Monday, October 28, 2019

No Bikram and no school. My back was killing me. I walked Elsa in the morning, up and down in front of the house.

    I spent the morning making some phone calls to friends and family and calling to make a same-day appointment with my doctor to see if I could get some muscle relaxants. All walking was a challenge. 

    I was going to make arrangements for my flights to the East Coast today when I received an email from Damon telling me that his mom wasn't up to having guests. What!!! She was the one I always stayed with when I went to Princeton. I can't stay with my sister, who lives nearby and at whose house the family will be gathering. I am unwilling to stay in a hotel without Mike. I was devastated. 

    I called Judy immediately. I told her that I would be with her and her family for Thanksgiving and probably Christmas because Damon wants to use that time to visit colleges in northern California with August, his son.  

    After feeling sorry for myself for about two hours, I started thinking differently. Maybe this is all for the best. This will be my first Thanksgiving without Mike. His absence would be difficult not only for me but also for the rest of the family. If I'm not there, we can all deny the reality for another year, have another year to adjust to this remarkable situation.  

    Judy, Paulette, and Adam will be cooking and serving dinner here at my house. They have used my house on other occasions for celebrations. There's more room for seating people, and the kitchen is fantastic. Mike designed it with the contractor Ken. He was so happy with it. It was a dream come true. I am delighted that others can enjoy it. Me, not so much. I use the microwave and the toaster oven. I rarely even use the six-burner stovetop. Last night I finally ate some of the chicken back and leg I broiled in the toaster oven a few days ago. Since I had no idea if it was thoroughly cooked, I sliced some meat off the bones and placed it loose in the toaster oven tray. I came out delicious. I was afraid it would come out dry, but it turned out crispy. You wait, I'm going to be writing a cookbook soon.

    I had a 4:15 appointment with the doctor. Fortunately, I was able to get my primary doctor, with whom I get along beautifully. She agreed that this was probably a psoas problem. She showed me some exercises. She also prescribed physical therapy. As it winds up, she was a massage therapist for five years. The exercises sounded good, but I have to be careful not to trigger more problems. She prescribed a muscle relaxant, but the pharmacy was already closed. She also wanted me to go to the lab and get a blood sample to check my kidney function to be sure that the medication dosage is correct. I will be careful taking those pills until we know how they will interact with my kidneys. My last test was a year ago when I was being evaluated as a kidney donor for Mike. I failed as a donor because my kidney function was good enough for my age, but not good enough to be a donor. God, that is all so long ago now.

    Yvette came up in the evening. I asked her some direct questions about what she meant by certain things she said and did. Our communication styles are very different. Although we've known each other for 50 years now, we're only just getting to know each other. The differences were a shock. There are ways we scare each other. It can be very stressful. And then we have Mike's death on top of it. Mike was also very important to Yvette. His being gone changes the dynamic of our relationship, hopefully for the better in the end. Mike was somewhat tighter about dealing with conflict and differences than I am. With fewer restrictions on our relationship, things can come up and out that couldn't before. Yes, it's a risk, but I find it's always worth it. We both feel that even if we can't develop the relationship we both want, we will grow and become better people through the process. At the end of the evening, Yvette spoke about feeling so much stress at times that she couldn't think straight, our relationship being one of the causes. I knew exactly what she was talking about. Our differences are difficult for both of us. She thanked me for making her grow. I thanked her for challenging me, and we laughed together. What a gift to be able to laugh about our difficulties together. 

   I stayed in the living room and didn't watch any TV. I can't do anything with the books right now anyway. Lifting a book is out of the question. E. came up to say goodbye after spending the weekend with his grandfather. His eyes had the same open look I had seen a week ago.  I always thought his veiled look was due to shyness, depression, or shame. It finally occurred to me to ask him if he was understanding conversation better than he used to.  Wow!  I had already asked him about his reading speed and ability to understand what the teachers said, and he had told me that both were better after listening to the phonemic awareness audio file, but this...   I knew he had problems reading when he was young. We straightened that out, and he has been a top-performing student for years, but I had no idea that his auditory processing was still a problem. I was blown away by the difference the recording made in this 15-year-old child's life. This is more than I had ever hoped for.

 

Musings:

    I finished the book on Aquinas; it was a very short introduction, as promised. I learned that this man's work, which is now considered one of the church's foundational thoughts, was rejected by the church for many years after his death. He was resurrected during the Enlightenment period when thinking became more liberal. Aquinas was designated the anchor of conservative thought against the flood of looser thinking. Interesting.

    I've started two other books now. It's hard to read them at length because they are so full of exciting and challenging ideas. They reflect my thinking for the most part. One of the books is Tribe by Sebastian Junger, which Josh recommended.

    Junger writes that in the early periods of this country, many whites abandoned life among their kind to join some Indian tribe, finding the way of life much more pleasurable. On the other hand, there were no Indians who abandoned tribal life for life among the American-Europeans. The advantages of tribal life included social connections, equality of power, and access to material goods. Since these tribes were nomadic, it was difficult for anyone to accumulate a great deal of wealth. An anthropology teacher once pointed out that theft was not an option in a small tribal group because all basic material needs were shared. If anyone stole something unique from another person, they would never be able to use it. Everyone in the 50-member group would know who it belonged to. 

            There is greater leisure living primitively than the way we live now. He says the iKung tribe, which continued living primitively into modern times, was observed. Only members worked 12 hours a week gathering and preparing their basic needs, living in one of the world's most hostile environments. Some white people wrote that there was no one forcing anyone to work in tribal settings. During peace, tribal life was pleasurable.. No one was ever alone. However, I know this from what I had read about tribal life and what I experienced in the commune when I lived there: privacy is achieved by people ignoring you when you signal that you want to be by yourself. The standards of behavior are quite different. There is plenty of time to be with your thoughts in the secure presence of others who don't judge you. Truly lovely. 

    Junger also wrote that when he was younger, he hitched across the country to get to know the country better and find himself. I understand completely. I had similar fantasies. I felt it would get me down to the basics of life, and I would be securely anchored to reality. While we dread disasters, they also represent some of the best moments of our lives as we share those moments with others and pull together for everyone's sake.