come to the office on Monday, and I will have someone treat her, no charge." Such a Hawaiian response. God, I love living here. Besides the community, the island is magical.
When I rode to Bikram the other day with Jeff and Deb, we were talking about it. The myth is that the island decides who stays and who goes. Some have no luck when living here. It is said that the island is not welcoming to them.
Jeff said when he first stepped off the plane, and his feet touched the tarmac, he could physically feel the pull of the island. That's the way it is. Deb had a similar story.
For Mike and me, it was both that physical pull and the circumstances we found here. When we arrived, we felt as if the island was saying to us, "What the hell took you so long?" Our lives here were the best of anywhere we lived – not including Mike's illness and death. But for me, if I have to be alone, I couldn't possibly have better circumstances.
Musings:
McGilchrist, author of the Master and His Emissary, argues that the right brain is the one that is in touch with reality, the part of the brain that grounds us. It is the right brain the presents the world to us and the left brain that represents the world to us. The left brain abstracts knowledge from context and from its relationship to everything else.
I'm looking at this as a reading teacher, particularly in light of my current work with N. When reading, we work from words taken in by our left brain. This information is transferred to the right, where images are produced. The right brain is the movie maker. Now fictional novels are not reality. Yet, to understand them, we have engaged our right brain's capacity for imagery. What does this have to do with reality or grounding?
Methinks McGilchrist has simplified the relationship between the two sides of the brain. I can feel my head spinning with the possibilities. I think he made a left-brain move and reduced brain function to manageable parts.
The question for me, as I use BrainManagementSkills to help students modify their brains, so they are more fully functional – oh, so many things right now, I can't reduce it to a single question.
I know there is evidence that the right brain responds to stimuli before the left does. We are in action before the left kicks in to be conscious of what we are doing. We then articulate what we are doing, and the left brain declares, "I made that happen." Question: Is there a conscious and nonconscious aspect to both sides of the brain? Surely, we don't always respond to every situation as if it is novel. We'd go nuts if that was the case. We have scripts in our minds for how to respond to known situations. They are actually called scripts by linguists. These scripts must be episodic; they're like little YouTube videos in our heads telling us how to respond, which we do.
I think I had a situation the other day where the left brain dictated an action which the right-brain didn't initiate. It was when I thought that the moon had moved, but it was the earth was moving. I experienced this on a sensational level. We cannot feel the earth moving – unless we are having great sex in a Hemingway novel. Therefore, it was my left brain that initiated sensation, not my right brain's experience in the real world. If you remember, I experienced my legs muscles twitching in response to my thought, getting me ready to fight for my balance in a shaking world. My right brain had no role in initiating that response.
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