Wednesday, December 1, 2021

 Wednesday, December 1, 2021 

 

    I was awake at 3 am and saw lightning at a distance but heard no thunder.  A few lightning strikes later, I heard thunder. A storm was approaching. I wasn’t the only one who heard it. Elsa, who usually sleeps well away from me on Mike’s side of the bed, was by my side in a flash.  She snuggled up against me. I pulled her in to spoon with me.  Usually, she wriggles out of that arrangement, lies perpendicular to me on her back, demanding to have her belly rubbed. Not tonight. She even stayed there long after the thunder could no longer be heard. Elsa is a demanding animal pet me, rub my belly and throw that ball, again, again, again . . .  You get the idea.

  Judy sent a text late in the evening, asking how I was and saying she would call in the morning; she had been too busy to call today.  She called early.  She had been slammed driving cars back and forth from the airport for Mei’s Turo service.   A while ago, I asked Judy to be the person who checks on me every day to see how I am.   Since Mike entered the hospital for his final stay, she had been doing it. I was on the phone with her several times a day.  This continued when I got home; Judy made me one of her missions. When she stopped, I became aware of how dependent I was on her actions.   I asked her to make a commitment to call me daily. She was happy to accommodate me.  I assured her she didn’t have to call each day; I just needed the commitment; she said she knew that. That’s why she texts me when she can’t make it.  I am one lucky lady.

     I had another concern with Judy.  When I’m down, she’s one of my go-to people for comfort.  I say how down I am and what’s bothering me.  I became concerned that she carried the burden of my emotional upset longer than I did.  She assured me no, that wasn’t the case. She said I was amazing because I always considered the other person’s needs.  I try to do that. It gets very hard for me when the other person has zero concern for mine, or maybe better they cannot cope with dealing with other people’s needs when they are the ones who have created that need with their behavior.  If someone can only be caring about another person when there is no conflict of interest, I would say that person is incapable of genuinely caring.

    Judy and I lapsed into discussing the need to adapt to change.  I say that one characteristic is what separates the men from the boys. I see coping with change as a central tenant of Buddhism. Judy said she thought it was a central tenet of Christianity too. I agree that both religions address this in their doctrines. However, I think it is explicitly addressed in Buddhism and only implicitly addressed in Christianity.  We didn’t get to finish the conversation because Judy had to go. She said she would send me a thirteen-page paper on the subject that she was preparing to give her RCIA class, a group of adults who are studying Catholicism before entering the church.

     Some people believe that you know what those you are familiar with think and feel without asking.   Certainly, we become more aware of what others think and feel, but we can never be sure.  It’s just the statistical likelihood of getting it right increases.  A lot of that comes from becoming familiar with a person’s nonverbal body language. I learned when Elsa is about to poop because her gait changes.  I have never seen her use that gait at any other time.  I feel reasonably confident about what will happen when I see her change the way she walks.  However, I am open to the possibility that she could use it for some other purpose in a different circumstance.

Most of what I hear in the popular press these days supports my point: you never know what a person is thinking.  Someone may understand even better than I do what I am thinking.  Mike has caught me at that. But I don’t think he ever assumed he knew what I was thinking at all times, or if he, he had the good sense to keep his mouth shut.  That sounds like a presumptuous opinion. That doesn’t mean he or I didn’t have a theory.  It was just a theory, a theory about him, or even myself.  I have others in my camp who believe you can’t even be a hundred percent sure of everything you think, no less someone else.  For some, that represents too much uncertainty.  I live in a statistical world.  I’m not comfortable with those who live in a 100% for sure world.  I suppose we all live in that world in some area of our lives.  I can understand intellectually that nothing I perceive is for sure, but I don’t walk around consciously aware of that every minute.  Or maybe, I have settled on 90% for sure is close enough.  I can be 90 % sure that the ground won’t give under my feet with my next step, maybe even 99.5% sure.  Since my view of the world is all of my construction, how can I ever be completely sure of anything? 

    I think a lot about my mother; she was a difficult person, scary, mostly because she was scared.  There has been some debate as to whether she loved me.  I’ve come to the conclusion that love and fear are mutually exclusive.  While she was passionate about both her children, she spent so much time being either frightened of me or for me that it interfered with her ability to love me as I understand it. My idea of being loved and loving has something to do with feeling at peace in the presence of the other and having them feel at peace in yours, that just-right feeling.

  Last night, Isaac texted me asking if I could drive his friend to the airport at noon. I had an 11:45 appointment for a Cryo treatment. I offered to drive him at 11; however, he had to be ready on time.  I was in Isaac’s driveway at 11, and, as promised, his friend came out promptly. He said he had heard a lot about me. He said he was worried about Isaac. He had a fun time over the vacation, and now he would be going back to a social desert.  

   Isaac came to Hawaii through his church to volunteer in a local religious school.  He was given a place to live by a member of the congregation in Hawaii.  However, his hosts didn’t live there. They had moved to the mainland to be near their grandchildren.  Isaac had this big house all to himself. He thought he would arrive here and make new friends his age through the church. Not. I became his closest friend. He’s 21; I’m about to turn 81. Hmm! I’m old enough to be his great-grandmother. He recently had some contact with missionaries who were volunteering on the other side of the island.  It was members of that church over there that invited Isaac and his friend to Thanksgiving dinner.  According to his friend, they had a blast.  His friend was concerned about Isaac being thrown back into isolation after all that stimulation. The poor kid had no idea what he was taking on.  It provides an opportunity to grow and develop – or not. 

     I arrived for my Cryo appointment on time. I talked to Nikki about an experience I had while driving there.  It felt like something had dropped in my chest. It reminded me of the sudden drop an elevator can make, short and safe but weird.  Nikki asked if I had ever discussed this with a doctor. No, but come to think of it, I had once been told that I had some sort of heart anomaly. They told me it wasn’t a dangerous pattern, so I gave it no more thought. Maybe it explains some of my experiences. I always thought they were emotional, but there were no triggers as I drove to my appointment. 

  In my first full-body Cryo treatment, I turned continuously.  I turned every 15 seconds when directed by Nikki for my second because my skin temperature remained high at 57 degrees after my first treatment.  She said something the first time that suggested my temperature indicated I hadn’t gotten the full benefit of the treatment. My temperature remained high after my second session. For my third, I turned every 30 seconds. My temperature remained the same. Now, Nikki is saying this is normal for women; I’m still getting the full benefit. I didn’t experience a lot in my body, but my mood changed; I was weirdly relaxed.  I crawled into bed instead of lying on the sofa when I got home. When I woke, I found moving difficult because I was so relaxed.  I had to make an effort.   Again, pretty weird.  I don’t know if this is a good or bad result.  Being relaxed makes me feel too tired and weak to do much.  I’d say it makes me even a little depressed.  Knowing that I have been hyper most of my life makes me interested in doing this more.  After one of these treatments, the husband of a friend of mine, who suffers from a severe anxiety disorder, was freed from his worries.  Sounds good to me. 

    I had an appointment with third grade A.  He has so much trouble hearing the basic sound units of speech, the phonemes.  Today he couldn’t identify the final sound in the word seem.  Now, we are doing something very different; he was spelling the words.  I know he has improved, but it leaves me wondering what I’ve accomplished. 

    Isaac joined me tonight. We wound spontaneously talking about the role of change in Christianity.  Isaac talked about Christ calling for change. People are obliged to respond t Christ’s call. We didn’t get into it very much.  His interpretation is different from Judy’s.  

I checked the YouTube numbers on my videos. Phase I was down from 29 to 8, Phase II from 10 to 2, and 5 from 118 to 10. Huh? How do numbers drop?  Tommy came over to deliver the computer.  He checked the videos on the tablet where I had checked them on the Mac. The numbers he found looked okay. After he left, I checked them on the Mac again. They were different, the lower numbers.

I watched another episode of Grantchester.  One of the main characters was under attack. I can’t take that. I assume it was a way to get him out of the cast.  I like mysteries where the main characters are not in jeopardy themselves.  Too much stress. Don’t need it.