I ended my morning walk early because my leg tired easily. When I got home, I was inspired to pull more books. I finished off most of another bay. I found five more books.
I finally found out what was going on with Amazon. I spoke to one customer service person. They consulted with someone else to determine why my account had been shut down, and my purchases had not been charged to my new card. The first person disconnected. An accident? Deliberately? The second one I got was more confident. She recognized that dealing with my problem was above her pay grade and connected me to an expert. The expert knew what to do.
Because I had answered the Amazon email the other day, posting the last two digits of my credit card, the order numbers with rejected payments, and a note to charge these items to my credit card, my account was reinstated. While I had her on the phone, I asked her about another problem.
I had made an expensive purchase, returned it, got an email from Amazon confirming the return, but I had no record of the return on my credit card. What was going on? The customer service representative asked me which credit card I'd used to purchase the computer. I gave her the last four numbers of my closed card and my new card. She said, no, it was neither one of those. I went and got the credit card I only use for Costco. No, it wasn't that one either. Huh? I said I didn't have any other credit cards. "OMG!" There is another credit card posted on my Amazon account. It was the card of the young woman who lived here for a time. She ordered an item on my Amazon account so it could be delivered for free under my Prime.
Prime accounts are vital here. I had a pair of glasses- lightweight glasses- sent from Ohio by UPS; it cost $60. I order brewer's yeast from the Wellness Forum in Columbus regularly. It costs $5 to send it to Dorothy in New Jersey; it costs $50 to send it to me in Hawaii. I get around that cost by having the food sent to Dorothy, who then mails it to me through the United States Post Office.
Having realized that I had been charging my purchases to the young woman's card cleared up all confusion about why my account was in trouble. It was clear now why the charges were denied as fraudulent. I sent her an email immediately apologizing. I know how this happened. I tried to delete her card from the list. I couldn't figure out how to do it. I must have highlighted the card as my primary payment method in the process. Oh, boy. I offered to compensate her for any expenses she incurred. At least, I know what happened now.
I went out in the back area off my bedroom to do more gardening. I heard Elsa bark but didn't think much of it. Then I hear a man's voice, "Anyone home?" Right, I had scheduled a visit from a local repairman. Sears had not been able to fix my stovetop. The problem isn't serious, just annoying. When I put on one of the black burners, the ignitors three others click away for the whole cooking time. I didn't know if John Convey could diagnose a problem the Sears repairmen hadn't considered, but it sounded like he was seeing something the other servicemen hadn't. He is one of the only two service providers recommended by Kitchen Aid. He told me he had to order some more parts. It sounded like it was only going to be one tiny part. Worthwhile trying.
I had two tutoring appointments today. One with D. and one with M. I continued the letter identification with D, starting with fragments and having him guess. While there is an improvement in the speed he can recognize possible letters from line fragments, there is still no improvement with his memory. All I give him are two problems, 9 X4=, and 7X6=. He never remembers them.
I plan to talk to his mom about having him classified as special ed. or at least secure a 504, which will allow him to always use a calculator when doing math. I don't think the special ed. teachers can help him. I am appalled by how little training in actual teaching the special ed teachers get. They're trained to fill out forms and determine the school's legal obligations.
I did co-writing with M today. She immediately had something she wanted to write about and was off and running. She had a clear sense of audience. Her opening paragraph pulled me right in. I asked if she wrote a lot of stories. No. She must be writing stories in her head. She had a story in mind that sounded like something that might have come from one of the Magic Tree House Books. But no, she had never read one. She had a problem; it was the one I wanted to work on anyway. She talks in abstract instead of concrete ones. This is her problem in conversation as well. I pushed her to be aware of physical, concrete detail. This is going to be a great exercise. We couldn't finish the story in our half-hour session. She introduced some very complex effects: a character was both invisible and visible. Again, she hadn't sorted out the concrete details. I look forward to working on this story with her. What fun!
I had an appointment with Shelly, my therapist, between the two tutoring sessions. I had finally identified what frightens me about putting my work out and dealing with negative reactions. There are bound to be negative reactions – from someone. One hundred percent agreement and support are simply not on the menu. I knew I wasn't afraid of someone not agreeing with what I had to say. That made me feel somewhat sad but not terrified. I argued I was afraid of what they would do to me. Now, I finally realized that I was afraid of my own fear. I hated that feeling. It surges up in me and possesses me. I worked on releasing my hatred of my fear and my fear of my fear.
In my session with Shelly, I worked on sitting with my fear. I had an image of only half of my body, the left half, being covered by a shadow. But now, half of me was out. I knew the source of my fear, my mom. Her unchecked fear was the source of my fear.
Thinking of her fear reminded me of when I was confronted by the terror of two young kittens. When I was in graduate school, a mother cat deposited her kittens in a laundry basket outside my bedroom door. I bent down over them with plans of reaching out to pick up one of those adorable things. They hissed at me. I witnessed a ferociousness that was terrifying. Boy, did I back up! Their fear triggered fear in me. Similarly, my mother's fear was a fear embedded in her during a trauma she experienced in the first six months of her life. Her fear was as terrifying as the kittens'.
In my image, I asked her, "Why do you do this to me?" This evoked confusion for her. She wasn't doing anything to me as far as she was concerned. She was defending herself. I was the one doing something to her. As I stayed steady, her confusion persisted. When I didn't respond with fear, but calm, it made her fear and confusion worse.. It was difficult to watch.
Shelly told me she sees this a lot in the couples she works with. One partner says they are hurt by what the other does, and the 'accused' partner is confused. Shelly said they cannot understand the other person's point of view. When someone is deep in confusion, it is not the time to argue with them. They have to sit with that confusion until it lessens before they can hear something new.
Confusion can be life-threatening for us. If it is terrible, as in large, it means the disruption of something fundamental in our lives, physical or conceptual. In animals, only physical disruptions create that confusion, as far as we know. Humans hold concepts about our world, not just significant concepts, like God's existence, but minor ones as well. We co-create reality. We are physically and psychologically incapable of accurately perceiving the external world. Each one of us uses perceptual input to create our reality. If we're lucky, our creations have a functional overlap with the creations of others. We can agree a stick is a stick and serves a particular function.
In a simple culture, reality is defined in primary colors. We live in an incredibly complex culture with so many different ways of perceiving and doing things. Reality is tenuous. Those of us who do well can live in a perpetual state of "I don't know." All I do is gamble on uncertainties. When I was young, being the one who didn't know for sure was very scary. I thought something was wrong with me. I had no idea what they knew that I didn't that could allow them to be so sure of themselves.
I've observed that the tolerance for confusion separates the men from the boys. We can only be excellent when we can tolerate confusion, uncertainty. I am a good, maybe great a teacher because I can tolerate failure and uncertainty.
Confusion comes in degrees. It can actually be pleasurable. To be a good learner, not to be equated with a good student, one has to welcome a degree of confusion with the understanding, "Yay, I'm about to learn something new." The confusion is created as some previously held concept is challenged and disrupted by a new idea.
I told Shelly that her gift to me as a therapist was her ability to sit with her sense of failure and confusion. She sat with me and allowed me to do my work while she did nothing. – nothing but bear witness with a loving and supporting heart. What a gift! She is the only therapist I have ever worked with capable of that. She did actually say that she wondered what she was contributing. I assured her that her contribution was invaluable.
Every other therapist has concluded that something was wrong with me rather than face their own confusion. I had one therapist who was patient with me, but she didn't let go of some fixed position. I could feel she was putting up with me. It didn't evoke trust.
As for my mother in this image, as I didn't respond to her fear with fear, her confusion started to subside. I have always known that the people who get upset when I present ideas that contradict their own are responding with fear. If I can quiet my own fear, we will both be okay. Hopefully, I have finally learned to do this. I have worked on this fear all my adult life. How's that for being a slow learner.
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