Monday, October 3, 2022

 Monday, October 3, 2022

I went to bed very, very late last night, after midnight. After being tired most of the day, I was full of energy at night. I was energized by the delightful conversation with Scott and Yvette. We laughed together.

  I still woke up early, as usual. I have a new objective. I thrust my left hip further out to the side. It strains the inner thigh muscles of both my legs, not just the left one.

  I got a call from a friend whose husband had been diagnosed with short-term memory problems. Sadly, it may be worse. He had gone out on a short shopping trip and not returned in a timely way. My friend and his children got him an Apple watch and phone to locate him if he got lost. He had neither electronic device with him. My friend was quite worried. Her husband planned to visit a supermarket nearby to get a few things. Two hours was an unnecessarily long time for a short shopping trip. He might have decided to do something else, but she couldn’t count on that. She would give it fifteen more minutes before she called the security personnel in their retirement compound.  

  I called her son because I wanted him to support her. He didn’t answer. I sent a long text message. He called fifteen minutes later to say his stepfather had just returned home. Upon reading my text, he immediately called his mom. How sweet that he immediately called me to reassure me that all was well.

  The situation was the best of all options. Her husband had gone to a different grocery store than he planned to. He did some additional shopping on the way home. He was tired quickly and parked to take a short nap rather than drive in that condition. Fortunately, he was remorseful for what he put my friend through.

    The haole koa I cut down and poured boiling water on is still leaf-free. There is no new growth- yet. How long do I have to give it before I declare the tree officially dead and claim to have found a way to kill the insidious indestructible tree bent on taking over the island?

      I met with adolescent D. I asked him if he had worked on focusing on the left side of his brain when hearing people speak or read. No, he had not. I assured him that was common; people need help making a fundamental change. Lord knows I do, and I am open to suggestions. I often run with them- or I forget them for a year and then pick them up, or I forget them forever. 

     D said he had no schoolwork to complete today. I think he was lying, but I went with it. I used the opportunity to do the auditory processing exercise I had planned for our last class. I first asked him if he could hear my voice in his head. He said no. He couldn’t hear anyone’s voice in his head. Since he could imagine a conversation between Obama and Batman and him and his mother, he could do it. He didn’t understand what he was doing. I had to figure out how to get that skill to transfer laterally.  

  I read him a short sentence from the Westing Game. “The policeman and the fire inspector visited the site.”  He was able to give me the information but not the exact words. What’s the difference? He said, “Tomato, tomato.” 

If you always convert what you hear and read to your own words, you never know exactly what the author said. D’s ability to convert words into meaning is good. But if words don’t immediately convert, he’s stuck. He can’t go back and mull them over. It’s all gibberish to him. As he says, “The teachers talk too much.”   When they do, D turns off. He mentally leaves and hears no more. He relies on some unconscious processing in hopes that he understands some of it. Our unconscious minds can only understand something they have some background in. If the information is foreign, we need the conscious mind to step in and help us process the new information. The unconscious mind is good at bringing up every grain of information stored that might relate to the new information, but it can only take in the information it is familiar with. When people protest change, they often protest the demands on their conscious minds. Being in situations where our unconscious minds can do all the work is called being in the flow. What a great feeling!  

    Besides being easy, we know we’re home, safe and sound among the familiar. Introducing something new requires a period of disorientation, where we are in a state of not knowing. If that disorientation is perceived as anticipation or excitement, someone’s up for learning something new. The person blocks the new information to regain balance if it triggers uncomfortable confusion.