I slept deeply last night. I was in a dozing phase when the alarm went off. I considered staying in bed. I got up and completed 5,000 steps instead of 6,000.
We had yoga this morning. There were five of us. Both Deb and Elise brought treats. Elise brought Stover's chocolate-covered mints; yum. She gave me what was left of the container. I'm not usually a fan of mint, but this chocolate is delicious. Deb brought homemade pumpkin muffins. She often brings a homemade treat.
When I checked my email, Melissa had sent another email with all thirteen pages of the article read and edited. She found the article interesting. I do love it when someone shows an interest in my work. She said she knew a place where it might be distributed to get an audience. I have no idea what to do with it. I would like to have a website devoted to my educational ideas.
Yvette called. She and Scot were at Kua Bay and said the water was calm. The water there can be downright treacherous. Yvette with Scott were prepared to stay with me while I went in the water and hold on to me. Last time, it was just Yvette and me. I held on to her the whole time. It was a wonderful experience. It felt like too much for me to go down there today. Would I regret my decision?
After yoga, I sat down to meditate for an hour. Only, I didn't set the alarm and wound up sitting there for 2 hours. Of course, I had dozed off. Afterward, I went out to work in the garden. I cut back bougainvillea, where it had taken over other plants. I was out there alone, working away for another two hours. I was so happy; I was happy alone.
When I got in, it was after 1 pm already. My family was scheduled to meet in Zoom at 2 pm. Dorothy, her son David and his girlfriend Marliese, Jean, and John, were all in Central New Jersey. Dorothy's husband was in Massachusetts. Dorothy's daughter, Karin, her husband David, and her son Sam were all in Seattle. Damon, Cylin, and August joined in with us after a while from LA. It was wonderful. In some ways, it was better than in person; on the other hand, there is no substitute for being in person.
Because we were all on the screen at the same time, I had equal access to everyone. If we had been sitting around a table, I would only have had access to those I was sitting nearby. Because we weren't all eating together around a large table, the conversation wasn't around food, except briefly. When are all sitting together, the comments sound like, Could someone pass the . . . . ? Who made the . . . . .? Are there any more . . . . .? How did you make the …..? And, of course, our mouths are busy chewing.
Today there was some discussion about food. People who were eating listed the foods in their meal. Dorothy had bought a prepared turkey cutlet. It wound up being too salty and uneatable. John and Jean had great success with the lamb they pulled out of the back of their freezer. Karin and David had ordered a pre-cooked turkey from a reputable restaurant. The directions were to cook it for another forty-five minutes to make it crispy. When done, they discovered it was raw inside and uneatable. Damon was just crisping their turkey. He and Cylin had planned to host all their single friends. People backed out because the virus is flaring in the LA area.
The only focused conversation was on Marlies's post-doc work in Princeton on the neuroscience of autism. We were all captivated, me particularly. I would love to hear more about her work, especially since I will be working with H, who is autistic. Marliese is working with 'autistic rats." She puts it in quotes because there is no real way to diagnosis them as you might a human. The criterion is that they would prefer to spend time with an object than a member of their own species. She said there are ten different ways to create an "autistic rat." That was also fascinating. One of the ways was by injecting them with a virus. That was a shock. It made me think of the anti-vaccers.
Marliese mentioned one neuroscientist who wrote books on neuroscience and education, Stanislaw Dehaene. I recognized the name. I was pretty sure I had at least one of his books. Sure enough. I had his book on Reading and the Brain. It was well marked; there were several pages I had clipped together. I will have to skim through the book again. I also got on Amazon and ordered all his other books.
This morning, I was listening to a TED talk on bias. We remember what reinforces our established opinions and beliefs. The speaker talked about people who don't accept what scientists have to say, even when all scientists say the same thing. Oy vey! How many times have scientists revised their positions when new information came out? This is tough. We ultimately have to make up our own minds. I think of myself as someone who thinks well of science, but I have learned to keep an open mind to other perspectives. We have no clear source of information anymore, not even from ourselves. The subjectivity of all perception has been drilled into our heads. We have lost our firm grounding. I have learned to live with uncertainty. I have worked on learning to tolerate it. What happens to all those who have no experience with this? What happens to all those who conflate belief with reality, who really don't recognize a difference?
After I got off the Zoom with Dorothy and company, I got on Zoom with Judy and her family for a few minutes. Then I went into the library and packed up another three boxes of books and loaded them in the car to drop off at the post office tomorrow.
When Elsa and I went for our evening walk, the clouds were hanging heavily, threatening rain. I had many steps to complete before I hit 9,000. I was at a little over 8,000 when I hit the driveway. I was planning to walk past to get in more steps, but someone exploded a firecracker. Elsa asked to be picked up. Well, that ended our walk. I was not going to subject her to that noise. It's scary for all dogs.
I tried to complete my steps in the house, but we could still hear the firecrackers going off. She asked to be picked up. I could complete a couple more passes, but her weight was too much for my leg. I sat down with her. Her dinner was sitting on the counter, cooling from the hot water I added to her Dr. Marty's dinner. I told her she was going to have to get down if she wanted her dinner. She was more afraid of that noise than hungry for dinner.
She finally got down. I served her dinner and got ready to eat mine. I still needed to make a salad and prepare my lemonade. The rest of the diner was easy; Paulette brought leftovers from the Glickstein Thanksgiving dinner. It was delicious, and I have more for tomorrow, if not another one or two days.
_____-_____-_____
Musings:
Studies on meditation find there is a correlation between compassion, self-control, and generosity. My best guess is the meditation teaches compassion for the self. Once we have that for ourselves, we have more to give others. Before we have that, we are always struggling to get our own. We don't have enough to give to others.
No comments:
Post a Comment