Friday, June 18, 2021

Friday, June 18, 2021

            I've been working with the twins and their brother first thing every weekday morning. One of the twins had just gotten up this morning and wasn't awake yet. I told the mom to feed her and text me when she was ready. Zoom is great this way. I can be flexible.   I continued more of the same drills I spoke about the other day. These sessions are brief and frequent, which neuroscience says is the best way to teach. Many short sessions are much better than one long one. Most of my sessions are no more than half an hour. When I work with K and his twin sisters, the session may be fifteen minutes each. I love having the flexibility. K wrote his name beautifully except for the g, and even that was better. He said, "I started the g with a c." He did. Only he put the tail on the g on the wrong side of the c. His mom immediately noted his failure. I'm pushing her to acknowledge everything positive before saying something negative. She agreed with me, but it's how she was raised, and it was a lifelong habit. She has six children. I don't know if she has much time to focus on changing her behavior. However, if she did, she would find her life would go more smoothly.

            The gardener was here for most of the day. It was time to work on the lower forty. It just had to be weed-whacked, so it didn't get out of hand. Every other month will do.

            Adolescent D was downright playful today. While I don't get his sense of humor, I enjoy that he's playful. It's a good sign. Today I had him read the words in the paragraph we worked on in random order without reading the paragraph first. He got every word correct. He said, "Wow!" I said, "Wow!" too, not only because he correctly read each word but because he allowed himself to be impressed. D is usually noncommittal at best and downright negative at worst.

I had been feeling lonely. A difficult situation triggered by someone's behavior. At first, I thought I was one of those who were hardest hit by grief in the third year. Yes, I missed Mike more now, and I was in deep grief, but I thought a difficult situation triggered it without Mike's love and support. 

Judy called. I trimmed the bougainvillea while we talked about loneliness. She noted that we come into this life alone and leave alone. I think the feeling of loneliness is more pervasive. Whenever we become aware of being different from others, loneliness hits. It's scary. In grad school, I read TS Elliott's Cocktail Party. I remember a line in this play; well, I thought it was from it. "Everyone is lonely. Only some people know it, and some don't." Being entirely in harmony with others at all times is impossible. Whenever we're not, we lapse into loneliness. If we're lucky, we have some people we're in harmony with a good 30 to 40% of the time. I don't mean the rest of the time is bad, just mild bumper cars. True harmony is hard to come by. How sweet it is when we do have it. How lucky we are.