Saturday, May 8, 2021
After my morning walk, I went out and vinegared the yard. When I came back into the house, I had a surprise from Elsa. She had delivered the largest poop I had ever seen on the lanai carpet. I swear she must have invited at least two other dogs of the same size. I didn’t have time to clean it up. I had a tutoring session. That’s okay. It didn’t smell. Even if it did, it was on the screened-in lanai. The breezes took care of that problem.
At 10 am, I had an appointment with my adolescent D. I planned to work on helping him overcome his negativity. He has made tremendous progress in his reading in a very short period. Nonetheless, he focuses on what he still can’t do. Maddening.
I have other students who have similar problems. They feel down because they can’t perform as their peers can. Most of them are happy to leave that mental state behind when they see they can learn. However, D seems to have an intellectual commitment to his negative position. He’s a perfectionist. I can’t think of anything more deadly for learning and growing. Telling him that his attitude is counterproductive doesn’t seem to have much impact. According to his mom, he has always been a perfectionist. I pointed out to him how much his mental state hurts the people who love him – not to mention me. Boy, it is such a drag.
I called A.’s mother to confirm for today. I only then realized that I had forgotten our Thursday appointment. One explanation is that I had a lot of schedule changes going on this week. Another one is that I had plans of working with A on his crossbody-blending. In our last session, when I asked him why he wouldn’t do it without my pushing, he told me that he wanted to blend ‘on his own and not rely on the crossbody blending. Oh, great. I compared the crossbody-blending to the training wheels on a two-wheel bike. It helps you learn; it’s not something you use forever.
A’s mother told me that she had to do something and wouldn’t be available today for our appointment. I assume she was pissed at me since she didn’t call me ahead to tell me about the cancelation.
I contacted my acupuncturist to tell her I had a cancellation and could come in earlier. I know she prefers spending the day with her family. Since there was no answer, I left to make it for 12:30. She was finishing up with another client. It didn’t take long before it was my turn.
She had me lying on my belly again so she could work on my back to relax the muscles in my back. The problem is my left upper thigh muscle can’t handle the stretch. It started hurting. I bent the leg to get relief. It didn’t help much. Jennifer lifted the bent leg into the air like Achilles’s mom must-have. My leg relaxed immediately. I had this wonderful vision of my leg being held up by a rope suspended from the ceiling. The impact was amazing. Jennifer decided not to push it: no more bodywork, only the needles for the rest of the session. It sounded like a good plan. I made it to the end of the session without additional pain. When I was finishing, my leg felt so relaxed I was concerned about it working for me when I walked. I made it to the car okay.
The acupuncturist’s office is on the same street as Costco. I planned to stop by there. However, the parking lot was full. Even the parking spots at the far reaches of the lot were full. I went home to nap and listen to the Saturday NPR shows. They talked about fake videos on the TED radio hour and how hard it will become to tell truth from fiction. I almost turned it off; it was so upsetting.
I had to leave for Joe’s party before 5 pm because I brought chips and salsa, something to be served before the main meal. Joe lives in a gated community. It’s only ten minutes from my house, right off the Mamalahoa Hwy. It had no idea it was there. Once through the community gate, I drove about a mile back down the mountain to get to his road. What a view!! I already knew he lived on a large property; I can’t remember if it was 3 or 5 acres. Once through his gate, yes, he had a gate on his driveway, too; I had a steep climb up the driveway to the house. It would be hard to describe the view. It is 1800 of unobstructed ocean view. It seems greater than that because a stretch of land juts out on the part of the shoreline.
Besides the view, his house is fantastic. He has a sizeable great room, opening up on to lanai with a pool. Unlike my house, where the common part can never be closed off from the outside (no doors), his house has these huge, sequenced glass sliding panels that reach across a good thirty feet.
Deb from yoga arrived at the party with a friend of hers with whom she frequently travels. Deb had reached out to me to offer me a healing session. At that instant, it couldn’t have been worse timing. I was having a difficult time with a mutual acquaintance. It would have been inappropriate for me to deal with those feelings with her. As it happens, she said she offered it because it was Easter. She knew Easter was a significant event in our lives because of Mike’s involvement with the church. How sweet of her to think of that. However, Easter came and went without me giving it a second thought. She spoke about how sweet Mike was. Boy, do I miss that sweetness. Sadness washed over me as she spoke about him. Many people talk about him in his capacity in the church: how much work he did, how much he helped Fr. Lio, and how smart he was. I don’t have many people speak about how sweet he was. Boy, was he ever sweet- and he loved me. How lucky was I?
Yvette had been invited to the party. I finally texted her to find out her plans. She said she wasn’t coming; she asked if Elsa was confined to my bedroom area for some reason. Yes, I didn’t have time to walk her. I wanted to make sure she did her business on the tiled floor, in the shower, or on the wee-wee pads I put down. She must have been barking her little head off. Yvette texted me to say she took her downstairs so she could have the run of the yard and hang with her three dogs.
When I pulled into the driveway, I immediately called Yvette to tell her I was home. I would meet her at the fence, and she could pass Elsa to me. The next thing I knew, Yvette was up in my driveway Elsa in her arms. She put her inside my house and ran out to the driveway entrance to pick up a takeout delivery.. Yvette hadn’t latched the door, and Elsa had pushed it open. She came running to the car and jumped inside. I told her I wasn’t going anywhere,” Let’s go inside.” I picked her up and carried her inside. Poor baby, she was shaking. I sat down in my old lady’s chair and held her until she was ready to go on with her life without clinging to me.
Yesterday I had a problem watching Endeavor. There was no sound. I tried again. Today, I found the audio icon. That was an easy fix. I swear it wasn’t there yesterday; I looked and looked. Since I finished series 7, I went back to watch earlier shows. I started as far back as Season 4. The first show I watched, I recognized it immediately. The nutty wife did it. I saw that show with Mike. Ah, I remember it well. He loved the Endeavor series. I hope I don’t have such a clear recollection of the rest of them.
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Musings:
Ian McGilchrist, author of The Master and His Emissary, was on some NPR radio show. I read his book and had the same reaction to his thesis upon hearing him as I had upon reading him. He argues that the right brain should be the master and the left the emissary. We’ve gone wrong in contemporary life, making the left the dominant hemisphere. I agree the left brain is overvalued in modern western culture. The full-on right brain output is valued in retrospect in art, literature, and even scientific breakthroughs.
The left brain represents order, the existing conventions. The right brain was allowed to flourish in primitive cultures. Then magic is part of everyone’s life. However, allowing the right brain to dominate is like allowing a child to be the boss of the family. When that does happen, and it does happen, there’s either total chaos, disaster, or the child has to become an adult, the adult, in the family. When the left brain is completely dominant, we are faced with rigid rules that only work for an elite few- if that.
We are not living in a well-ordered society anymore. People fear chaos. Right brain people introduce new ideas that challenge whatever order still exists. That’s terrifying when there is no agreed-upon pattern of order.
We need a new way to think about the brain. The right and left are equal partners, challenging each other and helping to co-create a balanced response to today’s world. All this begs the question, “Who’s in charge?” If neither the right nor the left is the master, is there a master?
I would like to think a single master is not necessary. Mike and I were a good balance. Neither one of us was in charge. I know I was no pushover. When Mike was flat on his back in the hospital in preparation for dying, a male attendant looked at me and said, “It’s clear who wears the pants in your family.” No, we were partners. I would ask him if he felt controlled. He said no. I asked because I didn’t either. I wondered if I didn’t feel controlled because I had the control? I prefer to believe we were balanced. There was no ‘master.’
Maybe we can think of it this way. We found solutions together. If they didn’t work, we didn’t condemn each other. Instead, we examined what we had done wrong and how we could change it. Can’t the right and left brains work that way? Maybe the question is, “Who sets the objectives?” Again, Mike and I did. We had some in common when we first met. You need a base of commonality. Then they evolved over our lifetime. Did we always do everything perfectly? Good God, no. Neither did we blame each other when things went wrong. We just went back to the drawing board together. Can the left and right brains do that? Again, how are the objectives set? Hmm.
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