Saturday, June 5, 2021

 Saturday, June 5, 2021

 

      Today was my half birthday, making me eighty and a half—time to start counting those six-month intervals. After 98, I’ll start counting the months, then the weeks, and then the days. My mom said the rate of decline increases at the end just as the growth rate was faster at the beginning of life.

        I got up when I felt like it. I figured it to be 7 am when I did get up. Nah, it was still before six am. I always have something to get up for. I modified my walk again based on what I read in Exercised. Primitive people understand that sitting, walking, running, and even standing are learned activities. Instead of aiming for a concentrated heel strike, I placed my foot almost flat on the ground. My knee was bent, coiling my leg muscles for the push-off. My foot is under my knee instead of ahead of it. Then I push all the way up through my psoas muscle. Wow!  

Liberman says tribal people who use walking and running as a primary means of transportation take 170 to 180 steps per minute. I figured mine would be fewer- age. I came up with an exact 100. Of course, I’m still struggling with my bad hip. Although it doesn’t feel like it has anything to do with the bone, it feels like the soft tissue is spasming. Is the nerve problem caused by a pinch in my hip joint, or is the nerve problem because of entrapped nerves in the soft tissue? When muscles are misused, they dehydrate and compress the nerves in those dry, hard tissues.

I only had a session with adolescent D today. We spent most of the time on BrainManagementSkills. He doesn’t remember patterns I have shown him repeatedly. He confuses her and here, and we covered that several times. It seems that he is processing auditory information through his visual system. It can be done; it is also possible to use your feet for writing and unrolling toilet paper when you don’t have arms. I’ve seen it done. It takes much more effort to learn and then perform these activities. D makes every effort to pay attention. It’s much harder if you don’t have a clear impression.

        Today I heard someone read a story on NPR’s Selected Shorts using a poor recording system. I could hear the words but not clearly. I was much harder to follow. It was tiring. It must be like for folks who have compromised auditory perceptual systems.

        I spoke to his mother afterward. She struggles with what to do with him next year; he should be a high school freshman. I don’t think he should be sent to the local public school if it can be avoided. He has a “kick me” sign on him, and it’s a tough school. She considered finding an online program that he could work on at home. I advised against it. D is a shy kid, very shy. He won’t show his image on Zoom. He prefers to hide. Oh, dear. I told his mom that people without his problems were having problems readjusting to social contact after being secluded for a year because of Covid. I didn’t think it would be a good idea to allow him to become more secluded than he is. 

       I told her that his reading problem was serious. I didn’t know if I could solve it. As it stands now, chances are he won’t become a good reader. He may become a labored reader who has to consciously think of the patterns he is looking at instead of processing them automatically. If we don’t open up his auditory working center, he will have a tough time. His weak auditory processing interferes with his understanding of what others say. I think all speech sounds are muted for him.

         I drove to town to mail my damaged iPhone to the insurance company. I thought the woman at T-Mobile said I should drop it off at UPS. She may have, but the clerk there said the prepaid label was for the Postal system. I was tired and dreaded a long line at the post office, but I had to get this out before getting fined. 

        The line in the post office wasn’t bad. The clerk was this nice young man. He helped me pack up the phone. Being an auntie here in Hawaii is an absolute treat. I couldn’t have retired to a better place. I’m not invisible here. 

        I was going to stop at the cemetery to confirm the dimensions of the stone shape I had selected. I skipped that. I also skipped a stop at Costco. I just wanted to make it home safely. I was exhausted. Most of my current naps were half an hour long. Then I was up and ready to go. Today, I took a two-hour nap and felt like I could have used a few more hours. When I get tired like that, I get concerned. Is my heart failing? I felt like a deflated tire today. 

        One of the books I’m making my way through is Dehaene’s How We Learn. Love it! Love it! I have to read it slowly, so I give myself time to internalize what I’ve read. I’ve been reading about the role of curiosity in learning. He said curiosity is what makes it possible to learn. It was lacking in adolescent D. He wanted to learn so he’s ‘normal’ but not gain a skill or information. Why is he that way? Is his inability to take in information an emotional problem, from lack of exposure to the process, from misuse of the brain, or a neurological disorder? How do I stimulate curiosity in him? Setting a reasonable objective for the session is key. Dehaene on curiosity: it’s dulled by lack of stimulation and dulled by too great a challenge

  Problem: I can set a goal for him, but if his unstated goal is to read something perfectly without help as if he never had a problem, how do I convince him to set an appropriate goal? 

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Musings:

I heard this story on The Moth Radio Hour. 

 

       A young black woman wound up going to college in a small town where she was the only black student, and there was a maximum-security prison. There was a group of students that visited the prisoners regularly. One day our heroine made her trip out to the prison alone. She remembered a rock concert and knew her fellow workers had chosen to go there.

When she arrived at the prison, it was her and thirty men. Someone asked her where the others were. She explained they all went to the concert. She was asked if she didn’t like the band. She said yes, she did. “Then why didn’t you go to the concert?” She replied, “Because I love you and care about you.” Her response was met with dead silence.

        After a while, she asked if she had said something wrong. One man stood up and, with tears in his eyes, said, “None one has ever said they loved me before.” As she looked around, she realized all the men had tears in their eyes. One man said, “Look, even the guard is crying.”

Can you imagine never having anyone say I love you and care about you? I started counting all the people in my life who thought I was important enough to care about. My parents weren’t perfect, but my sister and I were high on their list of priorities. I don’t know if they ever said I love you, but their emotional attachment to us was clear. 

        Besides my childhood, I am one of the lucky ones who had a partner in Mike, who made me feel loved and valued for forty-five years. How lucky am I?