Friday, April 2, 2021
I slept well until 3:30. Then I was awake and wrestling with annoying thoughts: trying to get people to see something my way. It was becoming clearer; what I missed most about Mike was how he looked at me with delight. I meditated to ease my distress. It occurred to me to recall anyone who looked at me with delight. My paternal grandfather came to mind. He sat in my mother's house every day as a tolerated guest. I treated him terribly. I didn't see him as a relevant source of love and comfort. I knew he created a space for me to be myself, to release the stress I lived under. He loved to watch me dance, and I loved to dance. It had occurred to me that space was created because when I was dancing and he was watching, my mother had everything under control. She knew where both of us were and what we were doing. I don't think my mother would have tolerated my daily dancing if he hadn't been there. Free self-expression wasn't something I remember her being uncomfortable with. It occurred to me a 4:00 am was that my grandfather, Opi, made an active contribution to my life. He took delight. I remember my dad looking at me that way too. I remember my mom looking at me, beaming. I wouldn't describe that as a look of delight. It was too intense- maybe joy and pride. But if I 'caught' her looking at me that way, she would quickly turn away. My mother believed that positive feedback was bad for children- for people in general. Some of her beliefs were culturally rooted, but she added her own twist.
Feeling the lack of that delight in my life feels like losing a most basic need. I know others have respect or admiration for me, but delight is what I need. It's what I got and gave in my relationship with Mike. People say that a truly loving relationship isn't where you keep account of what you give and get. Bull shit! It's just that what's being accounted for is different. It's not how much money he spent on me or how many times he did something my way, although those factors can enter in. Being looked at with delight was the bottom line. It was worth, let's say, 1,000 points.
Then there was laughter, affection, and another thousand there for each. Then Mike was a person I could take delight in, someone who allowed me to express that feeling freely without feeling demeaned. Demeaned, you ask? Isn't the delight I'm describing what we express to young children? They are delightful; they delight us, and we feel free to express that delight. Mike and I were two grown people who didn't object to being looked at with delight, and didn't feel demeaned or diminished by having someone enjoy us as they would a child. However, we never viewed each other as children. We didn't rob each other of authority or autonomy. How did I ever get so lucky to meet this man?
Well, I’ve counted up the positive points, delight 1,000, playfulness 1,000, affection 1,000. The negatives were trivial against that accumulation of points—five hundred off for his lousy conversational skills. But 750 added on, maybe even another 1,000 for his ability and willingness to not only negotiate with me but cocreate solutions to our life challenges.
I realized this morning why Jesus is such a big deal. He is described as a source of unconditional love. I think this means he can delight in us. While I think Mike was able to become a fully believing Christian, it's harder for me. The reasoning behind the belief system seems shaky to me at best. But I am capable of allowing, giving permission to, my right brain to believe in the love and healing presence of Jesus. The process is captured in the phrase, "Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing." There is a truth behind that.
The left hand connects to the right hemisphere, the right hand to the left. The left is more logical, structured, downright controlling, and associated with ego. The right hemisphere is more childlike. I can separate the two. I have a bright left brain. It knows it's good for me to accept that love of Jesus. People who do not keep these two aspects of the brain separate, allowing each to do what it does best and complement each other, run into trouble.
When walking, I am trying to focus more on pulling up my thigh muscles, which triggers my abdomen's uplift. It's hard work.
Because I wrote a note to myself, I remembered to call the Easter Seals service in Honolulu to ask if they provided services for a high-functioning girl that is poor at picking up on non-verbal cues. Another option is for them to advise me on what I could do to address this problem. They had no one in the office- Covid. They will get back to me sometime next week.
I had two sessions today; actually, three, no, four if you count my session l had with Shelly. I felt very stressed by unsatisfying interactions with some people and hearing about unsatisfying interactions between other people. Sitting with sadness and grief is a bitch.
In my last session with Shelly, I sat with the pain my mother caused me that I still carried. That was unpleasant. It was made worse by her insistence that she did nothing to hurt me; I was only claiming to be that to hurt her. When the old pain waved over me, a hug from Mike would comfort me. Now, I don't have that. I am dependent on people who are either not as comforting or not as available as Mike was.
I went back to that sensation, sitting at the bottom of my abdomen. An image of a trout-sized fish flopping about in a small puddle of water at the bottom of a well came to mind. At first, I saw that as an image of myself in pain. But this fish looked at me with a cunning eye. Weird.
I knew I had to go down to the bottom of the well to be near the fish. My image was of a stone-lined well with a metal rung ladder. I started climbing down. A chill penetrated my body that was deeper than the wet chill of the well. Shelly felt it too.
When I got to the bottom, I sat on one of the bottom rungs and just watched. My four-year-old self entered the scene. She crouched by the fish, tempted to touch it. She reached out and pulled her hand back repeatedly. I thought the fish was a part of me that I had to absorb back into myself – but that odd look? That's where the session ended. I mediated, continuing on my own. I concluded the fish represented a will to power, much praised by Nietzsche and the Nazis, but one my conscious mind always feared. I'm sure a four-year-old child has to deal with this question. An infant has no doubt about who should be in power. Some people choose that path and work to achieve power and control in their lives. I always thought it was so lonely at the 'top.' Not interested, thank you. I wanted to say firmly rooted in the ordinary. I concluded that the image I saw was my four-year-old self wrestling with that question. So far, the fish has been left there flopping. Maybe all I have to absorb s the four-year-old who wants power. I didn't know what to do with the fish. Further meditation will reveal that.
I had a session with 4th grade D. He told me he didn't have school today. I was confused; was it a holiday? He had reminded me it was Good Friday. I knew that but forgot. My tutoring session with him was more of the same. I have to remind him to use the procedures I have taught him: when confused: start with the vowel; if you have trouble blending, use cross body blending. He had a problem with one of the comprehension exercises. It had a 'not' statement in it. He overlooked that.
I had a zoom meeting with one of the Step-Up Tutors working with a first-grade girl. The tutor has no experience teaching. Julia referred her to me. This little girl reads they and them as the—some combination of poor visual perception, poor memory, and no phonics. I don't know which one is the worst. I showed the tutor how to use the Phonics Discovery system with the sight word list. There may be other factors involved.
In the late afternoon, I had an appointment with my adolescent D. He did the work but was hostile to any intrusion into his personal thought process. I asked him how he felt about the work, hoping his response would be better. I wanted it to be fun, as in a video game. I also asked where in his brain he sensed activity. He was unresponsive. I started wondering if I would be able to help him. If he, and his mom, thought this wouldn't help him, I just had to let it go.
I sat down to meditate on my adolescent D. I concluded that I had to stop asking him questions about his perceptions of himself. He was very private; he wouldn't even let me see his face on the screen. His dad walked through the room while we were working and said, "Wouldn't it be better if you could see him?" in an annoyed voice. I said, "Your son is very private. If he's uncomfortable and feels he has to defend himself, that will be more counterproductive than whatever problems are caused by not being able to see him." Now, I realized that I could not use my BrainManagementSkills with this boy. I told him that I would not ask any more questions and just focus on the procedure. I had a plan for our next lesson.
There was also another problem. When adolescent D decoded a paragraph on a fourth-grade level, he read the long words he had to use a labor-intensive strategy to decode. Still, he missed two sight words, they being one of them. Huh? He passed the sight word list. His visual memory tested as good. I'll have to think about this.
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