Sunday, March 20, 2022

Sunday, March 20, 2022 

   

  I woke up to sadness. I wasn't sad about anything in particular, just sad. I don't believe this is a new feeling. If anything, it was how I felt all the time when I was young. My emotional disposition improved between life, Mike, therapy, and meditation.   I didn't suffer more than anyone else. I was trained to be aware of my emotions without being taught how to cope with them.  

   Yesterday I agreed to a 9 am appointment with the M &W sisters. I regretted not proposing a later time, so I could go to the 9 am Mass. I knew more people who attended that one than the 1 pm. I also dreaded my sessions with the girls. Something is discomforting about it. Their mom is overly concerned about the girl's performances. She always comments on the negative. That's bad enough. Then she makes no positive comments. Not only hadn't she printed out the stories the girls co-wrote with me, she hadn't even read them. I was concerned the girls experienced these sessions as proof of their inadequacies. Shortly after 8, their mom texted me, asking if I could meet at 3:30. I had time to shower and get ready for the 9 am.    

    I went to the Mass with Judy. Someone I didn't recognize asked me how I was and said it was good to see me. These folks knew me as Mike's wife. It's a possible entry into a relationship. We shared something, our love of Mike. Just because they see me as Mike's wife does not preclude their interest in who I am. Because I always greet each person as unique, I expect to be treated that way.

  Church is both hard on my body and good for it. It's hard because the most challenging thing for my left hip and leg is being in a fixed position. In church, I'm either sitting, standing or kneeling. I'm shifting positions from sitting to standing or kneeling, from standing to sitting or kneeling, and from kneeling to standing or sitting. That's all. 

   Going to church is good for my body because I use the fixed position to stretch the tight fascia and muscles. I push to the point of pain and then back up. I must have done it right today because I had no problems getting into motion when it was time to walk to the front of the church to get the Eucharist. Nay, that's not quite true. I had no trouble getting into motion, but there were some limitations I didn't have.

     After Mass, I signed up to volunteer for the charity golf tournament for the church. I needed to get out more and see other environments. Two of the activities required me to stand for long periods. That didn't sound good. I volunteered for registration from 6:15 am to 8 am.   I can do that.

   Being in church was also good for my spirit and my soul. It always provides an opportunity to contemplate something deeper. I noticed sadness sitting on the left side of my body. I did have reason to be sad, but this was a familiar feeling predating Mike, no less Mike's death.  

    I have experienced complete freedom from that sadness. I wonder if I'm better or worse off for the experience. Knowing what freedom from sadness feels like, I'm not as tolerant of its presence; back to Buddha's teachings on how to deal with not getting what we want and getting things we don't want. 

   Judy, on the other hand, feels true peace through Christ. She's a cradle-Catholic. She was devoted to the church and Christ as a child. Then she left and sought out other paths to peace. Something brought her back to the church, where she finds the deepest peace. Judy is one lucky lady. I am delighted she has that for herself. She always feels loved and cared for.  Wonderful!

   My right foot hurt. That's the foot with the hammertoe, where the second toe is determined to climb over the first. I was feeling pain in my metatarsals. That's scary. I had a problem with that years ago in both feet. I developed neuromas. A nerve gets pinched, and the body wraps the inflamed nerve. It feels like a permanent pebble underfoot. It's the worst. It hurts like hell. My chiropractor told me to ice the foot and massage it. I did. The neuromas went away, and I was pain-free. I went to the freezer, got out an ice pack, and chilled the area in response to this new pain. Then took a golf ball and massaged the whole foot for about half an hour. Voila! No more problem. I was sure this was a temporary fix. I will have to do it again and again.

     I was still inching my way through the Brainscape's book. Most of the book had no meaning for me, but I was in a section now that had, so I could only read a little at a time. I needed time to process what I read. Today I learned that the neurons for something, say an apple, fire if we see an apple, if we eat an apple, if we see the word apple, if we hear the word apple, if we think of an apple.   All that stimulates the same neurons, but to different degrees. A while ago, they identified mirror neurons, which were supposed to fire in sympathy with someone else. As it winds up, these neurons are indiscriminate. They don't care who is doing what; they fire. However, they fire to different levels of intensity.  

   Years ago, in a neuroscience course, the professor asked how we know the difference between perceiving something in the world, remembering the same thing, and imagining it. I have mulled over that question periodically, never coming up with a possible answer. Perhaps here it is: we know because we can feel this difference in the intensity of the neurological firing. It's like knowing the difference between a caress and a slap.  

   When I got home from church, I napped and meditated on the bad feelings about working with the sisters. Then when I met with them at 3:30, I had the best time with them. First grade M asked if we could just read the material instead of identifying every phoneme in every word. Sure. She was in first-grade reading second-grade material. We were well into the book I was using. This was not even high first-grade material anymore.

    I finished editing the story for enhanced meaning and detail with fifth-grade W. I introduced her to Grammarly, a free editing site. Some of the problems were mine, missing commas, and words, in some cases. Some offered alternative word choices or sentence structures. She had to choose what she preferred.