Thursday, December 30, 2021

Thursday, December 30, 2021

 

    Yesterday, I thought of an old college friend who lives in Maryland. When I picked up my mail, there was a Christmas card from her. Before I went to bed, I found her name in my address book. I wanted to leave it open, so I remembered to call her on my morning walk. I accidentally dialed her number and hung up immediately. She called back immediately. I apologized for having called her at 2 am and hung up.

    I had a good night's sleep. My ankle was stiff when I woke up. I'm confused why it's considered a problem with the joint when it's the muscles that are tight. I was concerned that I couldn't call my friend because I needed a hand free to hold the phone. On my morning walk, I always have Elsa with me. I have her leash in one hand and my walking stick in the other. When I have her and want to be on the phone, I tuck the walking stick under my left arm. I have Elsa leash in my right hand, leaving a hand free to hold the phone.   It took a while for my ankle to be warmed up enough to feel comfortable not using the stick.

     I called my friend. She didn't answer. I thought that was funny; she answered at 2 am but not at 11 in the morning. She texted me later. She had been in the shower and now was heading out to lunch. She would make this conversation happen later. 

    Having time and a free hand free, I called my friend Jean in Arizona. She hadn't been in good spirits yesterday. I wanted to check on her. She just had an incomplete medical procedure and was having trouble with the doctor's office. She was having trouble with a real estate transaction, a nasty realtor representing the seller. Today,  she was in a much better mood. So glad.

   For yoga this morning, it was only Yvette, me, and Deb. We all knew the routine and did the work on our own. Lying on the concrete is the best. It does wonders for my back.

   I continued working on representing the variables in fifth grade's W'sstory. I looked up the two-by-two chart. I realized this is not a two-by-two design. I'm not sure what it is or if I just don't understand the pattern. This is what I came up with.

 

 

 

Ate the real food              Ate the dream food```                 . . .and what happened	Didn’t eat the real food        Ate the dream food.          . . .  and what happened.
Didn’t eat the real food        Didn’t eat the dream food            . . .  and what happened.	Ate the real food          Didn’t eat the dream food             . . .  and what happened.

Mom:

    W and I are working on modifying a story she wrote. Clever girl! She turned the whole story into an experiment. She wrote about two of the possibilities and their outcome already. She wanted to include more.   I suggested she draw the possibilities as a way of organizing her thoughts. Please, share this graph with her. 

    My friend Carol Z. will know how to chart or diagram this. I don't know the correct words. I took only one statistics course. I busted my ass, got my A, and promptly forgot everything I had learned.  

    

   The man who was coming to inspect my house from the termite company called. He wanted to come over now. I had a 1 pm scheduled. That wasn't going to work. Then I had a text from my 1 pm asking to change it to 1:30. Sure. I called the terminate man back and told him it would be good if he came now. He arrived precisely at 1:30. I showed him the concerning area and went to my zoom meeting with adolescent D.

     D had a bad day focusing. He just loses his place. It's like he's walking along and falls in a hole where he can't be seen or see what's above the ground. I see it as a stress response. I don't know why. The words were easy today. He can spell a lot of single-syllable words. However, he has terrible problems if he can't sound them out. He had trouble remembering something I showed him one minute before. Two of the words were mother and father. He could remember the second syllable ther; he could figure out the initial letters from their sounds, but he couldn't remember the vowel letters in the first syllables. 

     Today, we identify a number of his learning problems:  1. The letters move around on the page and in his mind; 2) he has poor to no visual recall, having no memory for the spelling of words he has seen and worked on minutes before. 3)  has problems maintaining his attention; he slips away into a dozing state. I assume it is a stress response, but I can't be sure.

    I  asked him about the moving letter problem periodically since we started. He always denied he had such a problem. This is the first time he is admitting to it. This is amazing. I had to handle him very carefully. He is so fragile. He also has a lot of problems.   I would normally dive right into using healing visualizations to resolve many of these problems. I listen carefully if that feels right. It didn't feel like the right thing to do with D,  but I got a different idea.   

     Thirty years ago, someone trained in Neurolinguistic Programming taught me a trick. Visualize the letters in a word. Say the letters forward, and then say them backward from the image in your mind. When I started, I had to respell the word every time. Now, it all happens automatically. I just 'see' the word in my mind. I can quickly just 'read' the letters as if I am looking right at them. I start this exercise by numbering the letters. Then I ask the student to name the last, the fifth, the fourth, etc., to guide them to name them backward. This worked reasonably well with the four letters in his name.

   I modeled the exercise with D using my own name, Elizabeth. As I did it, I tried something I had never done before. I was both the gamemaster and the participant. I said, "The letter before b is a. The letter after he letters after l is i."  D's mom walked into the room as we were ending the session. I asked if she could facilitate an event where this is a game that other members of the family play. D should ONLY be the GAME MASTER, never a participant.   He must ask, "What letter comes before ____?" and "What letter comes after ___?" on a chosen word. As I wrote this, I conceived of a necessary restriction. The game master has to ask the participants, "How many letters do you want in your word? Or How long should your word be?" I fear D will create challenges to force the participants to fail. That would be a normal impulse for someone who has faced endless humiliation because of his own limitations. 

    I told mom this could help D. Our brains synchronize when engaged in the same activity. My theory is we copy the brain patterns of people around us. We are most comfortable with those whose brain patterns are close to our own when we meet them. That is the definition of harmony. While we can find people who already share our patterns, we can all adapt to those around us. Even our pets become more like us, and we become more like our pets.

   I watched a documentary on Tia Notaro last night instead of additional episodes of either The Durrells in Corfu or Emily in Paris.   I first encountered Tig in the film One Mississippi. I love her comedy. She is present and leaves room for me to breathe. This documentary only confirms my opinion of her. She is so completely herself while being thoughtful and kind. What a great combination. She talks about her relationship with her wife: she said, "I was in love before but never like this." I think the 'like this' means a comfortable relationship filled with love and laugher. It's what I had with Mike. No, it was not perfect. No, it was not always its best moments. It was just there were enough of those to make the relationship more a source of joy than a source of grief. Even his death hasn't wrecked me. I still carry his love and delight with me. How lucky am I?!