Sunday, August 15, 2021

 Sunday, August 15, 2021

 

     I was in pain in the early hours of this morning. I tried the tennis ball first on my hip and back. Then I used the acupuncture pen on my abdominal muscles. They tense up and cause pain in other areas of my body. Then I felt relief. I chose to believe that this new wave of pain and discomfort was caused by the shift I was making with my left heel. That would throw everything off. It's always a question: is the pain a sign of something terrible that can only surgery can deal with., or is it part of the healing process?

     I had a weird dream this morning. Mike and I were at a mass with a deacon I didn't know on the alter. That deacon suddenly up and walked out. A woman got up to take over his job. However, she didn't know the drill and quit herself. I got up to take over. I had no idea what I was doing either. I mumbled something unintelligible when I had to say words, hoping the attendees would know the words and fill in the blanks. I turned toward the alter toward the end of the mass, holding a carafe of wine in one hand and a plate of consecrated wafers in the other. I was faced with a set of stairs to climb. There was no way I was going to pull this off. The stairs alone were bad enough, no less, there was no handrail, and I had my hands full. I was afraid I would drop the host. It was a nightmare.

       Another rainy day. By noon I had 0% on my solar power wall. We were already pulling electricity from the grid. If our choice is poor solar performance versus dry grass susceptible to fire, I'll choose the former every time. 

       My friend Melissa called to warn me that only one ICU bed was left open on the island. The island will likely shut down in the foreseeable future. Everyone is rushing out to buy food. The shutdowns interrupt our supply lines. I called Yvette to tell her. She had heard the same from her boss at Island Health Care. She said the shelves were already bare.

       I headed down to Safeway to pick up some frozen main meal items. The parking lot was half empty, hardly a rush. I found the freezer fully stocked and picked up several items. 

      Damon called. We spoke for about an hour as he walked in the park, and I got my steps in going up and down the street. We had plenty to talk about. We shared stories. I told him when his dad got fired, and I was overjoyed. He told me about when he had a boss committed to making his life hell and getting fired. Her efforts resulted in Damon being promoted to the position he really wanted. He only found out about his boss's intentions afterward. He got into trouble with her because he expressed distress that he and his friend were passed over for a promotion to the position the woman got. She took it personally and set out to sabotage Damon. Guess what! When there was a turnover in management, it was she who got bounced. 

      Mike's story: He worked as the CEO of an NJ state mental hospital. The central office folks planned to shut down the large hospitals and open community centers. Great idea, but the centers never happened while the hospitals were minimalized. Mike was instructed to fire hospital employees but required to tell them it was all his idea. I was terrified that someone would try to kill him.

     One day he came home, looking downhearted. He asked me to sit with him; he had something to tell me. He had been fired. To his surprise, I jumped for joy. He had plans of retiring anyway. This was in March, and he was all set to start on his second Ph.D. at Catholic university in September. Even better, the sleaze who did this to Mike told him he had to tell people he was retiring and couldn't tell them he was fired. Mike would get all his sick pay and vacation days. Wonderul1

     The 'state' threw him a retirement party.   At the end of the celebration, as people were milling about before leaving, I grabbed a mic and announced Mike's plans to attend Catholic in the fall. The sleaze who fired him was walking across the room right in front of me. He heard what I said and realized what had happened. He stopped in his tracks and stared at me. I gave him a big smile. Of course, he realized that Mike must have been planning his departure. He could never have gotten into a Ph.D. program that quickly otherwise. Such a sweet moment!

     I finally recorded another segment for the YouTube video of my reading method. I am hoping that Tommy can splice it into the already completed video. I sent what I did to Judy and Dorothy to check if it's acceptable. I'm so done with this. I must still record a Phase II video of the Phonics Discovery System.

Saturday, August 14, 2021

 Saturday, August 14, 2021 

 

     I was in pain last night. I used the acupuncture pen on my abdominal muscles.   On my morning walk, I continued focusing on the heel shift. It involves anchoring my foot and shifting my hip over to the left, which pulls the flesh of the heel over to the inside of the foot. I focused on shifting the left hip over before, but this is different. Instead of focusing on how far I can get the hip forward or over to the left, I focus on the heel shift and see how it impacts the hip. I feel the difference in the heel and the outside of the lower left leg. A small change, especially at a peripheral point of the body, can create a seismic shift in the core muscles and the spine.

     I asked adolescent D's mother to call me. She texted me to tell me she had given my name to the Special Ed instructor from the local public school. I wanted to know what it was about. She said the school couldn't find someone to hire to tutor D and might want to pay me.  

    Last spring, I was included in an evaluation meeting for 3rd grade D. Now, he was starting fifth-grade. I pushed mom to refer him for special services because he has zero memory for his multiplication facts. We saw considerable improvement in his reading. The special ed teacher asked me what method I used to teach him reading. I delayed answering, composing my thoughts, when she said, "As I guessed. You use your intuition; you don't use evidence-based practices." Well, she had my number. I was concerned I would have to deal with her. I realized it's unlikely. Adolescent D is in middle school. There hopefully is someone else responsible for special ed in there. 

    I had a session with adolescent D's later in the day. We had been working on 1st and 2nd-grade sentences per his choice. His reading improved considerably, but it was still halting. He still does not pay attention to the letters when words are long. When he had to decode a two-syllable word, he couldn't decode each syllable separately. He blurs the first syllable with the second one. I wrote hurry as hur     ry, as two separate words,  and he could do it. At the end of the session, I modeled phonemic analysis of words in a sentence context. He found it boring. I did it more slowly; he found it more tedious. O dear, that usually indicates a serious auditory processing problem. Most of the time, when I slow the process down, the student responds differently. Not in D's case. I have to figure out how to get through.

    Dorothy called to tell me her son David might get married. He was with a woman, and they were committed to each other. However, marriage was an alien concept. Her parents never married. Her sister was in a long-term committed relationship with several children and was not married. David and Marliese are thinking of getting married because it is the only way he could accompany her to England for the year. He has German citizenship due to our father's holocaust history; he has an EU passport; he doesn't need a visa. He has all the rights of a citizen; he is a citizen. Since Brexit, his EU citizenship carries no weight there. Marliese will only be in England for one year. After that, she has a job offer at a German University. David will be good there. 

     I proposed doing the wedding by zoom. It will be a civil ceremony in a court. Dorothy didn't think they would allow zoom videos. I think there must be tons of people who got married in a court without witnesses because of Covid. The court must have some way to live stream the events. Either way, she will zoom the following celebration, assuming either one of them will be willing to put up with that, given their feelings about legal marriage.

     I can understand their feelings. My mother came to America when she didn't have to (She was Christian; he was Jewish)  to be with my father. Three days after she arrived, they had a court wedding with my uncle and my father's cousin as witnesses. At the last minute, my mother announced she didn't want to get married. She didn't want to give up her independence. She was willing to live with him, keep his house and bear his children, but she didn't want to get married. Someone caught a picture of my mom sitting rigidly while my dad pleaded with her. She gave in because he told her their children would be illegitimate- something unacceptable in that day and age. 

      I put off marriage for nine years. Mike wanted to get married immediately. I was terrified it would ruin our relationship. I would become like my mother. A good friend of his ex-wife's convinced me to do it. I had a year to prepare. I told everyone that I was married. I lied. That way, when the time came, I didn't know what the truth was anymore. Was I married, or wasn't I?   I wept through the whole ceremony. They weren't tears of joy. 

      Judy called. She referred to what I had said about our positions on people changing. She clarified her position. As I suspected, we wound up polarized because of how the discussion went. We were pretty much on the same page. It's not that people can't change; the nature they have come in with, and the traumas they experienced have already molded them. Those have to be taken into account. 

     I think either position in a truly polarized argument is a dead end. If people believe that all people can change all aspects of themselves, they wind up being very hard on themselves and others. The other extreme is total acceptance of a person as they are in the moment no matter what. That must lead to a lot of suppressed anger. If you're lucky, you have a sensitive eye for when to push yourself or others to change. Timing is everything

        I spent time listening to my Saturday shows. I finally cleaned the kitchen cabinet doors with Murphy's oil soap while listening to The Moth Radio Hour.

      As I lay down to nap, Elsa settled in on my belly. I found new lesions. She had a shot for this problem exactly a month ago. I will have to try the cream the vet gave me to apply to each lesion as it comes up.

       I called A's parents yesterday about a behavior pattern I noticed. They didn't call me back. His mom apologized and said it was quite a day. A's school called and told them to come immediately and pick him up. One of the students in the class had Covid. The child's parents knew he had Covid and sent him anyway. Wow! I assume they were desperate for childcare coverage. I sure hope so. Now, A's whole class is in quarantine for two weeks. 

      I had a question for A's parents. When I ask A a question or ask him to do something, he often doesn't respond. I will ask him if he heard me; he will say yes and still do nothing. I will repeat my request. He usually responds on the second try. I wanted to know if they saw similar behavior. Their experience with their son is entirely different from mine. They see him as a funny, bright kid, aware of everything. They have a family game. When driving together, they all pitch in and create a story. The mom will start it with "once upon a time," and everyone is in. She says A has a great imagination.   We agreed to do a session with mom to guide the situation to see this other side.

      She told me how A once stood up for his older brother. Someone had taken his older brother's toy, and A stepped in to correct the situation. This story made me revert to my original theory. I don't think A was sticking up for his brother; I think he was making sure the world was the way it's supposed to be. His mother and I did agree that he is stubborn. I think it is rigid. I don't think A is power-hungry, just compulsive about order. If I'm right, we're back to the drawing board. 

     While they described A as funny, I envisioned a child with a good sense of humor. Afterward, I thought perhaps he's funny because he does things you wouldn't expect a child to do: tell an adult the right way to do something. This behavior may be cute on a child but think of what it will look like on a thirty-year-old man. He won't be able to hold a job. In addition, this is a black family. His life could be at stake if he corrects a cop when he's stopped. I wanted to make sure their interpretation is correct. If I see it differently, I have to do everything I can to push them to get him evaluated by a child psychiatrist and the help he needs to learn appropriate social behavior. There are two diagnoses I'm considering: autism and obsessive/ compulsive disorder. The mental rigidity and his behavior suggest he lacks a theory of mind that helps him imagine what another person is thinking. All sorts of problems lead people to feel they are right to tell others what to do as if they are the only ones who know the right way to do something. I think a bully can get away with that behavior more easily than A can get away with his. A bully recognizes they are dealing with another person with thoughts and feelings. I wonder if A is capable of that.

     The autistic lack a theory of mind. It means they cannot understand what others think or feel. How is this different from narcissism? It is, but I'm not sure how.

     I found new episodes of Grace and Frankie. Fonda had some work done on her face. Too bad. Also, she is having more trouble moving about. Her hips are giving her trouble. I like Longmire better.

Friday, August 13, 2021

 Friday, August 13, 2021

 

       When I went to bed last night, I was exhausted. I slept soundly from 10 pm to about 4 am. I should have gotten up and read, but I didn’t. I dozed on and off. I noticed I was in no pain; I hadn’t had any all night. I couldn’t remember if I had any the night before. The work I did with the acupuncture pen the other night made a big difference.

     I used that pen where no physical therapist or acupuncturist would dare to go. No, not there -the groin muscle right next to there. This muscle is connected to the muscle that Mike pulled, otherwise known as Michael’s muscle. I applied the acupuncture pen to the upper leg and the groin muscles. It stopped the pain. Walking was easier. I haven’t been inclined to use it since. No pain.

      Sixth grade D didn’t sign into our Zoom meeting at 8:30 as scheduled. I called but got no answer. He was on almost immediately. Mom said she forgot. We rescheduled for ten because I had a nine am appointment.

   That appointment was my regular one with Shelly. I dealt with the sadness I felt about my family. I am someone who needs connections. In Blueprint, Christakis talks about different types of people. Those who are always on the periphery of a group, those who act as a hub with everyone radiating out from them, and those who serve as a hub and connect all those they are connected with to each other. I fall into the last category.  

    My sister-in-law commented that people who otherwise have no connection to each other wind up in conversation through me. I wasn’t conscious of it before that day; I did it without awareness. Since then, I have been more aware of my actions. Walking through my neighborhood each morning, I run into other walkers. I learn their names. Over time I may even learn more about them and have ongoing conversations. More importantly, I make a point of introducing people to each other. Sometimes those connections pay off for people. The payoff for me is a sense of a cohesive neighborhood where people know and care about each other. I need that. I don’t believe anyone is hurt by it. There are a few people I never speak to other than to wave a brief hello. Is it because they send out a leave-me-alone message or because I see something I don’t like in them? I think it’s the former.

       When Mike and I lived in Princeton, we, on my initiation, worked on family cohesiveness. We always included everyone. Their willingness to be included wasn’t as enthusiastic. Some complain about the lack of cohesiveness of our extended family, but they also make no effort to develop it. Quite to the contrary, they think about their immediately family exclusively. All very sad for me. 

       I also worked a little on the way I speak. Many know me as a generous, compassionate, empathetic person, but I doubt anyone thinks of me as gentle. I have an aversion to gentleness. I don’t associate with good qualities. My mother was only gentle when she gently sat me down to tell me that no one liked me; she was the only one who loved or cared about me. And, of course, she was only telling me that for my sake. Wow! How’s that for the perfect mind fuck. She really believed what she was saying, but don’t most abusers. 

      My father was gentle. Often, I could trust his gentleness. But there were problems with him too. He was playing a formative role beyond the parental one. Like a stage mother, he was grooming me for a role that addressed his needs more than mine. They both taught me that gentleness was a danger sign. I know exactly why I am the way I am. I remember saying it out loud when I was in my twenties. I wanted people to see me coming so they could defend themselves. I can appreciate that some don’t see me that way. 

      I have been in groups where my reception is mixed. Someone come up and tell me that I was the only person they felt was loving and trustworthy in the group. Then someone else will declare me a monster. I had that situation once where some young man walked up to the woman I knew to compliment her on being nothing like me. No one would want to marry me. Of course, the irony was that she was unable to participate in a functional marriage, and I was the one who was happily married. The irony wasn’t wasted on me. Many people who criticize me are precisely those who can’t form satisfying bonds with another adult. They are all victims, perpetual victims who cannot set their boundaries and expect others to figure them out and take care of them. You’d think I’d get the hint and steer clear of them. Some I have. Their rejecting me still leaves me sad. I would love to work it out, but they’re not interested in negotiating their boundaries. 

      I had sixth grade D at 10. We started with simple sentences using sight words to practice automaticity. Because his mother had said he had difficulty applying phonics, I covered that. She had mentioned that he couldn’t read VCe words. I started with a list like that. He said he had that pattern under his belt. I wrote the word brake, and he read barked. Hmmm! Anyone besides me see a problem? Again, I reminded him to start with the vowel. I believe good readers seek out the vowels automatically. We begin by dividing words into syllables. We guess the vowel sound from familiar patterns and then add on the initial sounds. Once he followed the recommended procedure, he could read the word correctly. I took him through a series of cat/cate contrasting the two patterns. I had him use the PDS approach; identify the vowel, blend it with the following consonant, and add the initial letters/sounds. I told him there was no research to support my theory, but I didn’t see he had anything to lose by trying it for a month and seeing how it affected him. He assured me he was following the procedure in his head even though he didn’t do it out loud. 

     Then I introduced a multi-syllable word. I showed D the PDS Phase II procedure for diving words into syllables when starting with the written word. I underlined the vowels. I told him the number of syllables was based on the number of vowel sounds, not letters. I emphasized how important it is to determine the syllables in any word when decoding it. He said he divided syllables between the consonants. I reminded him that the number of vowel sounds determined the number of syllables. Therefore, being a vowel seeker is essential. It is a significant shift for him. It will be interesting to see how it affects his reading.

     Lastly, we worked on writing the story we started on Wednesday. He had expanded his image. He included a view of a mountain to the side of the meadow. I have only had one other student whose imagination and images were that thin. I had to pull details out of him and do most of the writing. I was modeling possibilities. He said he enjoyed doing the exercise, especially using his imagination. I told him whenever he writes, he is either using his imagination or his memory. Anything can be expanded with appropriate details.

        I had a 4 pm appointment with Katie Click, my physical therapist. Amazing woman! I always look forward to working with her.  

        On my way there, I stopped off at Home Depot. I saw a YouTube ad for a toilet cleaning chemical that removes buildup. I found an employee in the cleaning aisle. He didn’t know of a chemical but handed me a Pumice Scouring Stick. It’s a pumice stick for scraping toilet bowl buildup. I made another stop at Petco to see if I could pick up Elsa’s favorite ball. The one she had was falling apart. They didn’t have anything like it. I ordered something online, three or four small balls for small dogs. Then I went to Hawaiian Rehab Services.

     My PT, Katie, spent most of our time together, having me make minor adjustments and observing me. After an hour, she taped my left heel to realign my footpad. It was a slight shift; the flesh of the heel was moved slightly to the right. Katy said this might affect the muscles in my midback that have been giving me problems recently. Katie observed that the spine curved at that point. She asked if I had an X-ray of my spine. I had, but only the lower part, not the whole spine. Katy doesn’t give exercises to do with X number of repetitions. She knows she can trust me to incorporate her suggestions into every move I make.

     On the way home, I stopped at Safeway to pick up a few items. We had a downpour as I drove over there. By the time I left the store, the rain had cleared, and the sun was out in full force. The parking lot was like a steam bath in the late afternoon light. 

    The sun set while I sat down for dinner. The last rays of the sun were still illuminating the sky. A band of red ran through what was visible of the grey sky on the horizon under a dark cloud cover. That band was streaked with waterspouts. 

         I continued watching Longmire, a Netflix TV series bought from HBO, I believe. I still think it’s wonderful. No one on the police force is psychotic or being pursued by a psychopath. I can go to sleep with no concern for nightmares.    

Thursday, August 12, 2021

 Thursday, August 12, 2021

 

           I woke up at 4 am and felt that drop in my stomach foreshadowed sadness. Yes, it's grief over Mike because I had someone who liked me and with whom I could resolve conflicts without feeling I had to lose connection either to myself or him. Were we perfect? Absolutely not! Just good enough. I felt safe.  

        I doubt Mike felt as safe as I did. He suffered from unresolved anxiety. He thought it was due to his upbringing. There were ways I triggered it. When I got excited about something good or raised my voice when I got angry, that triggered him. He would ask me to tone it down. It was tough. His anxiety wasn't my fault, and I wasn't doing anything wrong when I got excited. Ah, let me reconsider that. There's pure excitement and a wound-driven excitement. His mother screamed about everything. It was her absolute right to dominate. She was a perpetual victim. Now, she had been a victim in her family of origin. Her mother reinforced her role as a woman while telling her what a hateful thing it was. Her mother was furious about the role imposed upon her and fought for herself. The only problem for her, and for me, is that we forget, can't remember that when we are freed from our victimhood, we shouldn't still cling to it. I work hard not to see myself this way in the here and now. I have options. If I refuse/can't take advantage of those options is not the fault of others.

       Mike and I got along well because I recognized that males were also victims of our system. There can never be only one victim; there can only be the illusion of one victim. That doesn't mean that some don't have more actual power than others; it just means that those in power suffer from taking advantage of their position when demeaning others. I didn't see Mike as my enemy or as my savior. I saw him as a fellow human struggling to do the best he could. I wasn't dependent on him to free me to make me feel safe. I had a role in creating that world for both of us, as did he. We both recognized we came from homes with serious boundary issues and set up systems for dealing with that in our relationship. Boundary violations are inevitable; how you deal with them is not. People cannot help bumping into each other. What you do when that happens is the difference between a good relationship and a poor one.  

          I don't know if Mike and I shared interests to the same extent as others. He loved watching football. I have zero interest in football. But I loved sitting with him and Damon as they watched. They had so much fun. I didn't share Mike's interest in knowledge for its own sake or for the sake of the church, but I fully support his pursuit of those interests because they made him happy. God, he loved being a student at Catholic University. He became the person he always wanted to be. What a scream! He would tell me he was two hours behind schedule in his reading. Who plots out their lives that way? He had a military order plan. It made me smile. I'm smiling, thinking about how much he loved that challenge. Those were probably some of the best years in his life, except for the last five years here in Hawaii. God, I loved making that man happy. He was so generous with his joy when he had satisfaction. What a gift! God, I miss him. And he loved me. How lucky was I!

       The radio announced 7 am, and there was no activity in the driveway. Huh? I checked my messages. Sure enough, Yvette had canceled. Her ear was bothering her, and she wanted to make it to Urgent Care first thing in the day. 

       I finally got around to cleaning up Elsa's poop on the lanai. Waiting for it to dry thoroughly is step one. It's easier to scrape up without smearing it all over the area. Step two, getting on my hands and knees again to treat the area with Nature's Miracle. While I was at it, I dusted the furniture on the lanai. Good move! I'll have to remember to do that before guests arrive. Of course, that furniture is sitting on a screened-in lanai. I live in an area zoned for farming,  one-acre plots. Lots of dust gets stirred up. However bad it gets here, it is never as bad as an NYC apartment in the sixties. The grime on the windowsills was impressive. I don't know what it's like now. Step three on the poop clean-up project: pour water on the spots and suck it up with my Rainbow vacuum cleaner. What a fantastic tool!

     I'm up to date on my updates. I have completed my video of Phase I. I need Tommy to do a nip and tuck, and I'm done. I feel like I don't have enough to do today. I washed my kitchen floor again. It got dirty. I did my steps. I'm up to 8,000 before 1 pm. I only have 2,000 more to go. I called Judy to see if I could include information on her in the post for the other day.

    I had a session with A. In our last session, I was shocked to realize how weak his phonemic awareness was. When I started working with him, the emphasis was on phonemic awareness. Then his mom asked me to focus on the sight words. We made significant progress, but  . . . . 

      Today, I asked A. if he thought he would learn to read by memorizing every word. He said yes. I told him that a few people had a memory good enough to do that. I was not one of them, and those with that perfect memory were not normal since he was so concerned with being normal.

    I used the sight word lists we already worked on to work on phonemic awareness. I asked A to read the word; he could read all the words on this list. He was slow to respond when I asked him to do it. He didn't respond. I asked him if he heard me ask him to read the word. Yes. But still did not do it. I find this behavior confusing and distressing. I needed to call mom and ask her. I asked him again to read the word. He did it. Then I said. "Listen for the sounds and feel the shape my mouth makes as I say the sounds." I just modeled for the entire half-hour. He said he thought it was fun.

    Elsa and I did our before-dinner walk today along the shore. I lived within 5 miles of the beach. I coud see it from my lanai. I hadn't been visited one for about a year. I felt a need. I packed Elsa into the car and headed for the nearest beach, down the hill from where I live. Elsa was happy to get in the car and go for a drive. The moment we arrived, she had to poop. Good thing I brought a poop bag. I thought of walking along the beach where I parked the car. Elsa had other ideas. She led me down the unpaved road along the shore to the Pine Trees beach. 

     I thought of Mike. The lava pool we loved is at this beach. The swimming area is formed by a narrow passage between two walls of lava rock perpendicular to the shore. The waves come crashing in, sweeping into the pool area and rushing out again. You don't want to go out too far. They can be rough. The waves could wash you away.    Mike and I always thought the water there had the quality of a mountain stream. At some point, I learned an underground freshwater stream did empty into the pool. 

       When planes take off, they fly over this beach. It's half a mile from the airport. They pass right overhead. Mike would get so excited and wave to the plane. The passengers couldn't see us. We were right underneath them. It's impressive to be that close to a plane taking off into the sky. It was so good to walk in different scenery. I had read how important it is to vary where you walk. Elsa seemed to enjoy the walk, but then she was glued against my body and shaking slightly on the way home. Maybe she didn't enjoy it as much as I thought.

      Earlier in the day, I found posts about Barbara Streisand on YouTube. One was of her singing  The Way We Were. Mike and I saw that movie on our second date. That became our song. As I walked along the beach thinking of Mike, I sang what I could remember of the words. I knew he was someone special that day because I was completely comfortable just standing online with him. It was an eventful night. He wanted to have sex. I was not having sex until I was damn good and ready. We 'discussed' it in a Baskin Robbins around the corner from the movie. Then he told me he was $2,000 in debt as we crossed Park Ave on our walk back to the Westside. Well, that ended any prospect of a long-term attachment. He might as well have told me he was an alcoholic. As I am sure you have figured out, I forgave him this excess. His positive attributes so far outweighed his negative ones. The issue of being in debt or not lasted till the end. Fortunately, we had enough money, so it never became an issue. We walked to his apartment to get his car so he could drive me home.    

    Ah, I remember. Mike's car had a flat. He got out his jack, preparing to change the tire. He could do that, but there was something mechanical he couldn't figure out. I said, let me try. He handed me jack without batting an eye. He scored points on that move, let me tell you.

 

Wednesday, August 11, 2021

 Wednesday, August 11, 2021

 

         For the last two nights, walking to the bathroom in the middle of the night was a challenge. There was pinching in my left hip. Later in the morning, it wasn't; if anything, it was easier than usual. Surprise! How did this happen?

           I had a session with sixth grade D at 8:30 am. The improvement in his reading continued. We started working on a written piece. He didn't give me much to work with. Using the see a color, identify the object that is that color prompt that generally works with kids, I got something out of him. I had to add a lot and then pull more information from him. He's not making significant contributions yet. I did the writing and expanded as I wrote. The objective was to demonstrate how to develop an idea from a lean beginning. He was impressed.  

    After the session, I spoke to his mom. He's being homeschooled. She was amazed to see him zoom through the first four sight word lists. But then, when it came to reading material, he was halting. He may have been nervous reading to his mom. When he read for me, he could even catch errors and self-correct. On one occasion, he switched brain modalities between automatic processing and conscious decoding. I thought of moving him up to 3rd grade but didn't want to push it and force him into failure. I decided to go through the 2nd-grade book. 

    Mom is using some phonics material with him. She is noticing that he has trouble with vowel digraphs and diphthongs. It may be a good idea to follow up on that since she is using it. I can teach her my approach, discovering the pattern. I asked for a handwriting sample since he said he had trouble. His mom said when he writes; he leaves out the vowel letters.

      I was in a heartbroken state for a good part of the day. Some of it is Mike, but some of it is the rest of the family. I'm someone who loves to be part of a community. As I walk, I introduce everyone to everyone else. I love knowing what everyone thinks. Then I have a family consisting of people who only want minimal contact with other family members. They all stick to their nuclear family group. And then there is no system for resolving differences. It sucks. If I had Mike, I wouldn't feel so lonely. 

      I had Mama K's crew today. K had to write something in his agenda book, instructions for mom. It was legible, but there was no spatial consistency. Of course, these books leave so little space that it's hard for me to write in them, no less a spatially challenged 3rd grader. K had no paper available, so writing was out. I just asked him how his day went. How many times did the teacher have to call your name? Three times. How many times did they have to call it last year? Two. Who knows if his concentration has improved? My goal is to get him to pay attention to the problem instead of having an external source, parent, or teacher, constantly call him back. 

       I told mom not to call him to attend. To make sure he didn't have his tablet open a video game, but other than that, just to observe. Then, complimenting him each time, he brought his attention back to the work. 

       Mom was out today, but dad was home. He kept telling K to pay attention. I kept asking him, "Please, let me deal with it." I'm sure he had no idea what I was doing. I can always ask for help if I need it.

     I had Twin A next. She said they work on letters today in school. I wasn't sure if this was a small group lesson with kids as behind as she was on identifying the letter names. From what I could tell, a group of 9-11 kids worked on writing the letters. She named the letters they worked on with confidence. Then we worked on the -at family. She struggled with blending. Boy, did she struggle! I couldn't get her to use cross-body blending. I repeated the words, "Put your hand on shoulder #1," over and over as I modeled it. She was on another planet. I'm not sure how much of her inability to attend is avoidance and how much is neurological. 

     Twin E. had to pick out the word the from the array of words the, there, and they in that order, numbered 1, 2, 3. Which one is the? She gave me the correct answer. I wrote them again, in a different order there, the, they. Which one is the? Again, she gave me the correct answer. Then I started with the -at family. She read -at as that. It was a very slow start, but then, she zoomed through all the rest of the words in the -at family.

     I worked with adolescent D at 4:30. As I always do, I asked him, "How was school?" Good. "How did the reading go?" Good. It is the very first time he has responded that way. I asked his permission to tell his mom. I also asked him if he would prefer to tell her. He said no. Okay. Not sure what that is about. This improvement has shown up after we did the last release. I have always felt there was some trauma underlying his reading problem. I have no idea what that trauma was. I do believe it was just something relatively small that upset him. His parents didn't respond perfectly. It felt like they tried the 'laugh-it-off' approach, a good strategy when it works. Children look to their parents to know what is serious and what is trivial. His response had gone too far to have laughter pull him back from the brink.

    He chose to work on the sight word sentences. I always have him choose; it gives him some control over the situation. I don't go through the sentences in the same order. His recall isn't good enough to memorize those sentences; if he thinks he knows them, he makes mistakes. He caught several errors and self-corrected. 

    So far, it has taken half an hour to get through all the sentences. That hasn't changed. Adolescent D's reading speed and accuracy have improved. It goes slowly because he doesn't respond quickly when I tell him to read a sentence. It could be up to 30 seconds before he says the word, and then he often as, "Which sentence?" I addressed this problem today. It is as if his mind jumps the track. He literally loses his train of thought. He agreed. I asked him how he felt about it. He said he didn't care. He wasn't belligerent; he was reporting how he felt. I thanked him for trusting me. I can do little to help him if he's not invested in the change. Is he this way because he's given up, or is this just his nature- he invests in nothing?

        Using the copy posted on YouTube, I watched a version of the video on my reading method that looks clear and with the audio in sync. Two slides needed a bit of snipping—too much silence at the end of one and a false start on a second one. Tommy says I can access this version through Facebook. I tried. Not a chance.

        Judy dropped off two stalks of celery and half an onion as per my request. I have a hunger for tuna fish salad. I need those two ingredients but not a lot of them either. I chopped up both stalks and a little bit of the onion. I'll return the rest of the onion to her tomorrow. I put the salad in the fridge to marinate. Mike always did that. Tuna fish salad tastes so much better when the flavors have had to chance to mingle. Tonight, I had a broiled chicken leg. Tomorrow, I'll have the tuna salad. 

        B called. He read I was down. Judy checks on me every day. She calls, texts, or comes over. Besides, only B and Linda in England respond to me directly when they see I'm down from reading the update. Linda sends me an email wishing me well, and B calls. John Zim will call when he sees I have a problem that needs solving. I have several people who read it to check I'm okay. I don't know if I could handle everyone calling on the updates mailing list, over 40 people. I can't imagine everyone reads it. I'm always amazed to find out that someone does. I'm grateful for the interest. While some read it only to find out how I am, I hope some enjoy my shared thoughts and observations.

Tuesday, August 10, 2021

Tuesday, August 10, 2021

 

     Today I passed a milestone. I passed 7,000 visits on my blog posted on Blogger.com. Many are repeats; I have some people who visit daily. I have some from the USA and some from China and Russia. Every once in a while, there will be a surge. A teacher in a foreign country, like Turkey, probably assigns my blog to their English class.

      The public blog is different from my updates. I started the updates when Mike was in the hospital. I got sick and tired of having to repeat myself. I had a mailing list of over fifty people. This post is part of the current updates. The blog posts are a year behind. Today I posted the entry for August 12, 2020, on blogger.com. 

     Periodically I speak to someone, and I learn they are still people who read my updates. God bless you, everyone. Thank you for your interest, and thank you for not insisting that I remove your name from the mailing list. You provide me with an excuse to continue writing them. Without this activity, my life would be emptier than it is. I strongly recommend this activity to anyone in my position. It fills the day and makes it feel full as I record all the details.  

      An additional value of the updates is that I get to detail my teaching methods. I think I’m on to something. This way, I get the information out there. Of course, the information gets lost in the swamp of all the other details of my life. It’s the best I can do for now. 

     There were only two students for driveway yoga this morning, Deb and me. Scott was wrestling with car problems, and Joe was taking the week off. Deb will be moving to Seattle soon, within a few weeks. She and her husband have chosen to retire there. She says she’ll be back to visit. 

       I have been feeling lonely, which makes me sad. Self-awareness has its upside; its downside is being sensitive to every feeling, good and bad. Buddhism teaches there are two wings to a peaceful mind with a loving heart: awareness and equanimity. Me, I had self-awareness pushed on me at a young age without attention to equanimity. Equanimity is looking at things with a calm, nonjudgmental mind. You just observe. You just observe something pleasant, and you just observe something unpleasant. You can experience deep joy and sorrow, but don’t cling to them. The clinging gets us in trouble, according to the Buddha.  

    I had a tutoring session with A. We slogged through the reading. This poor kid hates to do anything with the reading. Mind, he is always polite and respectful of me. He always pays attention. He just hates every single minute of it. Every minute reminds him he’s not normal. He can’t see it as a problem to be solved. I want to say all kids feel this way, but it isn’t all. The third grade D, now going into fifth grade, seemed not to care. But A’s position is extreme, especially for someone so young. His pain is alive and well and very present. 

    We went through the sight word list. A rocked the first three lists as he had for several sessions. He ran into trouble distinguishing very from every. I had him compare the letters in the two words. Every starts with an e, etc. Then I asked him for the starting sound of very. He gave me the short /e/. OMG! I have to go back to the drawing board. I have not followed my own advice. 

      I teach there are two phases to teaching decoding. In Phase I, you start with the sound of the word, whether the student can read the word or not. (Students can teach themselves phonics by observing the patterns in words they already know.) Then I ask, “What are the sounds in this word?” Basic phonemic awareness is considered the single biggest predictor of reading success. The last step of Phase I is determining which letter(s) represent those sounds. That is where I started with A, using the Carpenter material. I switched to Phase II a while ago without going back and forth, back and forth. This kid has zero phonemic awareness. I would say I have done him a terrible disservice, except he has made impressive progress. His mother is thrilled with how much he’s made. I am going to have to forgive myself and assume that I followed my instincts, which generally prove to be the best course of action.  

   With adolescent D, I started with 7th-grade material. That’s what he needed. Now, I’m working with first-grade-level sentences. I couldn’t have started there with him. I would have lost him to his wounded ego. Now, he trusts me. He has learned he can learn. Now that he has hope, we can be more flexible, and he is making even greater improvement- very exciting.

I am looking forward to starting again with Phase I with A. Will he be able to invest in the activity? The more he invests, the faster it will go.  

     Judy stopped by to visit after making a Turo drop-off for our next-door neighbor. We talked about bowel movements. We were talking about things that give us satisfaction. I get more unadulterated delight from washing my kitchen floor than from the teaching or even the methods I have developed. Note: I said unadulterated. Dealing with the impact of and the response to my teaching and my teaching methods is more complicated. I compared certain experiences of satisfaction with having a good bowel movement; they’re simple, straightforward, and unambiguous. Judy understood completely. She is from a German family too.

     Besides regular discussions on the value of a good poop as a measure of general health in my family when I was a child, I have one memory. I must have been between three or four. I had been sick.. My image is of my mother examining my poop in the toilet and ecstatically proclaiming it ‘good’; I was healthy again. 

     I was raised thinking talk about body functions was good. Poor Mike, he couldn’t tolerate any discussion of body functions. It was a serious cultural conflict. I would forget his predilection and launch into some reference to body functions over dinner. I stopped when he reminded me. Mike’s denial of the physical life in conversation was so bad that when he died, Damon couldn’t imagine he had left directions as to how he wanted to be buried, whole, or cremated. He had made that decision. Judy and I had a blast bonding on this common ‘interest.”  

Monday, August 9, 2021

 Monday, August 9, 2021

 

      I had sixth grade D in the morning. His reading has improved dramatically. He can automatically process most words. Amazing. He may still need more practice in decoding multi-syllable words. I thought it was time to consider working on other academic skills. I asked him about his writing. He said it was okay. He just couldn’t write a lot on a single topic. That may mean he is several years behind where he should be. I’ll have to see. Also, he said his handwriting was a mess. I figured out how to teach letter formation on Zoom. Of course, I can’t check body mechanics. I may have to have his mom make a video of him writing and text it to me.

     At the end of the class, I asked him how he felt about reading now at a rate of 1-10. He said a 7. I asked him how he felt when we started. He said a 4. Lovely!

      I had reading support office hours for the Step Up Tutoring program tutors. There was just one woman. She hadn’t had much experience tutoring, wasn’t sure what she was doing, and seemed quite uncomfortable with the prospect. She told me her student was going into sixth grade and was very bright, but she had no information on what she needed. She wanted to be able to do an evaluation. It finally came out that her student was in a gifted program. I told her she didn’t need an evaluation. If she was in a gifted program, it was for either reading/language arts or math. Since she did know the student had no problems with math, it had to be reading. If she was in a gifted program, she had to be at least one or two years ahead of her grade level; otherwise, she wouldn’t be in that program. She didn’t need an evaluation. 

      I think she hoped that an evaluation would provide her with exact information. It doesn’t. Most just determine reading level and the nature of the problem: word recognition or comprehension. They are not more precise than that, particularly at the higher levels. I kept telling her to ask her student what she needed. She kept harking back to wanting a tool for evaluating her needs. I tried to tell the woman that I would be as baffled as she was with a new student. I don’t know what the student’s needs are right away. The higher the level of performance, the longer it takes to determine that. She didn’t like the solution of, “Just ask.” 

        She told me her student said she didn’t like math. I told her to ask the student when her dislike of math started. If she said she was below third grade, she probably had a problem with basic number sense; if it was after, the problem was learning the multiplication facts or, more likely, the algorithms or figuring out what operation to use in problem-solving. There was some talk about working on percentages in math. I showed her my triangle showing the relationship between all fractions, decimal fractions, and percentages. All fractions are on the bottom of the triangle, the fat part.   That’s because the number of possible denominators is infinite. You can have any number for the denominator. There are fewer possibilities for the decimal fraction segment; it is smaller. Here you can only have denominators with a number starting with 1 with zeroes after it. However, you have an infinite number of those too. At the apex of the triangle, you have percentages. There is only one number for the denominator here, 100.

     The woman fell silent. She wasn’t interested in my terrific triangle. She was interested in the whiteboard. I gladly showed her how to get the whiteboard in Zoom. I also showed her how to share Internet screens on her computer. I brought up the NY Times Crossword Puzzle as an example. For this, she thanked me. Good enough. I hope she calms down and trusts herself. She was a bright woman with many skills to share. 

       Adolescent D’s mother texted me asking if we were scheduled for today. No, but I could accommodate him. I always give him a choice of things to work on: the sight word sentences (sentences I have written that give the student the opportunity to practice words they confuse or don’t know yet), the 2nd-grade material I used with sixth-grade D, or the higher-level work on the seventh-grade level. He chose the sight word sentences. I told him to trust himself. Go for the work that seemed most comfortable. That would inevitably be the most effective.   

       When I asked him if he saw improvement in his reading due to our work on Saturday, he said no. However, when he read through the sentences, he was moving more rapidly. I had him read the sentences out of order so he couldn’t memorize them. If he memorized each sentence, he would lapse and not use bottom-up perception. He would focus on what was in his head instead of on the paper.  

      D did better than usual for most of the sentences. He either read accurately or caught his own mistakes. This is great. Then he started making mistakes like mad. I could see he lapsed and started using top-down processing. My first response was to tell him he just had to discipline himself to use the bottom-up processing. The overuse of top-down processing was his compensation for his word recognition problems. A good reader uses both equally.

    Later that night, I realized I had been wrong. He hadn’t gotten sloppy. He was exhausted. He was working as hard as he could, following my directions and knocking it out of the park. Then he got tired and fell back on his old method because he couldn’t do it anymore. Think of going on a long hike. You start using your body energetically and efficiently. Then you get tired. You can’t use your core muscles anymore. You drag yourself instead of propelling yourself over the rocks. D got tired. I owe him an apology, an acknowledgment for how well he did do as long as he could. We have to work out some response when he gets that tired. I can take over and just model; he can relax and go along for the ride. If I push him, he is bound to fall back on his old strategy, which we don’t want to encourage right now.

        I discover Longmire on Netflix. Ah! It’s a mystery. Not quite Murder She Wrote but close. Actually, quite a bit better.        

_____-______-___

Musings:

          I learned that conservative people believe people become gay or transgender only by being exposed to people like that. I can’t imagine anyone choosing such a radical deviation from a social norm or even from their parents’ expectation on a lark to follow a fad. However, I can’t disagree that seeing it in others makes adopting it more possible. 

        I know now that I’m psychic. It was not an acceptable option when I was young. I had to come up with some other explanation when people told me they thought I was reading their minds. No, no. I’m very sensitive to movement or some such excuse. It wasn’t until I was in my fifties that a friend forced me to come to terms with it. What a difference it made in my life! Do you mean these feelings I was having weren’t all mine? You mean there is a way to shield myself from the energy of others? Do you mean I can feel their feelings and not have to do something about it because they are theirs? I couldn’t deal with the reality of my ability until I met others who had made their peace with theirs.

    Similarly, people who feel they can’t conform to the cisgender category suffer. They know something is different. They feel their discomfort. They have no idea how to seek relief- until they see someone else living that life. So, in that sense, those conservatives are right. Sadly, they don’t want peace for their children.  

Sunday, August 8, 2021

 Sunday, August 8, 2021

 

      It was a night of distress. I found myself arguing with people in my head. It was nerve-wracking. The good thing about this pattern of thinking is I often get new insights. 

     When a freshman in college, I had to write a piece from two different points of view as a conversation. I choose Jackson Pollack as my subject. I hated his work at that time, and I told him so. Then it was his turn to speak. Boy, he impressed me with his point of view. Mind, this was all coming from my head. He died two years before I wrote the essay. You can learn a lot from a discussion expressing different points of view, even if you're the only one participating. Carl Rogers used this as a form of psychotherapy.  

        However, there are times when my monologuing dialogues are just obsessive and distressing. I associate them with fear. Last night, I asked what lay under that fear. It was rage, a pretty scary rage. I could 'sit' with that, although it was tough. Who likes to be murderously angry? Under fear sat my anger, and sometimes under my rage sat fear, and sometimes it was just sadness. We're like onions needing peeling to find the next real moment. That's what I like about Buddhist meditation. It supports that process. 

       I waited until I heard the birds chirping before I got up. While I listened to my Sunday morning NPR shows, I did some house cleaning. The living room desperately needed to be vacuumed. I also washed Elsa. 

       I have noticed that she's been licking one of her feet. As I washed her, I could see her poor foot was bright red. I checked it, but I didn't see anything. She's not licking all the time. That suggests the cause of the problem is psychological rather than physical. It could be my mental state that's getting to her. I haven't been this agitated for years. 

       Today, I finally mediated. It was a wonderful state to be in. I was calm within myself. Ah!! I have to find some way to calm my inner agitation. Mike could calm me with nothing more than one of his hugs and a kiss. Boy, I miss him. There is no Mike replacement. 

       Tommy called to say he was uploading the modified video to YouTube. It would be available within the hour. He called back later that night to say he encountered the same problem as he had before. Uploading the video to Facebook caused the same fuzziness to the visual aspect and the out-of-sync problem with the audio. He said he would have to contact Facebook to see what was happening. Very frustrating. 

 _____-_____-______

Musings:

   Judy and I debate whether people can change or if they are fixed. When I talked about my agitation, she said, "See. You can't change." What a horrible thought.  

 

 

Can people change, or are they just what they are? It is a hotly debated topic, but not one versus the other. 

 

It's so complex I don't know where to start. 

1) Reasons to change: 

            a. For the sake of others

            b. For our own sake. 

2. Variables:    

            a. Degree of woundedness

            b. Degree of indoctrination

            c. Degree of willingness to consider changing, if change is possible or if change is beneficial to self or others, to let go of what is for what might me.

            d. Degree of skill in self-modulation (meditation, self-knowledge, self-discipline)

            e. Degree of willingness to seek help/knowledge/advice of others. 

       We always change in response to the world around us. Is there a genetic component? I'm sure. Stone has its nature; the artist has to consider it as they create the shape they have in mind. You can't ignore that 'what is.' Each of us has elements like the sculpture's stone; they are fixed. But that doesn't mean that stone can't be shaped around those fixed aspects. Our 'native cultures' shape us. If we are born in one culture, we form one way; in another, we form differently. We are not simply what nature has dictated. 

    We interact with friends and family within our culture, and our personalities form in those relationships. We all wind up with some good points and some bad. We have to decide how to adapt our personalities to our social surroundings. 

     I deeply believe that people can change and that it is to our benefit to consider change not only in response to radical differences in our circumstances, requiring adaptation that all animals have to make in response to environmental changes. We need to change to become better people for ourselves and others.

     As a woman in the 21st century, I had a free choice of who I would choose to relate to once I turned 18.   I could choose to whom I would adapt myself. Each friend illuminated other possibilities. Mike was the only person with whom my heart fully rested. 

     I never thought he was perfect- far from it. But I did think he was good enough. I remember when I first accepted him as my life partner, thinking, "I can live with what he is for the rest of my life without expecting him to change." I remember where I was standing in the commune when I had that thought. It wound up not being entirely true. His arrogance had to go. But he had wonderful features: he mainly saw me as I needed to be seen and liked for what I valued in myself.   I think neither of us changed our minds about certain essential characteristics in each other. We both appreciated those essential things to the end. A base like that buys a lot of tolerance. In other words, we have to choose our friends and partners wisely. I think we choose people for the worst in them as well as the best. We know exactly what we're buying into. We can only hope that our psyches are sufficiently healed that we're not buying into a destructive package—a more abusive relationship than a supportive one.

          Many years ago, I coined the term-complimentary neuroses. The concept isn't mine. Psychologists say we choose to partner with someone who most resembles the parent we have unresolved differences with. I don't know if that is always true. I know that I was first attracted to men that were like my mother. God forbid. I knew I didn't want to be there. Mike resembled my father in several important ways. I recognized that from the beginning. I could build a healthy relationship with someone who resembled my father- not perfect. I was attracted to him for his 'positive' qualities as well as his 'negative' ones. Once bonded, the relationship nourishes both parties, or it starves them. No, it can't be that simple. It's probably on a continuum. There's a mix of positive and negative features. Then, there are always the four horsemen of marriage. Whatever the mix, we change in the relationship. It's inevitable. 

        It is such a complicated subject. Judy argues that we are what we are. I have been working on changing certain aspects of myself since my teens. I've gotten better, but I have not wholly licked the problem. Judy says, "See, you can't change." I argue I have already changed substantially. I see moments when I don't respond in my usual knee-jerk response and when I feel that way but don't act it out. She says you're 80; it's over. I say no, it's not- not till I'm dead.  

    The thought comes up why bother? Good point. Because I don't like it in myself, It's a result of my PSTD. Mine isn't from one incident; mine is from 20 shocks a day for my whole childhood. Mike said it was as if I had been tortured. I still believe I can be healed. I believe everyone can. Perfectly? Not the goal. Just more so. 

      I can't imagine this all makes very much sense. I found someone who thought I was good enough as is and then served as a foil for my change. I worked to become someone who could address his needs better- while preserving my boundaries. Always keeping in mind that the goal was addressing my own needs through change. 

     I think people who consider change think it requires self-hatred and shame. There are moments when those two rear their ugly heads. Those feelings serve a function; they are our smoke alarms, telling us that action is called for. Once we have acknowledged their signal, we can silence them. "Thanks. I can take over from here." 

         How do we proceed while being loving and accepting of ourselves? Self-hatred and shame impede change. It can be unbearable to consider our limitations. However, if we can't consider them, we can't change. We're back to the lessons of the Buddha, awareness, and equanimity. I think Christianity teaches it through the unconditional love of Christ. By seeing ourselves through his eyes, we can learn to love ourselves enough to have a chance to really change.

      I know I'm rambling. It's the best I can do.      

Saturday, August 7, 2021

 Saturday, August 7, 2021

            

        I had a fantastic night's sleep. I think it was because someone spoke to me with affection. I think I'm a pretty easy friend/companion/family member. On the other hand, when I feel raw edges between another person and myself because of unresolved issues, I can be pretty miserable. I don't need everything to be 'my way,' in the usual sense of the term. However, I need reconciliation, clearing the air, so everyone is comfortable with the outcome.   I always go back to cocreating. Of course, I do demand that communication style, so it's not entirely true that I don't want more than others want to give. If others don't want to engage in negotiation, it's a no-exit situation.  

         I am told that negotiation is the favored solution to personal differences in our modern society. That's what's advocated by psychologists these days. Then again, Yvette and I had one who deliberately blocked discussion. She interjected her judgments and shut down all discussions between Yvette and me. Very weird. 

        Discussion is of value in any situation where people are too far apart in their values. Can these differences be resolved without words? I know they can; a defining story of my relationship with Mike was a difference we resolved without words. I've told it before, probably more than once. We went to Fortunoff's to buy a stainless-steel cutlery set.   We went our separate ways without talking to check out the available patterns.   I picked out something very modern; he picked out something my great-grandparents would have liked. We met up with our selections. We looked at each other's choices and returned to the display without saying a word.

We rendezvoused again with our new selections. His was more modern and mine more traditional. Again, without saying a word, we went back to the display. On this last run, Mike picked a winner, one we both liked, not just one we both could live with. I like the pattern to this day, as did he.   This became the story of our relationship. It's the dialectic; the synthesis is better than either thesis or the antithesis. I try to live by this code. Modifying myself to suit someone else's needs presents exciting opportunities for me to change and grow. Does it also present burdens? Of course. When doesn't life present burdens? I get burdened with my life. I get sick and tired of eating the food I cook, even though I have a good variety. It's still always and forever me. I get sick and tired of the sameness. 

      I worked on automatic processing with adolescent D. I used the same 2nd-grade level material I had with sixth-grade D.  I instructed the student to wait to see what information his mind provided. There are three options: the correct word, the wrong word, or nothing. All three provide valuable information. He made some sound substitutions that suggested that there was still disturbance in his auditory processing center. I asked him if the work we did previously held. He said, "Yes." We did a release a while ago that made speech comprehension easier. He said that before we did that work, speech sounds were compressed. I sensed some small piece still left. 

      I asked him if he would try the work I was proposing. I told him if I were wrong, nothing would happen. He cooperated. The small piece expanded to something much larger as we did the release. I told him to imagine hearing a child crying on a roller coaster. I don't use this image with all students. I asked if hearing the crying was relaxing or stressful. He said neither. If he had said stressful, I would have told him to stop. I believe the direction of the work should always be toward greater relaxation. Using this measure assures that no harm can come from the work. The image of him 'drowning' and calling for his mom came to mind. It didn't look like he was drowning in water. He could have been drowning in confusion or too much stimulus. Whatever it was, I don't think his mom picked up on what was happening. I told him she didn't do something terrible. She missed understanding his upset; he will do it to his kids too. No one can understand another person perfectly, even if it is our very own child. Also, if a kid freaks out, making light of it is one way to help them regain balance. If they see their parent laughing, they can get that there is no problem and calm down. Either way, he had to release this lesson.

        Life delivers lessons we must remember forever, and it delivers some that we should forget. We should always remember that fire is hot, and we can get burnt. Sometimes we are injured in a unique situation that is unlikely to reoccur. A woman told me the story of how she was standing on an NYC street corner when a car went out of control and hit her. What are the chances of that ever happening again? However, she never stood at a curb without that warning clearly in mind. She had PTSD, a learned response that is more dysfunctional than helpful. 

    Earlier this week, I sent notes on the audio file to Tommy so he could complete the editing. It felt like it must have been over a week. When I reread the updates, I saw it was just a few days ago. I have been complaining about temporal disorientation. I have been concerned that it has something to do with my age, but I have learned that many people are suffering the same fate. I texted Tommy today to ask if he could successfully render the audio file in its original form, without visual fuzziness or the audio out of sync with the visual. He called me back. He said he had done most of it and would be successful. I was worried when I didn't hear from him that the problem with the video was irreparable.

      Yvette came up in the late afternoon to get an update on how my hip was doing. We had a pleasant visit. I brought up the topic of our electric usage. I installed a good-sized solar system with Tesla batteries. Right after I did, we entered a period of daily overcast skies and rain. We were on the grid for a good part of the 24 hours. One of my walking buddies told me he only used 15 kwh daily. It was just him and his son, and they didn't have solar hot water; we do. We use more like 50 kwh a day. I thought it might be my fridge. It's large for a domestic model. I calculated it uses three kwh a day. Let's say all three refrigerators on the property each use three kwh a day; that's nine kwh right there. We are using something like 40 kwh a day. I told her I wanted to check that some neighborhood meth lab hadn't tapped into our line. Mind you, I'm not paying for electricity anymore. My share has been covered forever- with the solar installation. However, I don't like not understanding what is going on. Of course, if I didn't check the Tesla app every two minutes, I wouldn't know something was happening. After all, none of this is my problem anymore.

  A friend recently talked about aspects that make me "different." I asked, "I'm different. What about so-and-so, and so-and-so?" Yes, they're different, but they keep to themselves. I'm extroverted and different. Ah! I find the information interesting. I anticipate being sculpted by this new information. Who will I become? I will always be myself. As I see it, I have no choice but always to be myself. No matter what role I assume, I can only be myself in that role. I can transform as Cate Blanchett or Meryl Streep are in their roles, but they too can only be themselves. Their fingerprint is inextinguishable.  

      I'm not different from others. It's not that I 'allow' myself to be transformed and others don't. No, as I see it, I acknowledge the impact of others on me while some don't. They say they fight against the pressure of others to change. Yes, but they are sculpting themselves in the process of this resistance. We are formed in the context of others. Is there a base? Apparently, as seen in separated-twin studies. But what creates that commonality? It might be genetics. Here's another option. Twins are bound together. Their nervous systems are synchronized in utero. The more they have in common to start, identical versus fraternal, the more easily they synchronize. The separation does not break that bond any more than the separation of birthmother and infant is broken by separation. Does that mean other relationships cannot become as important, if not more so? No. It means it is a factor, like a small splinter, barely noticeable but affecting every move we make.

          Today was August's eighteenth birthday. Last year, Jean and I sang happy birthday to him tougher on a conference call. I called Jean to ask if she wanted to do that again. Then I texted August to tell me when he was up. I also texted Damon and Cylin to make sure he let me know. Damon texted that August had a sleepover at a friend's and wasn't even home.  

        Unbelievably, August texted me back with minutes. I called him and then arranged the conference call with Jean. Jean, John, and I all sang a traditional version of the song, and then I did the famous "Ross" version, which Mike and I developed to compensate for his total inability to carry a tune. I told August he should consider coming out to Hawaii with friends without his parents. He just had to remember I didn't cook. He said, "There's always Costco pizza." I hope they do better by me than that.   

        August is heading off to college in a few weeks. He received notification aboutf his roommate. The boy is from Boston and went to some private university school. Damon called one of his best friends from Vassar, who lives in Boston, to tell him the boy was from there and went to that school. Jud produced the name. The boy is the older brother of Jud's daughter's best friend. Is this pretty amazing or expected?  

     I spent the day writing, but only on my updates. I'd been avoiding working on a revised version of my article on my reading method. Oh, well, pretty depressing.

 

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Musings:

    In today's TED talk, the subject was how people reconcile differences. These differences are any two points of view: two people in a marriage or two nations.  

      He said the conventional approach is to find common ground. He calls it a dumbing down because both people are reduced to a small aspect of themselves to accommodate the other. The other aspect of this approach is forgiveness. Sometimes unpleasant things happen, you forgive- that's it. Each incident is considered an isolated moment, not to be seen in relation to other moments, not as part of a pattern.

       He said the alternative way, which the speaker had never considered before, is you create a new option. Huh? I don't know when I realized that's the way I wanted to go. That's the only way that's acceptable to me. He said that two people create something new, a third thing, their relationship. It is the only option for me. I guess I was raised on a heavy diet of the dialectic: thesis, antithesis, and synthesis – the third thing. 

       Of course, my insistence on using this approach makes me as stubborn as those who insist on doing it the 'other way.' I remember people in the commune arguing that they either got along or didn't. Of course, these people remained unmarried or were repeatedly married. Either way, they were unsuccessful in intimate relationships.  

      However, I have seen a marriage that uses system number one. It survives because the system for resolving differences does not involve negotiation, arriving at a mutually created third option neither considered. The method depends on one party always getting their way unless the other has a strong objection. In that case, it goes the other way. There is no third way. Now that can't be accurate. There is no way their ways of doing things aren't somewhat different from what they originally wanted. It may be considered a compromise, a less-than solution. The solution is always a "more-than" approach with the dialectic approach. It's a surprise. It is something neither of you thought of before—such an adventure.