Sunday, June 2, 2019

    I set the alarm for 8 because I didn't have to be ready for Paulette to pick me up for church until 9:30.  Nonetheless, I woke up at 6.  I was able to go back to sleep until 7. Since I had gone to bed shortly before 11 and had a five-hour nap the previous afternoon, I would say that I need a lot of sleep.  Both Mike and I enjoyed napping and sleeping and did it well.  I referred to napping as one of my retirement hobbies.  

    Elsa and I went around the block this morning with a brown paper bag in hand since I wasn't doing Bikram.  There wasn't a lot of trash, only cigarette butts which people must have thrown out their car windows.  I do hope they put them out before they toss them.  There is a lot of dried grass around; we're vulnerable to fire.  When I came back to our street, there was that thing that holds the wheel.  I tried to pick it up; it was way over 25 lbs. That's how much Sidney weighs.  I had no problem picking him up.

    When I came back, I gave Elsa her pill, but no food, she still had some in her bowl.  I made my two days of Juice Plus, washed the dishes, drank my two cups of water, did one kettle of boiling water for my weeds, and did some work on the blog. I was planning to go out and kill off that weed that is growing in one of my plants but ran out of time.  I jumped into the shower, did MELT on both my feet and hands, but I didn't do and haven't done the Tiger Tail for a while.  It is incredible how quickly my hands feel better with MELT treatment. 

    After I got dressed, I tried to do some more work on the blog. I hadn't done much when I heard Paulette honking her horn in my driveway. We were one of the first at church. Paulette made sure I had a bulletin. I looked through it and noticed that Mike's name wasn't listed, and his Deacon's Corner article wasn't there.  When I am aware of his absence, it knocks me out. I just wanted to go to sleep,  His absence in the physical world has a profound effect. His towel is still sitting on the rack, waiting for him to use it. I still haven't changed the linens. I haven't touched the files on his desk filled with things he was currently working on. Those things are too much for me.  When I think of him spiritually, I can feel his presence and his love, and I smile.  His spiritual presence and love were always available, whether he was physically close or not.  

    My experience of feeling my heart/chest with his love must be what many people associate with experiencing the love of God, a loving God.  I wasn't raised with that expectation and feeling as associated with God does not come naturally to me. I was dependent on human love.  The problem with human love is that it is mood dependent, even with the best intentions. 

    As I am typing this, I am experiencing the visual images associated with migraines.  Maybe that's why I'm tired. While I felt pressure in my head, I've always assumed I had a sinus headache.  These images that announce a migraine are new to me. Clear signs that I'm responding to the stress of Mike's loss.  But I don't think I'm depressed.  I can enjoy the flowers, the sunset, Elsa, the outreach of a friend, a conversation with a family member, and so much more. 

    I finally went out and worked on that weed that I was determined to do before the gardeners came on Monday.  It took an hour to finish the work, and I had a blast.  Here I was procrastinating, fearing that I wouldn't be able to do it.  Some of that is due to my physical limitations.  There was one point where I was down on my knees on a pad and had trouble getting up. But,, I kept on pushing through.  I pulled up weeds that would come up, cut those that had thicker stems that didn't give in to a good yank, and painted them with Clorox. Of course, I wound up getting some Clorox on the plant I was trying to free. Let's see what the effect is. Also, I noticed that the gardeners had cut back that plant before.  As is the case here in Hawaii, we grow indestructible weeds.  

    B came up to put some plant hooks up in the roof overhang, so I could put up wind chimes.  Boy, did I mess up my Woodstock windchimes when I moved!  I left them wrapped in plastic on an outdoor table. The wood on my Woodstock windchimes just rotted out. There was a pewter set a student gave me that is not in A one condition but good enough. Now, I have to restring the silver dollar wind chimes from my mom. That will be nice to hear outside my bedroom. 

    There was a moment between my mom and me one day when I was driving her somewhere. She spontaneously said, "I'll take care of you when you get old." We both laughed when we realized what she had said.  I said, "Mom, I'm going hold you to that promise." If there is any way for her to do so, I'm sure she is.  The picture of my mom and Mike looking after me together now earns a big smile from me. 

    Which reminds me of another story.  I finally got my Master's in Education because Mike insisted; he valued certification and thought I would have more authority with a Master's degree.. When it came to graduation, I said, "I'm not walking. I couldn't care less." Well, Mike set me straight.  My mom came too. 

    On the day of graduation, once I found my seat among the other graduates, I looked around for them. I saw the two of them in the stands of the gymnasium; they were radiating pride.  They were so happy and proud, and they shared that with each other.  Mike was great with my mom.  Again, I was so lucky. She wasn't an easy person. I recently asked him if he regretted having my mom live with us for the last 18 years of her life. Mike's response was, "No, it made our hearts bigger." I loved, love, and will always love that incredible man. 

    I finally called the gardener this weekend.  He said he would come over on Monday. I can hear Mike giving a sigh of relief.  Now to solve the food problem, so I get more protein in me.

    I walked Elsa, came home had my large salad, and two slices of multi-grain baguette, yum, and my limeade.  I defrosted two kale and cheese patties planning to cook them, but I wasn't hungry after finishing my salad and bread. But, of course, I had two Hersey milk chocolate bars with whole almonds. I resisted having a third.  I wasn't hungry for nutrition just for the taste of the chocolate with almonds. 

    I walked Elsa before going to bed.  She is no longer willing to do the full walk. She turns around and heads back home. I don’t argue with her. When we got home, I  washed my face, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. Good night, Elsa, Goodnight, Mike.

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Musings:

p. xxv "Flow is especially wonderful when it is collective Flow. Something you experience with your team or unit." He gives the example of someone who experienced it in boot camp when he marched with his unit.

p. Xxvi In this kind of joy, like all joy, the cage of self-consciousness falls away, and people are fused with those around them.  This kind of joy is all present tense; people are captured by and fully alive in the moment.

    Scary quotes from Brooks's "The Second Mountain.".  My parents were refugees from Nazi Germany.  My father was Jewish, but my mother was Christian. He left a year and a half before she did, and they were married in the US when she arrived.  She witnessed the Nazi rallies.  Yes, they create Flow, but at what cost to our humanity. 

    My parents, born in 1903,  were so disturbed by the tribalism they witnessed in the 20th century. While my father was not old enough to be drafted for the war in 1914, he was aware of how crazy the war's provocation was.  He concluded that all group activities were dangerous.  My sister and I weren't even allowed to join the Girl Scouts. I could never go to a rock concert where everyone claps or yells together.  Converting to Catholicism was a challenge.  

    No, I didn't do it for Mike's sake; I had my own conversion story, which started when I was 12, but conversion was just a bizarre thought until Mike led the way. Then it wasn't so farfetched. But I had to come to terms with joining a group with a common doctrine. Before Vatican II, I would pass Catholic churches that announced that anyone who was not a Catholic would go to hell. Boy, if anything was going to turn me away from joining, that was it. 

    I had to come to terms with the reality that social groups are part of what it means to be human. It's neither good nor bad. It can be either. When I was a child, there was a game we played at pajama parties.  We would say "Under the sheets," after someone said something, like: I do my homework – under the sheets.  For a preteen in the 50s, this had some sexual implication. We would laugh and laugh. You had to be there. It doesn't sound very funny to me anymore, either.  But my point is that everything can be evaluated in a context. Group togetherness, with loss of self-consciousness, even loss of some individuality can be either good or bad depending on the context.  

    Unfortunately, context and true intent aren't that easy to discern. A person can say they mean to do good but wind up doing harm. All too often, we are tricked by our own hidden needs to be or do something.  We may not want to, but we use others to satisfy these hidden needs of our own.  Tricky.  I had two caring parents who were unaware of their hidden motivation.  My sister said camp was wonderful, "Because we had all their love and attention at the safe distance of 200 miles." Talk about out of the mouth of babes.

    I say keep your eye on the outcome. But for some, the issue is really the elevation of self through the destruction of the other.  At least we can see them coming at us. It's the others who swear they only mean and do good who scare the hell out of me. 

    Brooks describes all people who think of others as Second Mountain people.   I challenge that assumption. Naming the mountains first and second mountain, at least when we are talking about adults, is inappropriate. Yes, children, appropriately, are entirely focused on self. Their first job is to survive, but adults have the luxury of thinking beyond their own immediate survival, at least many adults, certainly not all.   I don't know a better term, but either mountain, as he describes them, can represent people who suck the life out of others. 

    I think there is a third mountain, where the dialectic of two opposing ideas, thinking of others first and thinking of self first, are resolved, the synthesis.  While we do everything inevitably for ourselves for one reason or another, including sacrificing our very lives,  when we achieve the third mountain, we seek out the 'narrow path' between self and others, which our modern lives call for.  

Saturday, June 1, 2019

 I woke up with dark feelings, feelings of not being loveable or likable, thoughts of Mike's body breaking down in the hospital, and rot setting in.  Mike would always be there to comfort me when dark thoughts pursued me.

    I went to Bikram and had another insight.  If I push the inner side of my toes into the floor while lying on my stomach, it activates my legs' rigid muscles. This is great. Another way of reaching these damaged muscles. So exciting. So much to discover about how the body works. 

    Karin talked to me about her concern that I'm keeping busy to avoid thinking/ realizing that Mike is gone.  I only look busy. Today, I came home from Bikram, washed my clothes, made my morning soup drink, and went to sleep.  I slept for 5 hours. I think I look busy because I write everything I've done short of how many times I've gone to the bathroom. There's an upside to this.  One of my readers realizes that there is always a lot to do and that she has a routine too. It's helping people become more aware of their own daily routine and how much they do. I'm big on mindfulness. This is one reason the blog helps me.  When I find myself observing what I do every minute of the day, it keeps me focused on the moment.

    Am I grieving Mike? Well, as I've written before, I'm clearly in withdrawal from a 45-year habit of mind, body, and spirit.  That would be true even if I didn't love him to bits and pieces. I have moments of sadness.  Yvette said she is sad about the moments she won't share with Mike in the future.  I think that is what I miss the most too. I dread reading a journal of his and finding some thoughts I cannot ask him about to understand him better. 

    I have no deep regrets about what I did when he as alive.  There are no unexpressed thoughts or feelings.  I regret that I will become someone who would have been more of what he would have liked me to be.  That would always be true.  There would never be a point in our lives when we were not works in progress.  

    I miss Mike when I think of him smiling in general when something delighted him and specifically when he smiled in delight at me. But some of that I still have with me.  When I find I miss his living presence in my life, I imagine that wonderful hug and kiss, which was worth everything to me, and it fills my chest with love.  I know that if he can be with me as I adjust, he is. I talk to him. It's weird. I don't know what we did with each other, but I do know that I loved his presence.  Since I feel that presence still, there's not much to miss. 

    I am working on projects he didn't' finish, and he wanted to be done after he died, i.e., getting his 3,000 books to a seminary and getting his book published.  

    Damon called with August's SS #, which I need to make him a beneficiary of Mike's retirement fund. Seems weird to me. Does this retirement benefit go on in perpetuity?  Will his great-grandchildren be entitled to the benefits? I'm just grateful that I am. I'm not going to worry about what the state of New Jersey is doing too.

    I had a wonderful conversation with Damon.  I suspected that he might be reluctant to call because he's so busy and doesn't want to get involved in an hour-long conversation. I don't blame him.  I suggested that we set a time limit for each conversation. I would prefer short ones to none. I am perfectly happy to set the timer on my phone to 15 minutes and hang up when the bell goes off. He told me that he sometimes thinks of calling when he's driving but figured it would be only a short one.  He said he should work on taking advantage of those moments more.

    In the middle of the conversation, he was yelling at August to get to work memorizing a poem for school.  Apparently, the kid had already written the required paper on it but hadn't memorized it.  He as sitting there playing on his computer instead.  I got involved.  He had to learn it to show me.  I had the poem in front of me and could cue him by giving him the first sound in a word or the word.  I also shared some memorization tricks I knew.  I can now remember the meaning of the poem, but not the words.  Too old to learn new poems.  But I did enjoy working with it. 

    I had never heard of the poet, but the title is "Idea 61" sounded like a contemporary title if there ever was one, but the language was from another century altogether. As it winds up, Michael Drayton was a year before Shakespeare.  What do you know?  I studied English Literature in grad school and never heard of the guy. I enjoyed the poem and working with August and Damon.  

    Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part.

    Nay, I have done, you get no  more of me;

    And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart,

    That thus so cleanly I myself can free.

    Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows

    And when we meet at any time again,

    Be it not seen on either of our brows

    That we one jot of former love retain.

    Now at the last gasp of love's latest breath,

    When, his pulse failing, passion speechless lies;

    When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,

    And Innocence is closing up his eyes- -

    Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him over

    From death to life thou might' st him yet recover.

    I love the humor from this period.  I remember reading one of Marvel's in grad school and similarly enjoying it.  August didn't pick this poem. I doubt he ever heard of it before it was assigned in school. I suffer from the end of a relationship, but there is no end of passion here.  And if I could "him yet recover," I would in a flash.

    Damon talked about how he felt that Mike was watching over him.  I told him that I felt the same way and assured him that if it was possible, he was.  I shared some of the conversations I've had with Mike. Some of them are pretty funny.

    I talked somewhat about my grieving process.  Damon said I always was an independent person. I have to agree. My ego was never entwined with Mike's. If people complimented him, I didn't say thank you, I agreed.  His excellence wasn't a reflection on me.  It may have been a reflection of my good taste, I may have had some influence in making him a better person, but he was what he was, a wonderful man on his own.  Perfect no, absolutely not. A work in progress with the best possible intentions. A willingness to make changes.  And a capacity for joy and delight and free expression of his love, which I will cherish for the rest of my life.  I feel that joy and delight with his son and me still. "Damon and I are both grateful for your presence, Mike. Stick around as long as you can.  But leave when you must."

    I walked Elsa and talked to Judy as we went. She is feeling lousy. She can't eat; everything tastes terrible. She's tired all the time.  She had to get off the phone because Howard had prepared something for her to eat.  I am so glad she has people around her who can take care of her.

    Since I only finished my breakfast at around 6 pm, I wasn't very hungry for dinner.  I still made myself a salad, three small slices of buttered multigrain baguette, and a limeade. I took all my pills.  I started retaking two blood pressure pills.  My blood pressure can be under 120/80, but then again, it can be 154/ 85. There's nothing consistent. It's time I go see my doctor.

    Instead of watching TV tonight during dinner, I sat on the lanai as I ate and started the David Brooks book, The Second Mountain.. I walked Elsa before going to bed, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. Good night, Elsa, Goodnight, Mike.

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Musings:  I’m putting this separately so those who are not interested can choose not to read it.

    I found Brook's book disappointing!  I find his reasoning so simplistic. It's not that thinking of others is a bad thing.  But again, it's one extreme versus another with no subtly of thought.  There are those for who thinking of others is a self-center ego trip and the first mountain. These folks are perfectly capable of sacrificing others to look like they are sacrificing or heroic themselves. There is no simple formula. 'By their fruits shall you know them' is still the best measure.

Friday, May 31, 2019

    As I was waking up, Elsa moved; I thought Mike!   Oh, boy.  On our walk his morning, Elsa ate poop.  This was a first, at least the first I've seen her do it.  She passes up dog, turkey, and pheasant poop regularly.  This must have been cat poop.  

    I was such a good girl today.  I called Rodney, the gardener, and Karin to get Sam's social security number.  I also called the electrician, who was supposed to come yesterday afternoon but didn't show. He never called. I called him to ask him what's up.   I did three kettles of water for the weeds and trimmed the bougainvillea on the back lanai.  I took a shower and did MELT for my feet and my hands. I continue to pass on the Tiger Tail.     

    I contacted the teachers at the school and asked if there was any point coming to school today, the last day.  One of the teachers said 11:30 to 12:45 would be a doable window.  The student I had been working with the most was there.  The student, overwhelmed by fear, was not. That wasn't a big surprise.  Today was filled with unusual activities: the songfest and something with water.  He would have been terrified by both events.  I had two minutes to work on reading with the student I had worked with the most for the last week.  Then the teachers came out and said they were told the students were to go to the water event early. I went off to Safeway to get my multi-grained baguette (I think I'm addicted), a package of California rolls, and sour cream in anticipation of eating the burritos in my freezer. 

    I napped, and then I called the electrician again.  He forgot me because he had an emergency. Karin called back.  We talked about the baby and life with the baby. She said she was concerned about reading the blog because I didn't seem to be sad.  I don't know that I am very sad. There are moments when I miss him. For me, the energetic connection was the most valuable. I open my heart and let his love in and smile.  

    I'm slowing down. I don't want to do daily entries to the blog anymore. However, I'm concerned for my welfare.  Is this depression setting in? Am I getting to the point where all movement hurts? It doesn't feel that way. This is an old pattern that predates Mike, B(efore) M(ike), avoiding doing something because I'm afraid I won't be able to do it right, or it's too hard.  I hear others offer that excuse for dealing with change. It's too hard. What does that mean? I don't think it is really too hard.  I know I can do it; I've proved that over and over and over.  It means I'm not sure how it will turn out beforehand. It means having to deal with uncertainty.  Maybe I won't do it correctly. I certainly won't do it perfectly on the first try. I may never be able to do it perfectly. Why should that be a problem?  

    For me, my mother's constant criticism is certainly a possible cause for this fear.  My father didn't yell; he sighed in disappointment.  He was good with small errors.  His frustration with me is that I couldn't solve the world's problems and come up with a 'new' solution to man's cruelty to man.  I came up with some old ones, ones Christ or Buddha had offered up.  Obviously, those weren't effective. We needed something new.  He thought my child's mind, unpolluted by social values, could come up with something. That's right up there with the experiment the King of Scotland tried in the 12th century.  He believed that children raised unexposed to language would automatically speak Hebrew. Surprise! They remained mute, spoke nothing, nada.  Like the King of Scotland, my dad would sigh in disappointment when I came up with an idea and say, "Ah, Buddha thought of that, or Christ or whoever." Not too heavy a set of expectations to place on a child. 

    My friend Carolyn sent the following quote from the Poetry Foundation Site:

Mary Oliver quoted in Brain Pickings.

"I don't mean it's easy or assured; there are the stubborn stumps of shame, grief that remains unsolvable after all the years, a bag of stones that goes with one wherever one goes and however the hour may call for dancing and for light feet. But there is, also, the summoning world, the admirable energies of the world, better than anger, better than bitterness and, because more interesting, more alleviating. And there is the thing that one does, the needle one plies, the work, and within that work a chance to take thoughts that are hot and formless and to place them slowly and with meticulous effort into some shapely heat-retaining form, even as the gods, or nature, or the soundless wheels of time have made forms all across the soft, curved universe — that is to say, having chosen to claim my life, I have made for myself, out of work and love, a handsome life." 

I do feel that I have work left to do, work I can do.  I also have my book I would like to finish writing. It is much easier to focus on projects for Mike: getting his book published and making sure his books get distributed to any seminary that would like them. 

    He really wanted the whole Collection, all 3000, sent to the Josephinum where he taught. They would have to add on another room to accommodate his books, the Ross wing. I knew the answer before he died. "No! Please, no! Don't send  your books here." But I told Mike that I was in touch with the rector about the books, which was true, so he wouldn't worry about it.  Now that I'm working on cataloging them every night and looking forward to finding the books seminaries select, packing them up and hauling them off to the Post Office and paying to have them shipped to the recipient.  I hear him feel bad about how hard I'm working on his behalf.  It is more than all right.  It provides me with a goal. I'm more concerned about what will happen when the work is done and the library is empty of all the books. Ow!

    Yvette stopped by with a stash of chocolate bars and replaced one shelf of books and took down another set. There are 8 sets of shelves that go up to the ceiling. I can't safely reach the books on the top two shelves. Yvette stops by, gets up on the stepstool, and passes the books down to me. I catalog them, and the next time she stops by, we replace those books and take down another shelf. 

    I walked Elsa. At the far corner of the block, I saw a  large metal object. It's a wheel frame and axel on something smaller than a car. I have no idea. But I know it's too heavy for my brown paper bag.  

    I ate the California rolls, my limeade, and 2 chocolate bars for dinner. I cataloged more books. At some point, I saw that I had posted 33 books on the Wish List rather than the Collection.  No, no. I don't wish to get these books, I have them. I want them posted under Collection.  I will have to check if they have been placed under Collection or only under Wishlist. Damn! Thirty-three books to check. That's double the work.  I was over 1800 before I started cataloging tonight.  Is it all the work I've done to waste?

    I walked Elsa, washed my face, brushed my teeth, got in bed, and said, “Goodnight, Elsa. Goodnight, Mike. 

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Musings:  I’m putting this separately so those who are not interested can choose not to read it.

   

    CS Lewis's phases of grief started with his personal devastation over his loss. Next was his sorrow over all his wife would miss by not being alive, all the opportunities that will no longer be available.  His third phase interests me. He writes;

    ". . . bereavement is not the truncation of married love but one of its regular phases- like the honeymoon. What we want is to live our marriage well and faithfully through that phase too. If it hurts (and it certainly will) we accept the pain as the necessary part of this phase. We don't want to escape them at the price of desertion or divorce. Killing the dead a second time. We were one flesh. Now that it has been cut in two, we don't want to pretend it is whole and complete. We will still be married, still in love. Therefore, we shall still ache. But we are not at all -  if we understand ourselves- seeking aches for their own sake. The less of them, the better, so long as the marriage is preserved. And the more joy there can be between the dead and the living, the better." P.64

    He wrote of feeling a great relief from despair when he adopted this point of view. He was afraid that others would think he no longer cared about his beloved, or worse than that he had retreated into his unfeeling shell again.  

    I can relate to his idea of the grief being a phase of the marriage.  When Mike decided to get his second Ph.D., he was concerned about the impact on me and our marriage.  My first response was, "It will make my heart bigger." But once he had everything lined up, he had been accepted, signed up for classes, and found a place to live in Washington D.C., his guilt overwhelmed him again.  I said, "If you do each moment for God, for yourself, for me and for our marriage, we will be fine." He thought that was a ridiculous idea. Fortunately, we were with a friend when this discussion came up. As Mike dismissed what I had to say, she said, "No,, no. She's right." I had full confidence that I would feel like part of this process if he so included me.

    Likewise, I have been asking him to do this with his death, his absence, for God, himself, me, and our marriage.  It gives me a greater sense of purpose when I think of it that way.  

    But I have given myself a surprise. I have been sitting here thinking, "I will do my bereavement for God, myself, you (meaning Mike) and our marriage." Only I am having a terrible time listing myself after God. Now, why am I having this problem? Is it because I'm so used to hearing it from Mike's point of view, or is it that I can't think of putting myself before Mike.  When I mention experiences like this to Jean, she says, "You're a woman. He was a man." Is that the reason?  I have no idea.  But, you can be sure I will explore it with my therapist in my next session. Sounds fascinating.  In the meantime, I will focus on doing everything for God, myself, Mike, our marriage, and all those who are currently present in my life.

Thursday, May 30, 2019

    I walked Elsa first thing when I got up, just to the end of the block once I turned right out of the driveway. When I got home, one  boiled 1 kettle of water for weeds, did my oil rinse, and washed my dishes.  

    I went to Bikram.  Yesterday, Heather, the instructor, had made a few comments about my practice. One about the misalignment of my left leg in the separate leg standing head to knee pose, and the other about my right knee being smaller than it was the last time she was here.  I said no to the first and gave her some other explanation for the second. Then as I always do about anyone’s comment, I thought about both.  I apologized for to her for my responses and thanked her for being aware of me and any suggestions or observations she might make.  I find them invaluable and will always think about what she has to say.  I hate to make someone feel uncomfortable about sharing their insights with me. While they may not make sense at the time, I will remember them forever. Sometimes when I work, I find myself thinking, “Ah, that’s what Pam (or whomever) meant with that observation 20  years ago.” 

    My leg and hip have been causing me more discomfort at night. Discomfort that lasts more than one day makes me think that maybe the time has come to have my hip surgery.  My back is pretty straight.  That’s what I have been waiting for. Then in Bikram today, did a lot of rolling on my tennis ball. Again, I rediscovered all the muscles that are not directly related to the hip are still causing problems.  I need to make sure the problem is isolated to the hip alone before I have THR.

    I showered, hand washed my Bikram stuff and hung it on the line. I did one more kettle of boiling water for the weeds before I had my therapy appointment with Shelly. I wound up working on my relationship with my dad. His insinuating way of probing me felt like a violation. I was Anna to his Freud.   He probed inappropriately without concern for my boundaries. I doubt he thought I had any. But I know a friend told him not to do what he was doing. I was afraid to set boundaries. Theoretically, because there was no other basis for the relationship. He used me to explore his own concepts without regard for me.  He didn’t think it would be a problem.  There is no way he would have deliberately violated me.  But the idea that children could be affected by childhood experiences wasn’t commonly understood in those days.  The thought was that children always bounced back and could survive everything.  

    In the therapy session, I did posthumous family therapy, I finally told him to back off. I felt disgusted with him. I remember feeling disgusted when I was a child as much as I also loved him and depended on him for kindness.  My mother wasn’t big in the kindness department.  She actually felt it was bad for children.  In my imagination, when I finally told him to back off, he became enraged, which he never, and I do mean never, manifested when he was alive.  He buzzed around the room like a deflating balloon.  In the end, he was a lump.  I was furious then.  I kept calling him a lying sack of shit.  Lying because he was pretending to be doing one thing when he was really doing something else.  He had nothing to say in response.  He was literally deflated and depressed.  

    I remember him being depressed when I was young.  He called it Weltschmerz. He was saddened by the human condition.  He had lived through two world wars, was thrown out of the courts as a lawyer for being a Jew and left his homeland, which he loved, because life as a Jew had become untenable in Germany.  He had seen and lost a lot.   By the end of the session, I envisioned myself as having moved a little closer to him and kneeling by him.  I still feel repulsed, but I have a little more compassion. 

    After the session, I sat down to play FreeCell and work on the blog. While I thought nonstop about the students at school that I worked with yesterday and was planning to see today, I then forgot to go. I was too tired and could only think of sleep.  It was my last opportunity to work with them. 

    I got up from my nap by 1:30 just as Jean called. I got the laundry off the line while talking with her. She spoke about how her foot is doing and that she is still dealing with sadness about the loss of Mike.  She saw the picture of me with Sidney on my lap that Shivani had taken. She said I didn’t look happy. I didn’t feel unhappy, focused perhaps, but very happy to be with Sidney. I find him an exceptionally delightful child. He seems to like me. Wow!  After the call, I worked on the blog.

    That’s all I remember of the day.  I take notes as the day is going on, but sometimes I forget to keep up and then the day is gone.  I can be sure I walked Elsa twice, once before dinner and one before I went to bed.  I can be sure I watched TV as I cataloged more of his books. I can be sure I washed my face, brushed my teeth, got in bed, and said, “Goodnight, Elsa. Goodnight, Mike. 

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Musings:  I’m putting this separately so those who are not interested can choose not to read it.

    C.S. Lewis talks about being touched by the reality of another person. Someone who breaks your conceptual bubble and reminds you that there are others out there. Having our bubbles broken also reminds us that we are different, helps to get us to know ourselves better.  Back to TS Elliott and his quote, “Always greet your loved ones as strangers every day.”  I know that it’s not only others I can learn more about, but I also surprise myself.  I think the capacity to be anyone, good or bad, is in us all. There’s always more to learn about any human being, including ourselves by ourselves.  I think the human condition is just fascinating. But I’ve said that before. 

    Lewis wrote that his first concern was his devastation over his loss of his wife and only what she had lost second. My first preoccupation was with Mike’s loss. His life here was so rich; he was so happy.  I thought of all the joy that he would no longer have and all the pleasure he could have brought to others. I don’t think this makes me particularly unselfish. It must be something else.  I mourned his joy, and the joy that he might have experienced in life had he lived.  I have no idea why it’s working that way for me.  I’m not in despair as Lewis was.  I think I still feel Mike’s presence. Lewis lived his life as a bachelor alone. He lived alone, and his work as an academic and a writer had him isolated from other humans. He allowed his wife into his life and enjoyed as she ruptured his contained sense of self.  It was new for him; he experienced it as liberation.  I had Mike for 45 years, and we were both committed to learning from the other. 

    Some don’t want their conceptual bubbles burst. That form of self-containment reminds me of solipsism.  When I first learned about it at18,  I concluded it was a horrible view of the world.  It meant there were no boundaries.   We know ourselves partially because we know what we’re not.  We’re not the chair we sit in. We end where the other guy’s nose begins. There are consequences when we try to walk through walls or people.  In solipsism, there are no consequences we don’t design ourselves. I couldn’t think of a logical argument against solipsism. How can anyone prove that there is truly a world beyond their own imagining? That the world they see around them only exists while they think of it? They believe they don’t perceive anything they haven’t mentally created. It sounded like a horrible way to live.  I decided to live as if there was an objective reality; that the world I thought was out there was really there, and there were consequences to my behavior. I would get injured if I attempted to walk through walls or through people. I preferred that view of reality to the one of pure subjectivism of solipsism.         

Wednesday, May 29,2019

   

    I was up at 6 am.  I walked Elsa, did my oil rinse, made my Juice Plus smoothies for two days, washed the dishes, packed clothes so I could change after Bikram, and put my briefcase in the car. I had plans to go to school directly from Bikram. 

    JJ is gone for the summer, and we have a new teacher, Heather.  When I saw her, I recognized her.  I didn’t like the way she spoke.  I remember being uncomfortable with her presentation style.  I like it much better now.  She is a good teacher; she knows as much about the body and the practice as JJ does.  She made a suggestion and an observation.  I disagreed with both.  I have to tell her not to give up on me.  My first reaction may be to say, “No, that’s not right.” But I will always think about what she said, and I always value her feedback. Her observation that I had too much of my weight on my left leg still doesn’t feel right. Not that I’m not going way over, it’s just that I’m doing it to realign the leg. But then she said that my right knee looked much smaller.  I told her that I thought it might be because I have strengthened my left leg, making it a bit bigger.  But, I think she’s right; it is smaller.  I think the reason is that I have just recently learned to tighten my thigh, my gluts, and my abdominal muscles, in that order.  Once I learned that I started pushing the back of my heel/ ankle back as I walked to propel myself forward.  This action tightens my knee and thigh without causing a hyperextension. Must tell her tomorrow

    After I rinsed off and changed,  I stopped off at Island Naturals to buy more pumpkin seeds and dried cranberries to add to my salad.  Then I drove up to the school to work with that one student who is still far behind. 

    When I got to school, the whole 3rd grade was on their way to lunch.  Because I remained in savasana for half an hour after class, I arrived at school later than I had planned. Oh, well. And the class I had been working with had ‘caf’ duty, cafeteria duty, which kept them occupied for the rest of the day. Instead, I worked with two students from another 3rd-grade class after they came back from lunch.

    While waiting for the kids to come back from lunch, I called Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans; John and I promised them the list of Mike’s books for them to choose from. I got the head librarian on the phone.  I assured him we hadn’t forgotten him, but I had only cataloged 1700 books so far, and that is only 2/3 to ½ of the books. He giggled.  

    When the students came back from lunch, I had a chance to work with two students. One was a boy who I had worked with a lot.  He had made considerable progress, but still got stuck on the longer words.  I have to keep modeling how to deal with words that present as confusing.  I emphasize identifying the vowels, first and foremost.  Most syllables (yes, there are a few exceptions) contain a vowel sound;  the rule of one syllable equals one vowel sound is pretty reliable.  I have the students find those vowel letters in words.  Then they have to decide how to divide the words.  There has to be a line between each of the vowel sounds.  I think competent readers do this automatically.  We divide words in our minds and blend them back together again without thinking about it.  He needed to remember to apply this rule to words consciously that don’t look familiar immediately.

    The other student had/has more of a psychological problem.  He is afraid of everything. He doesn’t want to do math because it frightens him.  He claims he is afraid because students tell scary stories. There was not much I could do that involved his cooperation.  I just used EFT tapping. Then he had to leave for recess. I continued the tapping at home.  I have no idea if what I did made any difference to this child.  I have no idea if his problem is generated by life circumstances or a severe neurological issue that needs more invasive treatments. 

    On the way home, I thought to stop by at local bodega and pick up 2 bars of Hersey’s milk chocolate with whole almonds, but I found the tutoring so satisfying that I didn’t need to. Besides, when I got home, I had my chocolate smoothie to look forward to. 

    At home, I vacuumed the lanai and the kitchen, applied several kettles of boiling water for weeds, wrote on the blog, and played FreeCell.  Then I took a shower with soap (the shower at the yoga studio is a rinse-only.) and did MELT for my feet and hands. I did two laundry loads: Shivani’s towels and Bikram stuff for Yvette, Scott, and me.  The first load on the line-dried before the washing cycle for the second load was finished. It’s that time of year. The sun is so hot that we get instant drying unless we get a torrential downpour. 

    My tutoring student’s aunt finally listened to her read and was very impressed. We both think that her initial evaluation couldn’t have been accurate.  They said she was on the first-grade six-month level.  She may have read slowly and missed a lot of sight words, but she had a lot of skills in place and just needed practice.  She is a bright girl who learns quickly and will put in the effort. She declares she loves reading now and is working on The Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, which are considered on a fifth-grade level.  Since she improved in reading and is working on her own, I am concentrating on math now. She still has problems with subtraction with regrouping when there are zeros in the top number.

    I worked with her on pattern recognition. I wrote out the 2 times table and the 3 times table, had her identify all the odd numbers in the factors and the answers, and asking her to identify a pattern. The pattern I was looking for was that the answers to the two times table were all even, and the answer to the three times table alternated between odd and even.  Then to see if she could figure out why that happened so that it can help her anticipate if an answer to a multiplication problem is going to be odd or even. While I had something in mind, I’m always open to other observations. She knew which numbers were odd and even, but couldn’t apply it as rapidly as I  thought she would. 

    While I walked Elsa on our before dinner walk, I missed Mike. I was thinking of his loving ways. All I had to say was, “Okay,” and he knew what to do: get up and give me a hug and a kiss. He sometimes initiated it himself.  As I walked, I  thought of how I felt when he did hug and kiss me. That made me feel better.  If I can evoke the terrible way my mom made me feel when she scourged me with her words, I can evoke the wonderful feelings Mike made me feel.  I talk to Mike frequently. He’s worried about my food and my sadness, and my neglect of the garden.  He’s pushing me to call the gardener and get the weeds taken care of. I  told him to get a life. Well, maybe, get a death. 

    For dinner, I had a  large salad, to which I added more feta cheese. I  don’t like the Asian mix; I have to remember not to buy it again. I had some leftover soup,  3 slices of butter multigrain baguette, limeade, tapioca pudding, and my pills.

    While cataloging the books, I came across a CS Lewis book, “ A Grief Observed.”  He was in much greater agony than I am.   Besides losing his mom when he was nine years old, he met his wife late in life and only had her for a short period. She brought him out of his shell and allowed him to be touched by another, her.  He talked about how she would penetrate his bubble with her words and make him reconsider his thinking. Sounds like she was Lewis’s ‘worthy opponent.’ 

    He talked of how he couldn’t picture her face.  I experienced this when I lost my father at 15.  I concluded at the time that it was just too painful.  A young colleague in Ohio lost her husband when they were both in their 30s. She was wondering if something was wrong with her because she couldn’t picture her husband’s face.  I assured her it was normal and not an indication of her not caring about him. I also find I can’t imagine Mike’s face now. I can feel him hovering but not see him in my mind’s eye currently  alive.  I can’t see them clearly either.  I know that it’s their face, but I can’t see the details, even their expressions. I realize it isn’t that I can’t picture his face; I just can’t imagine it the way I saw it when he was in front of me, and I could take in the details of his facial structure and his expressions, a face I was so familiar with.

    After dinner and cataloging the books, I walked Elsa again before going to bed, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. Good night, Elsa, Goodnight, Mike.

Tuesday, May 28, 2019

    I didn't go to Bikram today because Shivani wanted to go to the beach again before she left. I got up shortly after 7. I headed out on my morning walk north on Nehiwa  St. again to avoid the four wild dogs rushing poor Elsa. She had other ideas. She led me around the block. We had to bypass their house on our way back. There were no problems. Amanda and Brian must have been home again.  There were small things to pick up, mostly cigarette butts. However, right across from my driveway, someone threw food packaging right out of their car window. Love it when people do that. There was a Star Bucks bag that looked like it might be holding a cookie. I was tempted and did peek, but decided against checking it out too closely.  Enough is enough.

    I used the morning to make phone calls. Since there were some emails from Raymond James about the movement of money from joint accounts to my individual and from the non-trust accounts and then to the trust accounts.  I got an exact tally of how much money I have currently, not counting the incoming money.  I should be just fine. Boy, do I have it easy.  I think of how bad it could be for people.  I am so lucky.  All I have to deal with is missing Mike.

    That missing is becoming more pronounced as time passes. My identity is intact.  My identity was never primarily as Mike's wife.    My financial well-being is intact, more than adequate.  I can take care of myself- at least for now. We'll see.  I feel a creeping depression.  I think of it as a withdrawal from something I was habituated to if not addicted to. Not seeing his joy and delight makes me the saddest.  He was almost childlike in his ability to experience positive emotions. My mom was like that, too.  She had a great capacity for joy.  Both Mike and my mom were Scorpios.  Maybe it is a trait of their sign.  Her capacity for joy made her not only bearable but loveable. Mike was wonderful even when he wasn't joyful; that he could experience delight in his life made him even more loveable.  Mike could be silly, and we could be silly together. Hmmm!  I used to say, "I love you so much, it's silly." It almost felt silly, ridiculous for an old woman like me to be so madly in love -with her husband no less.  I would say that my love for him grew and grew over the years.  

    The passion I felt at the end of his life wasn't there in the beginning. In the beginning, I went on the inner knowledge of it being just right.  For those of you who are familiar with coin phones, remember the sound the coin made as it connected? Remember the sound it made when it didn't?  You knew when the coin fall was connected. When it didn't, we had to pull a lever and release it.  In the same sense, I knew that Mike was right.  It was just a deep inner knowledge of rightness.  Followed by the additional knowledge that I could live with what he was at that moment for the rest of my life.  Of course, that didn't wind up being true.  If I were to meet that Mike now, that arrogant know-it-all, I doubt very much I could be as accepting of that person.  But then again, I've been spoiled.

    I called Juice Plus and finally got through to place my order. Then I called Social Security to find out about March's payment. I told them that the SS office that contacted me about the returned March payment still hadn't gotten back to me, and I was concerned that something got lost.  The agent told me that the SS office was working on the March payment, and I would get a letter from them before it was sent out. He also told me that my regular payments had been approved and I should be receiving the letter confirming that today or tomorrow. 

    While I was on the phone, Shivani came out of the bedroom to tell me that she had the wrong departure time.  She thought it was at 2:30pm. No, rather, it was 12:30.  She was going to have to leave at 10:30.  Good thing I stayed home.  I got to spend some time with her and Sidney before they left and got to make all those phone calls to the east coast before the offices closed. 

    When Shivani and Sidney left, I sat and played FreeCell for a while.  I am feeling more blah.  I worked on following my breathing and staying focused on the immediate.  If I move slowly and intentionally, I can keep going.  God, I miss him.   I spoke about his capacity for delight in general, I have also mentioned that he expressed that delight in me.  He loved me, and he made me feel loved.  God was I ever lucky to have had him, and I had him for 45 years. 

    As Shivani left, she said there was some sand in the bedroom. That got me up and vacuuming. I found some sand and lots of dead bugs.  I hadn't vacuumed before she came.  I would never do that with Damon. He would notice every bit of dirt.  Love that boy;  I really do, I think more so with time. That was true before Mike died.  Somewhere along the line, we became heart connected in a deeper way.  It means a lot to me.

    After I vacuumed, I worked on the day's notes for the blog. I hadn't sent one out yesterday.  I was just too busy. 

    I had a healing client on the phone at 4 pm. He is responding well to what I have to offer. He says it's the best therapy he's had.  That makes me feel like a million bucks. Feeling competent and useful is the best, besides being loved and delighted in. That's gone. 

    There was another torrential downpour in the afternoon. Fortunately, it stopped in time for me to walk Elsa. 

    I came home, did a little work on the blog, and played Free Cell. Thank God I have something to do, but I feel like doing nothing right now. I suppose I will just have to go through this.  Being married for 45 years becomes a mental and physical habit.  Changing the mental habit is comparatively easy.  The physical habit, how you move with each other, where and how you sit with each other, where you sleep in the bed, how you negotiate the use of the items you share, when you do things with each other or with each other, oh, so many, many things that have been developed over the years and become stronger, more engrained, with each year.  When does a habit become an addiction? Both involve withdrawal when you give them up/lose them.  I am thinking there are two types of grief, at least.  One is when you had an expectation and were disappointed. The other is when you lose something habitual.  One can be an isolated incident; the other is the loss of your sense of self.  You feel differently in the new circumstances. The terrain is unfamiliar.  What do I do in this new world? How do I navigate.?  

    Yvette came up to say goodnight. I told her about the correspondence with Tom Wnuk and his saying that there are more incidences of pancreatitis. He believes this increase in rates of pancreatitis is due to increased use of medication and GMOs.  Yvette remembered that Mike commented that he didn't care what the adverse side effects of the medication he took, he couldn't live without it.  He was referring to his anti-anxiety meds.  He was on an exceptionally high dosage. He tried talk-therapy and healing but never felt that he successfully overcome his chronic anxiety. He was finally diagnosed with PTSD.  This was a result of the persecution his family feared during the McCarthy era and the trauma he experienced daily because of his mother's hysterical reaction to just about everything, according to him.  I think his sister experienced the situation differently.  

    I walked Elsa. We're back to our usual route, turning right when coming out of the driveway.  It seemed we were oaky when passing Brian and Amanda's house. The dogs are contained again.  I came home, had dinner, and cataloged more books. I walked Elsa again before going to bed, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. Good night, Elsa, Goodnight, Mike.

Monday, May 27, 2019

    When I went for my morning walk, I still turned right out of the driveway rather than left, not being sure that Brian and Amanda were back from Maui.  I saw this amazing rainbow.   

    We get a lot of rainbows here in Hawaii. Until recently, it was the icon on the license plates.  I had no idea why it was there until the volcano at Kilauea finally stopped spouting its fumes and putting an end to the vog, which obscured the rainbows on the Big Island.  I have seen double and even triple rainbows. When I was on Oahu, I saw rainbows low in the sky, an overlay over the mountain actually coloring it. I didn’t even know that was possible.  But this rainbow was still something I had never seen before. It was 1/3 of a rainbow, rising up out of the water, slicing up through a cloud, - and just ending.  

    When I got home from my walk, I did my morning routine and left for Bikram. I started pressing on the outside edge of my feet in bending postures.  Doing so activates different muscles. I also worked on stretching my pec muscles to open my shoulders. 

    Shivani and I discussed differences in parenting ideas from when I was a child to now.  It was assumed that children could recover from anything.  Shivani’s grandmother, Mike’s mother, once said she couldn’t bear it if anyone spoke to her how she talked to them and thought nothing about changing.  Maybe it was a generational thing. She thought this was just who she was, and changing in any way was not a possibility. However, Christianity and Buddhism both hold the concept of behavioral changes in their theology. The idea is not new. 

    Shivani spoke about how millennials change constantly.  But they don’t change for the sake of becoming better or more moral people. They are looking only for personal satisfaction and want it instantly. They assume that the world should do everything their way. Really? They leave one unsatisfactory situation for another, expecting that they will find the promised environment where they will be appreciated for whatever they do. Apparently, this generation received praise for being toilet trained by the time they were 10.  Not much else was expected.  All criticism was removed from the curriculum.  Everything was good. I can see emphasizing what is right in someone’s work. If someone spells was as wes, you could say you got the first and the last letters correctly, but not telling someone it was perfect the way it was to start out with.  It wasn’t. 

    While we talked, Shivani did water painting.  It’s fun watching her develop the picture. She does it for relaxation.  I commented that I hadn’t known about this hobby of hers. She said she’s not that good; there was no point in telling anyone.  But for me, it was the new knowledge about her and how she spent her time.  The image of her peacefully painting will stay with for a long, long time.

    Shivani helped me sort through the Christmas stuff in the closet in my study.  Mike loved decorating for Christmas.  I liked helping him take everything down, but found putting the decorations up depressing.  I have no idea why.  He had recently bought two large garlands to hang over the bay window.  They took up a lot of space in the closet.  They had to go. Shivani carried them out to the car. I kept everything I had seen for more than one year. There were things in there I had never seen.  There was a revolving clear plastic winter display which played music from The Nutcracker, and a Styrofoam snowman, neither I had ever seen before.

    I did some work on the blog, and then we all did some gardening on the back lanai. It winds up the Shivani loves gardening. Well, do I ever have a garden for her to run free in. Shivani picking up fallen palm fronds, Sidney went in and out of the sliding bedroom door, and I continued working on trimming the Bougainville. 

    After I did that dirty work, I showered and did MELT for my feet and my hands. I am skipping the Tiger Tail. My hands feel so much better for doing MELT every day. This is truly a fantastic process for repairing damage from repetitive actions.

      Next, we went to Home Depot to pick up two new pretty pots and soil for Shivani to repot the two plants Mike bought the Christmas before he died. Before we unloaded, we went next door to take up Ronen on his offer of a tour of his outdoor plantings and hothouses on his commercial farm. This neighborhood is zoned for agriculture. Before he and his wife moved in, that property was a total mess.  Now, everything is in neat rows of beautiful growing things in different colors.  Shivani asked him if there were many farms like his on the island. The answer was no. Most farms are mono-crops, planting only coffee or only mac nuts.  His farm has a great variety of eatable plants.  He gave us some marigold leaves to taste.  Apparently, the farm is a lot of work.   

    Besides the eatable plants, they have two goats and about a dozen chickens. They have the goats because a friend found an abandoned baby goat and knew that Ronen’s wife would take it in. Elizabeth is a sucker for animals in need.  They bought a second one to keep the first company.  They can’t release them into the wild because these animals think they are dogs and wouldn’t be prepared to run like hell when approached by a hunting dog. 

    When we got back to the house. I unpacked the trunk of garden stuff, did some work on the blog, and took a nap.

     We went to the Otech beach when I got up.  It has a lagoon area that is knee-deep at its furthest point. Good for kids.  Sidney had no interest.   We walked over to the other beach area for Shivani to swim in while I watched Sidney.  Now how do I describe this? Potentially dangerous is a good start.  It’s a deep crevice between high lava rocks walls, but the water isn’t very deep.  I’d say at the highest side is about five feet above the water.  The pool itself never gets very deep.  

    The waves come to shore and rush down the sluice.  This means the water rushes in and pushes you toward shore and then rushes out, pulling you toward the ocean.  Mike and I loved swimming there.  We kept saying it was like a mountain stream to discover that freshwater did feed that particular sluice from the mountainside.  The water was colder and crisper, as only freshwater can be.  I haven’t been able to swim there for a while because of my buoyancy problem.  I have no control over my body as the water rushes in and out.  I feel like a piece of flotsam.  Maybe if I wore weights, I could manage it.  Ah, I forgot to mention you have to climb over lava to get into the pool, and then it is filled with large rocks you have to navigate around. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but it is just wonderful. 

    To boot, the lava pool is right under the takeoff flight path.  This makes it even better, not worse.  I know when we took off, we would note when we were going over the pool. We felt so connected to this island.  We love living in Hawaii; well, Mike did, and I still do. 

    When we came home, we finished off some leftovers. Then I watched TV and cataloged books. 

    I walked Elsa before going to bed, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. Good night, Elsa, Goodnight, Mike.

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Musings:  I’m putting this separately so those who are not interested can choose not to read it.

    Another thought confirmation by Yvette’s recommendation, “happiness is an inside job.”

    “The survivors of a  broken relationship – even when the break is ‘for the best’- are surprised to find themselves in a world that is suddenly different, and the mind needs to learn to  make its way in it.” 

    This is how I feel.  I am adjusting to a new and unfamiliar environment, much as I had to adapt to a new and different situation when we moved here 5 years ago.   There is always an attachment to the familiar and an adjustment when we lose it, no matter how minor or major. 

    I have mentioned before that I have been preparing for a time when I would have to live without Mike since I met him. It wasn’t that I distrusted him. Quite to the contrary, I trusted him completely. Besides his clear and obvious love for me, he is a man who acknowledged commitments.   But, as we well know, there’s life- and death.  It was death that took my father from me, my mom and sister. He was also a man who would only break his commitment to his family through death itself, unless very desperate.  That loss set me up to anticipate the possibility of the death of those I love. If Mike was late, I would don my widow’s weeds.  It was a running joke that I was always planning his funeral.  He would say, “She’s planning to bury me again.” He said it in the hospital.  He had promised me that we would die at the same time in our 90s. “Liar, liar, pants on fire.”  I never took his promise seriously, and always anticipated that I would have to live out my life without him. I have been grieving for 45 years.  I have more than done an appropriate amount of grieving.  

Sunday, Mary 26, 2019

    I woke up at 6 but only got up when I absolutely had to. I told Judy and Paulette that I was passing on church because I was too tired to consider doing both the church and fulfilling my commitment to usher at the Kona Choral Society concert. 

    When I walked Elsa, I turned left coming out of the driveway instead of my usual right turn. The other day, when we passed the house where Brian and Amanda live, their four BIG dogs came charging down from the house right at poor Elsa.  I stood in the street, screaming for help because I wasn't sure of their intent.  It was clear that Elsa wasn't either.  One of the dogs licked her privates, and she peed herself. How do I know? Because I managed to pick her up around that time and my leg got wet.  These dogs had met Elsa before and were just glad to see her again. Apparently, they don't bother dogs they didn't know because someone else walked their dog past that house, and the dogs didn't make an appearance.  More upsetting than the dogs running loose was the lack of response to my cries of help.  I wouldn't have expected that in this neighborhood.  Of course, it was early in the morning still.  Many folks may not have been up, or they just didn't hear.  This is not Queens; it is Hawaii known for its aloha, concern for others.

    These four BIG dogs are usually safely behind a fence on the property. Their owners, Brian and Amanda, went on a short holiday to Maui.  The dogs, who are generally well behaved, broke out of the fence with little effort.  Adam, their landlord, tried to fix the fence, but they broke it again.  He tried to confine them to the house; they broke out of that, too. 

    When I got home, Shivani made some eggs for me, so I didn't have my usual breakfast: miso soup and my Juice Plus smoothie. After breakfast, two-year-old Sidney and I went down to the bottom of the property to pick limes. It took a short while to get through to him that he was supposed to pick up the yellow balls (yes, ripe limes are yellow) and throw them in the bucket. We picked 32 off the ground and a few that dropped down while we were picking up the others. On the way back up to the house, Sidney decided he wanted a lift. I'm in pretty good shape, but carrying a heavy bucket and Sidney at the same time up a very steep hill was beyond me. 

    Josh was standing in the driveway. I asked him if he could carry Sidney. He came down and said he would take the bucket. I was prepared to pick up Sidney, but he put his hand on the handle and helped Josh with the carrying chore. I wish I had my phone with me to take that picture. 

    On the way up, I spoke to Josh about my plans to usher at a choral concert that afternoon.  I mentioned the name of the hotel, the Sheraton. He then told me that there were several Sheraton Hotels in the area.  Good thing, I had the wrong one in mind. Mike and I had gone to one up north, and I thought it was in the same location. I checked my email from Judy Chaput, who organized the ushers, and sure enough, it was not the same one we had gone to.  It was half an hour in the other direction. Phew! 

    Josh walked the bucket into the house and then placed it in the kitchen sink for cleaning.  I filled the pail with water so I can make sure to kill off all the animals I bring into the house with the limes. Josh stayed and talked with us for a while without sitting down, standing in the opening between the kitchen and the lanai watching Sidney and enjoying him.

    We had some drama. Shivani thought her sick feeling was because she was having a reprieve of strep throat that she had before. She had called her doctor in California; he was going to call back.  Because she didn't have her phone, she had given the doctor my house phone number.  When the phone rang, the receiver she had picked up didn't work. She grabbed another one. That didn't work either.  I ran to the bedroom to pick up the third receiver. I got there in time to hear him say that he would try the other number he had, but that was Shivani's phone, which she had left in the Lyft car on her way to the airport in California.  Fortunately, the doctor must have heard me at the last minute and called back on the house phone.

    I was so tired. I went to bed to nap.  I got up from my nap, showered, no time for MELT, and dressed.  I took some of my breakfast soup with me to the concert.  Paulette drove; I was so tired.  We walked to the ballroom, which was not too far from the parking lot. Judy Chaput gave us name magnetic name tags. I was assigned to give out programs, and block the door I was at once the concert started, so it wouldn't distract the singers.  We had to direct folks who had to go to the bathroom to go to the far door.

    I brought something to read with me, expecting to have time before the concert started. The chorus rehearsed for the hour before the performance.  Now that was interesting. I heard the director giving final directions and making corrections. Then I got to listen to the whole concert.  I think I enjoyed it more for the preview.  I have never been someone who enjoyed music for itself in my youth.  If I couldn't choreograph it while I was listening, I couldn't enjoy it.  Music for just music's sake, except as background sound, this is new for me.  

    This young couple was sitting at the back of the auditorium right in front of me. They had a two-month-old baby with them. While the mother went to the bathroom, the dad held the baby and walked up and down. The fear in his eyes was memorable. The baby was fine, but the couple left early. This was obviously their first.  Nervous!

    Paulette and I didn't take the highway back home, we drove along Ali'i Street along the shoreline. I knew we were going to pass Huggo's, which serves this delicious poke tower.  Shivani had proposed going out her first or second night here. That's where we were going to go, but it got too late, and we winged it at home. I tried to call Shivani to see if this would be good with her, but there was no answer on the house phone despite me yelling out, "Shivani, answer the phone." Before we reached Huggo's, Yvette texted me to tell me she was out. I stopped off to order two poke towers to go. How bad could it be? When I got home, Shivani had just arrived herself.  She had found out about a keiki's, children's, beach, and went there.  On her way home, she had picked up Thai food.  After I walked Elsa, we attacked the poke because it was fresh, and the Thai food would hold.

    After dinner, I retired to the library to watch some TV and catalog books. I walked Elsa before going to bed, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. Good night, Elsa, Goodnight, Mike.

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Musings:  I’m putting this separately so those who are not interested can choose not to read it.

    Yvette recommended  the book, "happiness is an inside job." I was familiar with most of the concepts and didn't find the writing a particular delight but read on.   There might always be a nugget tucked away in the book that triggers a new thought or realization or confirmation.

    Almost at the end of the book, I found a confirmation of some of my thinking.

    "Any challenge, even a small one, is a potential cause of confusion." 

    This is the language I use; I call our response to any new or unexpected situation' confusion.' That means all learning situations cause some confusion. Now, this confusion can be described neurologically. It means our wheels start grinding when it a  small challenge to our current thinking about ourselves or the world around us. (The exact neurological description is probably something closer to blood starts flowing to areas of our brain that might hold some related information on the topic at hand.)  If it is a big challenge, we talk about a flood of information, making our heads spin.  There is no upbeat term, that I know of, for the initial confusion effect of something new. 

    People who are good learners, love this feeling; some stimulation set the gears into motion.  They think it is fun. I'm that way in certain circumstances and not in others.  I think we all have areas where 'confusion' is comfortable for us and where it is not.  I think we can measure a person's expertise in a field by the degree of confusion they can tolerate.  The better they are at a skill, whether that skill is cooking, language learning, or personal transformation, the more confusion they can tolerate.  The skilled learner sees the state of unknowing as an opportunity to learn something new. It's exciting. They trust their ability to come out the other end in better shape than they entered the state of confusion.

    Many years ago, at the end of a 10-day silent meditation retreat, I found myself conversing with two other women who were psychologists.  One woman said, "Don't you just hate it when your client doesn't take your suggestion." The other woman and I simultaneously said, "No, it's an opportunity to develop something new." 

    I work with children who have trouble learning.  They dread confusion, the very thing they need to tolerate to learn successfully.  I approach this problem directly.  I ask them how they feel about confusion or uncertainty in learning. Now, there can be many reasons to want to avoid this experience.  For some, it is that they didn't learn quite as quickly as their classmates. For others, their minds are overwhelmed with confusion before they even came to school because of their life circumstances.  Survival comes first; school learning comes second. With some, I can help them to realize that they are physically surviving in their chaotic home lives and will survive until they get out on their own. However, for some children, this is not a given. They have parents who regularly physically attack them or live in neighborhoods where they have seen their peers randomly killed.  Preoccupations like that keep the mind whirling around, making learning simple things impossible.