Saturday, June 22, 2019

    I am missing Mike. It’s depleting my energy. I did Bikram and low gear. I told Heather about a dramatic change I am experiencing due to the Alexander exercise she suggested. For the first time in my adult life, the strap of my dress didn’t fall off my left shoulder. I haven’t even been able to keep bra straps from slipping off my shoulder. It drives me nuts.

    I stopped over at the T-Mobile store to get my new phone set up. I asked if they had the iPhone 7 in a color other than black, but that is the only color they have left. The process took forever. I actually went over to Target in the meantime to buy swim shoes and Hersey’s Milk Chocolate bars with whole almonds. Despite the store having other customers, Keith got right back to me when I returned. 

    I’ve been saving Mike’s old phone. This is another piece of giving him up. He’s not going to need his phone, and neither will I. 

    I stopped off at Costco on the way home for salad and lemons. When I got home, I read some more of Mike’s book and napped.

     In the evening, I went to a Pins and Poses pop up class at the Bikram studio. The first half of the class is restorative yoga, and during the second half, an acupuncturist comes around and sticks pins in your hand, and it the top of the head.  I experienced my body in totally different ways during the first half. I learned a new appreciation for my physical limitations. The question is, how much is due to my left hip and how much is due to other problems in my body.  When doing a leg stretch with a strap, I had more problems with my right leg than my left. 

    Yvette led the poses section of the workshop. She is a fantastic teacher. She has a wonderful voice, calm and strong. She gives crystal clear directions and assures everyone that she will help if there is any confusion.  She had the consideration to set me up right next to her in case I needed help getting into or out of a position.  I couldn’t recommend her more highly.

     Feel like I don’t want to write, but then love it when I do. Go figure. I am feeling more tired than usual. I don’t want to get up in the morning even though I know that I can nap when I get home. I love napping in general, and I like sleeping on the sofa more than I like sleeping in my bed.  The sofa is set up as an anti-gravity chair. 

    I think I may have found a possible explanation for why the hybrid battery didn’t fully charge the other day, a possible explanation.  I feel the serviceman, while honest, doesn’t know a lot about the electric cars.  He knows more than I do, but I may be able to figure out other causes in case he gets stuck.

Sunday, June 23, 2019

     I had a chance to sleep in today because there was no Bikram and church was a 10 am.  I didn’t do my usual Sunday walk with Elsa, going all the way around the block, because my leg was bothering me. 

    My dress didn’t fall off my left shoulder again today in church. Wow! Wow! Wow! This is the first time in my adult life that clothing hasn’t slipped toward the left and off the left shoulder.  That Alexander exercise is so simple and such a big adjustment.

Friday, June 21. 2019

    After yoga class today, Heather, the yoga instructor, showed me an Alexander exercise. This produced terrific results. She told me to grab under my ribs with both hands and pull them up, then relax my shoulders and bring my arms down. It evened out my body immediately.  Now, I took a course in the Alexander Technique at my dance studio when I lived in Princeton, and I read the book.  I don’t remember any exercise like this.  It worked like a charm.  I wish Mike were still alive so I could teach it to him.  Maybe he would have responded to this.  Usually, when I gave him suggestions on how to stand straighter, he would adjust his posture, sarcastically say, “Wow, This is comfortable,” and immediately revert to his old habitual stance.
    After Bikram, I went to the bank to deposit checks. There was a long line, but it went surprisingly quickly.    After that, I went to the transfer station to drop off the several brown paper bags of glass I had loaded in the car yesterday. The last stop was a Kaiser to pick up my medication for my UTI.
    When I got home, I called LSW, where I have an annuity I built up while I was working at Licking Heights in Ohio.  I asked them to email a change of beneficiary form.  This should be the last piece of the financial puzzle.  After this is completed, I will hard mail Damon, who is the executor of the will when I pass, all the documents telling him where the money is hidden and who to contact in the event of my death to tell them to stop sending money.  

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

    The work I did with my therapist led me to thoughts about what it would mean to be born without sin, as Jesus and the Virgin Mary are said to be.  Now I’m not getting into a discussion about the validity of any religious beliefs.  I’m interested here in what these stories, whether real or not, tell us about us human beings, and yes, help us to become better people.
    How does this sound: to be born without sin means to be born without hatred for others. Now, I don’t mean a big hatred where we hate whole groups of people for being different from us or some person who did something terrible to hurt us.  I mean the little hatreds we have for people we also love and depend on and who love and depend on us.  Those moments of annoyance or frustrations where rage just surges in us.  We often use the words, “ I could just kill you.” They are meaningless.  They certainly do not contain any serious threat. But, do these words implicitly reflect that inner rage that we all carry inside when people don’t do what we want or do something we don’t want? That surge of rage comes from a primitive part of our brains. With any luck, we are not ruled by it but simply understand its reactivity as information about our boundaries.
    My thought is that we can say that Jesus suffered like a real human but never had that inner rage; he never felt any anger toward his torturers or those who betrayed or even disappointed him.  Maybe that’s what it means to be born without sin.  This is important for me. I watched my mother give vent to her frustrations on my sister and me.  She felt no need to control herself. Close to the end of her life, she said to me, “I never needed therapy; I had children.” I didn’t ask her to clarify her thinking, but I’m pretty sure that she meant that she was able to vent her frustration and therefore feel better; that was her concept of the function of therapy. It never occurred to her that she might have done damage to her children in the process.
    Mike’s mother behaved similarly. She acted out all over the place.  I think she just thought that was who she was, and change wasn’t possible. It was when I clearly saw that rage in myself that I swore I would never have children.  I didn’t want to pass on this behavior.  I didn’t want to do to my children what had been done to me, and I had no reason at the time to think that the emotional surge was normal; it was the behavior that wasn’t, and I could change.
    I have been hard on myself for these feelings all my life. I desperately did not want to be like my mother. But as so often happens, we go to the opposite extreme. I set a goal for myself that was literally inhuman, which does not mean that having that goal improved my behavior immediately.  While I think I have improved, I accept that the perfection I had in mind is out of reach for me in the human condition. To be human means to feel these frustrations and responded with anger, but it if not to act it out.  I’ve had to learn to forgive myself for being human.
    I think the story of Jesus is there to remind us that while it is worth striving for the ideal that he represents, it is never an attainable goal for us mere mortals.  We have to learn to live within our own parameters and do the best we can.
    It was through Buddhist meditation that I learned much of this self-acceptance. Buddha was talking about these frustrations and reactions over 2000 years ago. They’re not new in our modern world. It was there that I received instructions on how to deal with those feeling and reduce if not eliminate my reactivity.  I was finally able to change.
    Judy, my very, very Catholic friend, argued that Jesus did experience anger, but it was righteous anger.  I know the difference within myself between righteous anger and that other kind. Whatever you want to call it. They feel very different. They come from different places in my body. However, I once expressed ‘righteous’ anger in a totally inappropriate situation. What had happened was trivial.  Rage, righteous or otherwise, was not appropriate.  So much for being sure about what’s right and what’s wrong. God’s little joke on us. Go forth and be good people, ah, yes, and do it with this handicap.

Thursday, June 20, 2019

    Before the yoga class started this morning, I asked Heather to keep an eye on me and let me know if I was crooked. She had me turned to another student, Maite and had her mirror my posture so I could correct it. The postural change felt weird.  Weird is good. That means there was a change.

    I had my telephone appointment with Shelly scheduled for 10 am. I observed that I'm in less continuous grief than I have been for most of my life. A few months ago, I worked on resolving a sadness I carried in my heart for as long as I can remember. I'm thinking that the weight of grief is cumulative.  If the loss of Mike had been added to my historic grief, it would be more difficult to bear.  As it is, I'm only experiencing moments of sadness, and they are never debilitating.  I also have moments of joy, thinking of talking to Mike, and sharing my life with him now.  I know, without a doubt, that if he can be watching over me, he is.  He won't tell me how he's doing except to say that he's okay if I'm okay.  

    I have been reading C.S. Lewis's book A Grief Observed, a little bit each night before I turn out the light.  His situation was very different from mine.   To begin with, he experienced two devastating losses in his childhood.  His beloved dog died when he was 4, and his mother died when he was 9.  Before her death, he was homeschooled. After her death, his father sent him to a boarding school.  His loss record is impressive. He remained single until he was 57.  He had sealed himself off from any possible pain by adopting the life of an academic bachelor.  He had known the woman who became his wife for several years before the recognized his love for her. He was only pushed to take the plunge when she was diagnosed with cancer.  She died four years after they were married. 

    Now I lost my father when I was 15, which certainly threw my psyche off course. Whether the deviation was ultimately an improvement or not, we will never know.  The loss did motivate me to feel that I had to be a complete person, by some personal intuitive standard, before I could commit to a long-term relationship.  I had to be prepared to be on my own. 

    I understand that it is not uncommon for people who have lost a parent as a child to feel the need to anticipate the death of a loved one regularly, even when there is no such threat on the horizon.  Mike used to joke that I was always in a hurry to bury him.  He also made such a comment in the first week he was in the hospital.  However, I feel I am doing reasonably well now without him because I have been preparing for this moment for 45 years.  Now that Elsa, my dog, and I have bonded, I've started the grieving process with her too. It's almost how I know that I care about people or animals: I started contemplating my life without them.  

    It may sound maudlin, but there are advantages.  Since I did allow myself to invest deeply in Mike, the constant awareness that I might lose him at any moment made every moment precious.  Nothing was taken for granted.  

    Lewis did not work to resolve his historic grief, and it was only the inevitable death of a woman he valued that shook him out of his protective cocoon. I dug myself out voluntarily.  I dealt with the possibility of loss daily.  I valued what I shared with Mike daily.  Anniversaries and birthdays had little meaning in the context of our daily recognition that we had something valuable in each other.   I loved having Mike in my life, and I was always okay if he was gone. Of course, gone in the past meant gone for a day, a weekend, most of a week when he was studying for his second Ph.D. at Catholic University when my mother and I continued living in Princeton, N.J.   I was, and am, good with him and without him.  He helped me become this person who can survive without him.  I also have some weird feeling that I am also becoming more like him; I am filling the spaces he left empty with his death. He's not gone.  He will never be gone. His impact on me is vast;  I formed in these last 45 years in relationship to him, as he developed in relationship to me.

     Today I also worked with my therapist on my ambivalence about wanting recognition for the work I have developed. I sat with the uncertainty and released anything negative about wanting that recognition and keeping anything positive or anything I still needed.  And then doing the opposite, releasing anything negative about not wanting that recognition and keeping anything positive or anything I still needed about that.  What came up was rage, supersized rage.  It was scary.  I worked on releasing my fear of it and waiting for it to change. The rage shot me out of the space I was in, and I was floating over a beautiful meadow.   Shelly said I had a waking flying dream. I have never had a flying dream before. I have been aware that others do, and I didn't, but I haven't known the significance. I still don't.  I wasn't wholly comfortable floating around.  I kept on peddling with my legs as if I could control my movement doing that. 

    I remember reading once, I believe in a Shirly MacLaine book, that it is possible to die in one of those flying dreams. They were described as out of body experiences, and if the silver cord connected that floating self to the body was cut, the person could die.  I asked Shelly to keep a good grip on the cord so I couldn't go too far.  Again, I have no idea if there is really any truth to this, but I figured better safe than sorry.

    I interpreted the experience of floating as the ultimate individualism.  There was no one else in the picture. I was totally alone, disconnected from the earth, and from social commitments.  In my early thirties, just before I met Mike, I hitched from Boston, where I was visiting a friend, to an undeveloped piece of property in Maine owned by someone I met in Boston. I stayed there alone for something like 3 to 5 days.  I made a lean-to with tarps.  I had never been so peaceful.  I left knowing that I would have to work out my relationship with others, which scared me to death, but I also knew that I had a peacefulness inside of me when I was alone.  What was scary was the degree of separation from others. I needed to feel safe.  Being that alone seemed like a frightening prospect. I left with a deepened commitment to work it out. It seemed like the only moral path. 

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

   

I came across some papers on St. Ignatius's discerning process in the process of cleaning up' Mike's library.  It starts out saying that there are good spirits and evil spirits. Good spirts make you happy, give consolation, and bad spirits create desolation, distress. In the beginning, this sounds like a simple process,  and then it goes on to explain how difficult discernment really is.  Feeling good can be used by evil to create false contentment, and feeling bad can be used by the good spirits to push us to change.  He sees it as a most confusing process. The author and I totally agree.  He says the key aspect is our commitment to do God's will versus following our own desires.  Great!  That solves everything, doesn't it? How do we know when we are doing 'God's will?

    Discernment is the key to most of life when to zig versus zag. Every moment of our lives creates opportunities to do one or the other.  Some cling to a commitment to God or the church or prayer or meditation or exercise, which serves to help them avoid real discernment.  There is no secure standard of measure.  How do any of us know if we are following the will of God, whatever that means? Let's say it means doing the maximum good for self and everyone else.  As I read the description of being good, it generally focuses on others instead of self.  I argue that the goal is the narrow path between what is best for self and others. That's the most difficult one. Ignoring self means ignoring others, and, conversely, ignoring others means ignoring self. If our well-being depends on the welfare of others, it logically follows that their well-being depends on ours.  We cannot overlook self or others. If we focus just on self or just on others, we will be led astray. 

    I have devised a means of discernment that I use in my healing work, which I have had considerable success with.  It starts with a person's intent.  If someone comes to me declaring they want power over others, I'm not interested.  However, I can appreciate that they feel they need more control over their own lives. Yet, if they only hold others responsible for the problems in their life, I'm not their 'man.' 

    Most discernment starts with two choices,  good versus evil, or just good versus bad. The method I use offers three options, and it asks the body-brain to do the work, not the conscious mind. The choices involve what's bad, what's good, and what the person still needs.  Introducing the last two elements is essential. First, it recognizes that someone may release a little of what is holding them back, but not all of it.  It acknowledges their boundaries, their limitations without abandoning the ideal.  It respects the person in the most profound sense of the word, not just their conscious intentions. None of us are only our conscious intentions; at least that's what I believe, and I'm sticking to it.  Offering the three choices allows the person to release what they can and what they are ready to release.  It doesn't propose an all or nothing choice. 

    The second aspect of the work is that it requires examining feelings from two perspectives: the desire to have something and the desire not to have the same thing,  the fear of not having something, and the fear of having that thing. I find when I do a release on the less obvious feeling, I get the most significant release and the most valuable information as to the next move in the healing.

    Overriding all the work details is the intent of the conscious mind; that intent has to be for the well-being of self and others, even someone who has done them harm.  This does not mean they are working on being 'nice' to someone. Sometimes, we have to push people away simply because they are too toxic for us, and it may be the best thing for them.  Being good to people does not always mean being nice, not even always gentle. As with all discernment, these are tough calls. All we can do is the best we can.  Here intention comes in.  The intention is what determines our course, followed by the prayer, "Lord, let me do no harm."

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

    I had enough pain last night for me to apply Salon Pas to my left knee. Oh, oh, When I experience severe and continuous discomfort like that, I think, “It’s time!” I used my right heel to massage my left calf and shin area. That didn’t do much.  Finally, I used the tennis ball, which always resides under my sleeping pillow, to release the left glutes. Bingo!  Put a hold on that operation! 

    I checked the wear pattern on my shoes before I went for a walk.  While the heel strike on my left shoe is further back on the heel, it is too far over to the outer edge.  Now that I have been able to get the whole outer edge of my left foot in contact with the ground, I was working on moving the heel strike further toward the center. Wow! That was a whole different experience. Now, I’m thinking of getting the entire heel in equal contact with the ground.  I found that the area of my left heel just before the arch starts is slightly lifted. That’s what I worked on when I walked and what I emphasized today in Bikram.  This requires me to use my leg muscles differently.  

    When I got to the yoga studio, I did the usual procedure: I put my equipment, which includes a walker, in the room to save my place, when to the bathroom, and started to take off my sweatshirt and tee shirt which I had put on for the morning walk.  Oh, dear. As I pulled the T-shirt over my head, my elbow brushed against a bare breast. Oops!! I forget to put a sports bra on before I put my shirt on.  Oh, well. I just did the class with the T-shirt. 

    I started two new things yesterday in class. While I have been holding on to the bar at the back of the room while I do the separate leg head to knee pose with my back to the mirror so I could maximize the support for my legs, yesterday I turned to the side and held on with the right hand while I raised the left leg. Wow!  I thought it was better, but I am actually able to lift that leg so that the thigh is parallel to the floor/ceiling. This is incredible. 

    Once I got home, I took care of the garbage first.  I emptied out the kitchen and bathroom garbage, taking those bags out to the trash container already by the roadside where Josh put it before he went to work.  I dumped boiled water on some weeds, put the kettle on the trunk of the car, and walked the trash to the roadside.  I remembered that I still had a dried-out paint can to get rid of. It was a 5-gallon can.  Fortunately, there was still room.  That was the last one of the lot I had set by the side of the house to dry out before I tossed it.

     Last night I found an access card to some building in one of Mike’s books. It was addressed to someone named Stephanie in 2006.  We were in Ohio at that time already.  I called the Josephinum to check if it was theirs.  No. I guess it’s just trash.

    I worked on the blog, did some gardening in the back lanai garden.   I finally showered after I completed the gardening and did MELT. Using my shower as a reminder to do the MELT has worked like a charm. Habits, good ones, yeah!

   

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

    I finally found out the real name of a new yoga student who looks exactly like Danny Kaye.  Matthew is old enough, 60, to remember Kaye. Even some of his facial expressions are the same.  I wind up associating a lot of the students with celebrities. One student looks somewhat like Lee Marvin, another like Brenda Blethyn.   I don’t usually do that.  I have no idea if there are similarities or that is just a frame of mind I’ve adopted in this context.  

    I have started doing the Japanese sit again in some of the postures, not the ones I have to use it for sitting as a base and doing something on top. My upper thighs aren’t stretched out enough for that.  I’d be afraid I could real damage to myself.  My inability to do it started within the last year.  I don’t believe it is because I lost the ability but rather that as I changed my alignment, I challenged my muscles in another way.

    When I came home, I had my breakfast soup, worked on the blog, and got a phone call from Raymond James.  I had called the other day reporting errors in the spelling of one name and incorrect numbers in someone else’s Social Security number.  Geoff hadn’t understood why they hard mailed the form to me at the time.  He sent me an electronic version, I signed it and sent it back.  This morning he was calling to ask if I had five primary beneficiaries of the IRA.  Yes.  There are only four slots for the primary beneficiaries.  Ah, that’s why they hard-mailed it to me.  He said it should have been in a different format anyway.  He sent me the original form with an addendum letter listing the five with their birthdates and social security numbers.  I was able to download it, print it out and put it in the UPS envelope that they had sent me for the return mail after I dug it out of the recycling bin.

    My primary doctor at Kaiser had called this morning during Bikram in response to my request for a telephone appointment.  I was concerned that I might have a urinary tract infection.  I don’t have all the symptoms, and I am using my abdominal muscles differently, which is putting pressure on my bladder. Jean told me recently had a bladder infection for which she had no symptoms other than a temperature.  Since a bladder infection can have severe consequences if left unaddressed, I decided rather be safe than sorry.  Dr. Edwards asked me if I just wanted a prescription for an antibiotic, or did I want her to order a lab test.  Are you kidding?  I’m not going to take medication that I don’t absolutely need.

    I went out on the back lanai and did some more work on the weeds. Then I took my shower, did MELT for my feet and hands, got dressed, and got ready to go out to do some chores.  Before I got on the road, Jean called to ask me if I could hear the rain pouring.  Yes. She was sitting on the unscreened front porch of her New England style home reading and enjoying the cooling rain. It fills me with joy that she called just to share that moment with me.   She also knows that I love sitting on her front porch. It is particularly enjoyable in the afternoon on an unexpectedly warm winter day with the sun bright upon us as we sit and chat or just read. 

    Then I headed out to do some chores.  My first stop was UPS to drop off the letter for Raymond James. Then off to the transfer station to get rid of some cardboard recycling. The next stop was Kaiser to give my urine sample.  Then I went to Home Depot to ask if they had soundproof flooring. Yes, but only if they lay the floor themselves.  I had in mind pulling up the Pergo flooring in the large guest room, which is right above Yvette and Josh’s bedroom, laying down the acoustical insulation and relaying the existing flooring. Home Depot is prepared to do the whole job but not retrofit the soundproofing. I will have to find someone else. The rest of the house is over their head, lifting the tile covering that flooring is a whole different matter. We would have to do it by ripping out their ceiling and putting insulating material into the space above it before reinstalling it.  

    The last stop was Costco to pick up Pretzels, laundry soap, non-Clorox bleach, and salad.  They salad display was almost empty, and they didn’t have the type I wanted.  I bought a kale salad package from Safeway yesterday. I don’t like it. I bought a sweet kale package from Costco. Hopefully, I like it better.

    Then I came home to do some more work on the blog.  I’m sure that many original readers have dropped out.  I would.  I continue writing because I think it helps me stay in the moment.  I don’t know how long I will feel the need to continue. I’m thinking of dates like the 6 month anniversary or the 1st anniversary.  Hopefully, I won’t keep up this daily bulletin forever.  Or, maybe I will.  We’ll see. 

     I spoke to John Coughlin yesterday about CollectorZ program and how to do the next step and the deacon candidate who we both thought I might be able to help. There are legal problems with John recommending me, so that was dropped.    

Monday, June 17, 2019

    During  Bikram, I worked on opening the hip' bowl.' It actually makes my leg feel better. For the first time in at least a year, I sat in the Japanese sitting posture to stretch out the top of my thighs. This is not to say that I can do this posture without supporting myself with my arms to keep my rear end from touching my legs.  If I pushed for that, I would probably injure myself.  On the first try, I noticed that the left knee was a few inches shorter than the right knee.  A moment of concern; does this mean that my left thigh bone is really shorter than the right?  If so, the only solution is THR.  The second time I struck that position, they were even.  I think I had to adjust my hips. We'll see as things progress.

    After Bikram, I went to Safeway to pick up a salad package, dried cranberries, a multi-grain baguette, and, God bless Safeway, 11 Hersey's Milk Chocolate Bars with whole almonds which were on sale with a Safeway card.  I have one of those.

    When I got home, I saw the gardener at work, doing more weeding, and starting the trimming.  They did some weeding 3 weeks ago, but this is the first trimming since Mike collapsed at the end of January. We missed  February, March, April, and most of May.   It was just too hard to call them and go on with the routines of life without Mike.  Mike had been yelling at me to get a grip and call them.  He was invested in having the property looking decent. 

    I checked my email first thing when I got home.  I checked before I left this morning, but found no answer from Deborah from Raymond James, not even an I' m-out-of-the-office automatic reply.  I had visions that Princeton had been bombed.  I think the world news is weighing on me.

    I called and got someone else to be told that she was out, but Geoff said he didn't know when she would be back.  She either had an emergency. I'll find out eventually, but not today.  Geoff was able to help me.  I needed the bank's full address where Raymond James has my checking account because I had to provide information for a change in the direct deposit for the state of New Jersey Benefits and Pension Fund.  He asked me if the information wasn't on the check. Yes, but not the street address, just the bank name, city, and state, not even the zip code. He had to search to find it.  He emailed me the information.  I finally was able to get that document out for processing.

    I sat down to do some work on the blog when there was a knock on the door; my butlerrette, Elsa, announced a guest. It was my tutoring student. I was expecting her at 2pm, not 11am.  I hadn't showered yet.  I wanted to do some gardening before I cleaned myself only to get dirty again.  I asked her if she wanted to get it over now or come back later.  She chose later, but when she went out to the street, her grandmother had already driven away.  We continued working on math.  She is remembering most things except the procedure for double-digit by multi-digit multiplication.  She even has a trick for reminding herself to remember it, but it doesn't always work.  When she did one problem incorrectly, I used her reminder trick to cue her.  It worked.

    This girl has missed a lot of school, but she is a remarkable student.  She has a decent intelligence, but moreover, she has excellent study skills.  She always reads the directions.  Given my experience with other students, it always blows my mind when she does this.  She will also look up information from a previous page when she needs to instead of just sitting there, helplessly, saying, "I don't know." As I said before, she developed cueing strategies for herself that help her to remember.

    Many years ago, my sister-in-law was a principal of a small private school.  I remember her being excited about a math program that was based on real-life situations that students might typically find themselves in. I assume this helped them primarily with word problems.  I haven't heard too much about it subsequently; in fact, I haven't heard anything about it.  I guess that it wasn't as successful as people had hoped.   I think I know why.  The word problems in math books use large numbers and situations the students are not familiar with.  The question is, how do you get lateral transfer of knowledge.  How do you get students to apply the math they seem to know in life situations to math word problems? Well, I know what I do. I rewrite the question.  I do it well enough now that all I have to do is reduce the numbers so I can figure the problem out in my head.  With students who have trouble, I rewrite the problem, including their names and the names of their friends as well as reduced numbers.  I am teaching them a strategy for using their real-life math experiences to solve complex math problems. I am teaching them to use the familiar to understand the unfamiliar.  I use that strategy to this day when the solution to the problem isn't immediately obvious to me. 

    After she left, I called Rick at Raymond James.  I needed his advice on how to deal with a little problem with the will.  Mike wrote in the will that he wants the money from his life insurance to be bequeathed to August, his grandson.  However, he made me the beneficiary of that life insurance policy, and I didn't remember him assigning it to August in the will.   As it stands now, August would only be entitled to that money upon my death, which, with any luck, will be long after he is through with college, but who knows.  I figure that if he has to wait that long, the money will be enough to pay for a college application fee for one of his children due to inflation. 

    Mike wanted the money put in trust for him.  He would be entitled to do with the money as he wished at 25.  Damon didn't like the idea.  He said he didn't want him using the money to pay for video games.  I told him that I would trust him to respect Mike's wishes more than I would trust him.  Cylin was on the phone too; she laughed when I said that because she knew what I was thinking of.  Our boy, Damon, is somewhat of a control freak.  He would override Mike's wishes with his 'better thinking.'

    As far as I'm concerned, I will do whatever it takes to honor Mike's expressed wishes.  I loved making him happy.  Fulfilling his wishes now makes me happy.  It leaves me feeling contacted and working with him as I did in life.  I told Damon about the bequeath on Sunday.  He was excited because it means that he and Cylin will have help paying for August's college.  Mike would definitely have wanted that.  I want that. We're talking about different ways of accomplishing it without creating tax burdens for him or for me.  I think Damon is going to have to work with his accountant to find out the possibilities.

    Then I sat down and worked on the blog.  I took a break to call the UCSF Medical Center to see if it was worthwhile returning an unused testing kit for a possible kidney donor.  We have one.  The guy on the line said it was okay not to bother, but I hate, hate, to throw things away that can be used by someone.  This was a big difference between Mike and me.  When we moved from Ohio to Hawaii, we had to get rid of a lot of stuff we wouldn't have a place to store; no basement or useful attic. Mike's solution was to get a dumpster. My answer was to sell what we could and give the rest to charities.   I worked hard, and most of our possessions found a happy home.  I will be mailing the kit to UCSF Medical Center. Hopefully, I'm not creating more waste with the mailing envelope then I would have if I hadn't mailed it.

    Around 12:30, Cherry of T-Mobile called. I had received some documents from a company called Assurant, which provided coverage in case of damage or loss of my cell phone.  I had found the paperwork a while ago but hadn't wanted to deal with it.  Yesterday, I finally called. Mike's phone insurance had been canceled, but mine was still good.  I thought, why not ask about the phone I broke when I dropped it in the hospital during Mike's 5-week stay.  The number I reached was T-Mobile, and then Cherry connected me to Assurant.  The woman at Assurant was rushed, and we had trouble getting on the same page.  We tried three password options and had to give up.  I promised Cherry  I would try again tomorrow. She promised she would call me. I had planned to do it before 12, but then the student arrived unexpectedly at 11 and forced a change in my schedule.  

    Cherry connected me to Assurant.  They still didn't recognize the first password I gave them.  I tried the last 4-digits of Mike's social security number; bingo. I figured the date of breakage around February 22.  They told me I only had ninety days to report the damage or loss, and my phone no longer qualified for the insurance coverage.  Okay. Cherry called me back to see how it went.  I explained the situation, not expecting anything. She went off to speak to her supervisor and returned to me to say that they would replace my phone. Wow!  There were no more SE5s available, so they were going to have to send me an Apple 7.  She said it's an upgrade, but I remember there were problems with some of the later phones. Either way, the care this T-Mobile customer service representative gave me was off the charts.  It felt good to be so cared for even if I wind up with a phone that's harder for me to use.

    I listened to Terry Gross on Fresh Air interview a doctor on elder care. As we already know, there has very little research done on the old. They have recently discovered that all those baby aspirins people were taking to prevent stroke can have adverse effects on the kidneys, mainly if someone is vulnerable and particularly if someone is on certain blood pressure medications.  Oh, boy.  Mike, Mike.  It hurts so much to think that some of your illnesses could have been caused by all the medicines you were on.  Me, I have been on 5 mg. of Lexapro for years, the lowest possible dosage, and high blood pressure medication while I was in the hospital with  Mike for five weeks.  In contrast, Mike was on the highest possible dosage of Lexapro; no, he was on a dosage higher than the highest recommended level.  Also, he was on baby aspirins for years and years and years and years.  I hate to think this was all preventable. I also accept that it was his choice of how to deal with life's challenges.  He was very AMA.  Me, I am very skeptical. Of course, my way of dealing with things can backfire too.  I am resolved to think of it like gambling on a horse race; you place your bet and deal with the consequences of our choice.  There is no horse called 'Forsure' in the race. 

    I called my friend Carol Greff in Ohio.  She has been suffering from her own ailments. She told me that she is finally on a medication that is making her feel better. She is a real trouper. We became friends the first year I taught at Licking Heights.  I was teaching in the combined middle school and high school.  Fortunately, I offended some teacher, and she went after me. Since she was falsely accusing me of something, it was resolved that it was a personality conflict, and I was moved to another school. As it worked out, I was much happier working in the lower grades.  I like working on the basics. When I have to deal with students who don't know those basics, having to help them complete their high school assignments is my vision of hell. The best part about that year in the middle school/high school was this friendship with Carol.

    Yvette came up after I had finished dinner and was watching TV and cataloging books. She reshelved one shelf and emptied another high shelf of their books for me to catalog.    

   

   

   

   

   

Sunday, June 16, 2019

    I must have gotten up to pee at least a dozen times last night.  I usually get up once or twice, but this was a whole different thing.  I have no idea what is going on.  If it continues, I will have to see my doctor. I finally got up around 7:30. 

    Elsa and I did our walk around the block we do on Sundays when I don’t go to Bikram, but today we went around in the opposite direction from what we usually do.  This means that I got to walk on the opposite side of the street.  I didn’t see a lot of garbage, but there were some items for which I would need at least a brown paper bag, which I didn’t bring today.  I also saw something the size of a personal safe dumped in an undeveloped property.  With a deeper look, I saw a white pop tent. I guess there is some homeless person camped out there. 

    Paulette drove us to church.  No, Judy; she was feeling lousy.  While there, I shared the passport picture of Sam, Karin, and David’s son.  It is the funniest passport photo I’ve ever seen.  People were asking if the authorities actually accepted that picture.  Sam was two months old when the photo was taken; his eyes are closed, and he is screaming his head off. Not your typical passport photo.   The family lives in Seattle. A foreign country is just a few miles away and available for day trips.

    Fr. Diego made the announcements and reported a surprise farewell dinner for -Fr. Diego.  This is the second weekend he has made that announcement.  It’s still good for a laugh. 

    I worked on the blog, read the  NY Times, and napped. I woke up when Damon called. We yakked about many things, but not cabbages and kings.  For Father’s Day, they had gone to the top of the tallest building in downtown LA.  In case anyone wants to know, Damon is a great father. And, he is proving to be a super great step-son.  I can’t tell you how much this means to me. 

    Yvette came up while I was ending my conversation with Damon with two slices of pizza in hand. Dinner!  She did me a few favors.  We reshelved the books she took down the other day that I had cataloged.  There were all of 5 books on the top shelf.  She got those down. I scanned three of them with my phone, and we reshelved immediately.  I was going to ask Josh if he could help me figure out how to delete phone messages on the house phone.  I usually deleted all messages, but I suspect there may be some from Mike on there.  I want to save those.  As I talked with Yvette, I showed her how I couldn’t delete them individually – and deleted them.  I just hadn’t held the erase button down long enough. She also carried the large case of almond milk into the storage area for me.  I could do it on my own, but it would be a little more complicated. 

    I sat down to read Chapter 2 of Mike’s book. I found chapter one repetitious and tedious, too academic. Chapter 2 proved much more enjoyable. 

    Yvette had gone down to her quarters and came back up with a laundry load to put in the dryer.  I had been meaning to ask her a question about what it meant to ‘open’ the hips.  She confirmed that it involved an outward rotation of the femur, the leg bone, in the hip socket.  I showed her something I was currently working on, spreading my two hip bones apart. She said, “Opening the hip bowl.” I have been initiating my stride when walking by doing that. It reminds me of how ballet dancers walk, except I keep my feet in parallel.  I said something about walking that way.  It didn’t register with Yvette.  I said if I do that, I’m initiating my stride from my core muscles.  I think the idea is that the more I can engage those large core muscles to perform anything, the better off I am.  I’ve never used my core muscles for walking—good time to start.  Let’s see where this goes.  I may wind up putting too much strain on that arthritic hip and bam, time for Hip Replacement Surgery.  Well, that’s always been a possibility.  So far, so good.

    I sat down to do more work on the blog. I got several entries out today.  Yay, for me. 

    

Saturday, June 15, 2019

    I had set the alarm for 7 today since the Saturday yoga class is at 8:30 instead of the weekday 7:30.  I left earlier than usual today, thinking the class would be jammed. There were 24 in class on a Friday morning.  I figured Saturday would be worse. But no.  There were only 15.   I’m working hard on correcting that turn in on my left foot.  I know it is associated with a hip problem, but that doesn’t make sense to me.  I can believe a hip problem causes it, but there is an additional turn in the lower leg and even more in the ankle. What happens if I straighten the two lower parts of the limb out?  How much will that change? What will it change?

    I stopped off at the U-Haul to pick up some book boxes.  Some boxes can be bought a dozen at a time at half price.  The book boxes didn’t qualify for the discount. I bought three and walked out of the store.  I saw the dimensions on the outside of the box, and 12 x12 x 12 turned around to compare the book box with the small box. The small boxes which can be bought in bulk are 12 5/8 x 12 5/8 x 16.  It’s roughly the same.  Is there some advantage to the perfect cube that I should be aware of? If not, I will buy the small boxes in the future.

    When I got home, I finally took the rejected CDs out of the back of the car and the large case of almond milk I bought at Costco.  I got the CDs inside on my own.  I’m going to have either Josh or Yvette carry in the case of milk, which I left under the eve on the front walk.

    I got to work, calling the kids to confirm their SS numbers.  Yesterday, I got an IRA beneficiary Designation Change form in the mail. I had planned to through the information I had collected from them in the trash.  I was going to tell them that I ate it to make sure their SS numbers were secure. Fortunately, I didn’t. I was moved to check the information.  Yep. Two errors. Shivani’s name was misspelled, and the last two digits of David’s SS were wrong.  Once I had confirmed the information with each kid, I emailed Raymond James and instructed them to make the changes and send me a new form.   I had a somewhat longer conversation with Shivani because we used Facetime, so I Sidney and I could see each other.  This kid remembers my name and Elsa’s. 

    I did some weeding on the back lanai.  I’m pulling out these flowering weeds. It’s a nice plant; it’s just it has a take over the world attitude.  Then I started a laundry with Yvette’s, Scott’s, and my Bikram stuff.  Since Scott has the use of a friend’s bright red truck till October, Yvette hasn’t been picking him up and taking him to class. Sometimes, he winds up in class when she’s not there. As a result, I have been putting his clean laundry in the back of my car for him to pick up without going through Yvette. I referred to myself as a Chinese laundry service with pick-up and delivery.

    I did a lot of work on the blog today. I sent two out and worked on two more.  

    Alexandra was supposed to come over today to work on entering books into The Collector Z app. In preparation, I opened up Mike’s computer.  I put in the password that always worked, but today it didn’t. I’m not sure why. I ‘ll have to check with August on this tomorrow.

I prepared mine for that purpose since I couldn’t get in there to set up the app for Alexandra.  Then I got some books and entered them. Some of the books I wasn’t able to enter previously using the existing collection, I could now.  I’m not sure why.  I think their collection is dependent upon people entering books, and they have an ever-expanding list.  I don’t think the people behind the app enter all these books; they claim they have approximately 500,000 already.  I entered a book that was not in the collection. Then I typed in the name in the search box, and it still came up as not being in the collection. However, I found evidence that it was recorded on my list and not added to the collection.  I called Alexandra and told her that I had to straighten this out before I got her involved.  I also discovered that I found it much easier to do it myself than I thought it would be.  I anticipated problems with my eyes reading all the fine print on the back of the title page. 

    Poor Elsa got a bath today. Fortunately, she is basically a good girl, so I can do this on my own.  Mike and I used to do it together. I washed her in the kitchen sink, and in the end, he had a towel over his shoulder, and she jumped right into his arms.  Since I’m the horrible person who made her wet and covered her with soap, she was not so willing to jump into my arms, even though I’m brandishing a towel. It’s kind of scary.  She wants to jump right off the kitchen counter. Much too high for her. 

    The moment she was on the ground, she shook herself and ran around like a mad dog.  I went out to get the Bikram stuff off the line. Elsa went running out and wiped her mouth on the ground. I said, “Give me a break. I just washed your face.”  Tomorrow, I’m going to have to trim her bangs, or she’s not going to be able to see the ground in front of her soon.

    We did our walk while she was still wet.  She peed and pooped. She was wiggling her way down the center of the street, trying to get all that poop out her when a neighbor passed in her car on her way home.  She stopped concerned, wondering why Elsa was walking in that weird way. We had a good laugh at Elsa’s expense.  

Friday, June 14, 2019

    I had some weird dreams about housing and bathrooms as I lay in bed before I got up.  The house was small and cramped with limited sleeping spaces and many people looking for places to sleep.  That one was new.  I have no idea what motivated it.  The bathroom dreams I frequently have.  They involve me looking for a functioning bathroom and not finding one. My mind has created some weird dysfunctional toilets, let me tell you.  But these dreams are functional. It means I have to go pee, and my nonconscious mind it trying to wake me up and get me in action to get to the working toilet 6 feet from my bedside.

    I emailed Raymond James for the street address of the bank so I could fill out the change of account for direct deposit paperwork for the NJ pension and benefits department. They had a tough time finding the street address. Most companies don’t ask for that much detail.

    I got a good stretch on the inside of my left leg in Bikram today.  A whole new world. We’ll see. The class was full today, 24. I’m delighted. It means it’s worthwhile keeping the studio open.  At the end of class, the woman next to me asked me if I had sciatica and offered to a massage.  A: I don’t have sciatica. B: Yvette, my goddaughter, is a massage therapist; C: I see a chiropractor regularly.  I suppose approaching people that way is a good business move, but I don’t like it.

    When I got home, I threw Scott’s and my Bikram stuff in the washing machine, called the NJ Pensions retirement department for some other information I needed for the form.  I gave Mike’s social security number instead of mine when I was actually filling out the form for myself. 

    I called Jean. She did damage her foot when she stumbled on the uneven ground while showing Damon how they were using the new garage for storing her files. She went to a doctor to see if surgery would facilitate healing. The surgeon said that it wouldn’t make that difference, and she would have to be off her foot altogether for 2 months. Using the boot to promote the healing will take longer, but at least she will be able to take some short walks around the block with John in the beautiful weather of summer. 

    While I was on the phone with Jean, I told her about Dorothy celebrating her birthday with lunch with some friends. LUNCH!  I had a luncheon appointment for 11:30 with Pat and Isabel from Habitat.  I rushed to get dressed. I didn’t have time to shower. I desperately tried to call Pat to tell him I would be late. I called Habitat, repeatedly, dialing every extension in sequence, trying to get hold of someone who could help me reach him.  I spoke to someone at the Restore. He didn’t have the contact information and proposed leaving Pat a note.  I don’t think he quite understood what the problem was. 

    When I finally arrived at the restaurant, I rushed to the elevator to get upstairs to the restaurant where we agreed to meet. While I was waiting for the elevator, Pat and Isabel approached me. Apparently, Mis, the restaurant we were going to eat at, wasn’t open until 12 pm. We ate at Daylight Mind.

    I had a wonderful time. Pat and Isabel told me they wanted my permission to do something to commemorate Mike. Mike had a substantial impact on Habitat here in Hawaii. He reorganized the organization, much to its benefit.  Besides that, I pretty much dominated the conversation telling funny stories.  I’ve lost my appreciative audience when I lost Mike.  If I’m around people who don’t laugh, I forget I’m funny.  Now, that would be a tragedy.  My sense of humor keeps me balanced.

    Ann Marie came into the restaurant long after we arrived. I asked her if she would like to join us.  Lo and behold, she came for that purpose.  I got to know her a little better, which I enjoyed.

    I left at 1:30. In the parking lot, I realized I would be home just in time for my tutoring client.  Numbers and time are not my strong suit.  I was so tired from the luncheon, I just wanted to sleep.  She canceled; I slept.

    When I got up, I played FreeCell, worked on the blog, walked Elsa, shower, did  MELT, ate dinner while reading The Second Mountain.  

    While working on the cataloging tonight, I found a three-ring binder with a book Mike worked on.  This is the one I knew he was writing, Introduction to Foundations in Theology, based on the courses he taught at the Josephinum Seminary.  The book on the diaconate came as a complete surprise.   I have to wonder why he shared so little of me. I, in contrast, am a constant font of information about myself.  No surprise there, I’ll bet.  I like sharing.  I expect others to share. While I’m a great talker, I’m not bad as a listener, either.  I’ve had to work to get that skill under my belt, but I’m reasonably accomplished by now. 

    I will have to ask Mike Berstene if this book is also in the drop box. I don’t want to bother him at this point because he hasn’t even gotten back to me about the Paulist’s Press response to Mike’s book on the diaconate.  They have agreed to read it and consider it, but that’s the last I heard.    

Thursday, June 13, 2019

First thing this morning, I  called the Ohio and NJ retirement departments to make arrangements for changing the accounts for direct electronic deposit.  There is a 6 hour time difference between the east coast and Hawaii. I have to make phone calls early.

    At Bikram, Heather, the instructor told me that she finally realizes what I am doing; I am making minor adjustments with major results.  She gets it. She sees my sequencing. I deeply believe in the impact of well thought through small changes.  

    After Bikram, I went to Island Naturals for pumpkin seeds and to pick up some progesterone cream. I always have to check because you have to buy stuff on the island when it’s available.   Everything is shipped in; we often find products we want are not on the shelves. 

    It was off to Target next to by AZO, considering the possibility that I did have a urinary tract infection.  This has been the weirdest experience.  I am only suffering mild discomfort.  It is nothing like any other UTI I have ever had before. If Jean hadn’t told me about her experience with a symptom-free UTI until she developed a fever, I would never have considered it.  Of course, while I was there, I bought Hersey Milk Chocolate bars with whole almonds.  I bought a dozen and got some money off as a result.  Wow! Got one free.

    As I pulled out of the parking lot, I called Dorothy. Today is her 74th birthday. She just had lunch with two friends.  I sang the ridiculously off-key version of Happy Birthday that Mike and I used to serenade family.  It was an accommodation to Mike’s inability to carry a tune. When he was up on the altar during Mass, if he sang, the pastor told him to turn off his mic. Dorothy and I talked about family.  She also said that the way our family handled Mike’s death should be held up as a model.  She has heard of situations where people fight with each other about the outcome. 

    The legal responsibility for Mike’s life lay with me, but I would never have made a decision without consulting Damon, his son. Even if we had different points of view, I doubt we would have fought about it.   

    Damon was a little ahead of me in his thinking.  We had a consultation with the palliative care team the Monday before Mike died.  I thought we were talking about how to make him more comfortable to reduce stress and facilitate healing. Damon’s first question was, “Are we keeping him alive for him or for ourselves?”  It was somewhat of a surprise but not a shock.  The following Saturday, he called Yvette to say that he was ready to let him go.  I might have been, but I wanted some sign from Mike that this is what he wanted. Thanks to Deacon Clarence and his wife Vi, I was able to get that confirmation from him.  Then I was happy, yes, really happy, to let him go. 

    When I got home, I called the Deceased Department at the credit card company about the bonus cash reward. They had rejected the documentation that I had sent: a power of attorney and Affidavit of Collection.  They said they needed court issued documents. I finally got to speak to a supervisor. That was most helpful.  First off, the Trust document naming me as a trustee would be just fine.  Second, the joint card, which I had been told I could no longer have access to, had been assigned to me. I had initially been told that I had no claim to our joint card because it was primarily in his name, and I was an add on. I guess that was wrong.  The cash bonus reward points had been credited to the bill.  I pointed out to the supervisor that poor people, for whom these bonus points might make a huge difference in the face of a loss of a loved one, probably had no documentation which they could use.  She agreed with me.  Maybe someday poverty will be considered a handicap like any other factor which prevents people from having equal access to the world at large, and there will be some special legislation for making the necessary accommodations.

    I did some work on the blog and then went to take a nap. I wasn’t particularly tired but didn’t want to do much of anything else. Also, last night I actually had insomnia. I was able to meditate myself through the night and didn’t wake up exhausted. 

    I set the alarm for 3:30pm because I had a healing client on the phone at 4.  He called promptly.  He is a wonderful client willing to face himself to heal—a really amazing man. 

    I played FreeCell for a while and then walked Elsa. Dinner was the leftover salad which Brenda made for dinner the other night.  It was a  good-sized salad, two slices of multi-grain baguette, and my lime, now, lemonade, since I have to buy lemons from Costco instead of pick limes off a tree at the bottom of my garden. I went off to watch some TV.  I worked on the blog entry for the day before cataloging some books. I walked Elsa at the end of the evening. 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:  I’m putting this separately so those who are not interested can choose not to read it.

    C.S. Lewis talked about seeing the loss of his wife as a phase of life,  just another phase of the marriage.  I like that.   I do find myself doing everything with Mike in mind. But I always did that, so there’s no difference. I’ve become aware that I’m doing that when I do something different, like sweep the tiles on the outside lanai, and think of how he would have loved that.  

    I’m still changing and becoming in response to him, his needs, and desires.  But I am noticing that there are ways I have ‘become him.’ No, I am not becoming a deacon in the Catholic church; besides, women need not apply.  There are changes in how I manage things.  I am very aware of his influence on me.  Thank you, Mike. God, I loved that man.

    Did we do exciting things? Share thoughts? Oh, by this point, it was just a joy to be in the presence of someone I was completely comfortable with. I rarely, if ever, had that feeling of tightening gut muscles because I felt frustrated with him.  I believe he felt the same way about me.  Sometimes, I would check and asked him if he felt controlled by me.  I asked because everything seemed to be going my way. He said no.  I certainly didn’t want him to feel wiped out by my needs.

On the other hand, I’m taking care of money matters now.  I do it differently than Mike, and I prefer my way.  When he was alive, I knew we had enough that I didn’t have to worry about him accumulating debt.

    As far as Mike was concerned, money was better in his pocket than in companies he purchased things from.  He paid off credit cards piecemeal.  Me, not so much.  I never want to be in debt.  I wanted everything paid off immediately. I have a greater sense that things can change on a dime, and I want to be ready. Perhaps that’s because of my parents’ experiences going through two world wars and a devastating inflation, which preceded the disastrous depression the United States shared with the rest of the world.  Mike’s parents were born in the US.  They were first-generation Americans born here.  While they had their trials, they didn’t have to deal with the number of radical changes in their circumstances my parents did.  

   

Wednesday, June 12, 2019

    After I followed my morning routine, I had a telephone appointment with my therapist in Ohio.  I  worked on my mixed feelings about having my work being seen and valued versus not being seen and valued. Images of being attacked came up. My mother used me, and my sister, as whipping boys for release of her own anxiety. She also believed that being seen by others was to put ourselves in danger.  My mother did suffer from PSTD; unfortunately, she never questioned her own perceptions of the world and passed on her distorted view to her children, leaving me afraid of making my own ideas too visible to the larger world. While my mother’s world view was tilted, it is also true that when new ideas or just ideas that contradict someone else’s ideas are presented in a professional context, attacks are unleashed.  The worlds of science and education are rife with legendary conflicts.  They’re not called the ‘reading wars’ for no reason. I have presented benign ideas in conferences, had most of the audience appreciative, and had someone stand up and attack my ideas and me- verbally, fortunately.  I think people have a rough time having their own concepts challenge, and this goes for all of us, including me.

    To heal my own wounding, I did what I affectionately call ‘posthumous’ family therapy.  Do I believe I am really talking with my deceased relatives?  I don’t give that much thought. I know that doing the work this way helps me to be a calmer and better person.  That is the goal of my therapy.  If it also helps a deceased relative, great. 

    Instead of arguing with my mother to get her to stop attacking me, which was my usual response, I focused on the pain I felt in response to her scathing comments, spit at me like hate.  It felt like a cat was clawing at my insides. I allowed myself to suffer her attack without making any effort to defend myself.  In my imagination, my body deflated like a balloon. My deflated appearance alarmed my mom.  She didn’t understand what was wrong.  

    My mother held on to the cherished belief that she could do no harm if she didn’t mean to.  I think she knew she was talking to me in ways she would not want to be talked to, but she also believed that she was just doing it to relieve her tension and not to hurt me. However, she did believe that if she was hurt, that was the other person’s intent. She had a very simple-minded theory: good people can do no harm because they don’t mean to, but if she was harmed, that meant the other person wasn’t a good person.  However, now she saw me deflated, and she understood that I was hurt. I turned to walk away so I could heal. She could not compute that she was responsible for the damage. She stood there in a state of complete confusion; the situation was beyond her comprehension.

    I called in Mike, who loved her and understood her as I did. He sat with her as she screamed for me not to abandon her.  He restrained her and comforted her.  He assured her that I would come back once I had healed myself.  At the final moment, she was distraught with confusion. She could not, would not, grasp that she did harm to her own children with her behavior.  My mom wasn’t narcissistic.  Her emotional development was too arrested for qualify for that category. She was like a young child.

    I didn’t make notes on the rest of the day, but I do know I had a nap after the session. It was a lot to process.

    I’m sure at the end of the day, I walked Elsa, had dinner while I read, and then went into Mike’s study/library to watch some tv and catalog books. 

I walked Elsa at the end of the evening. 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:  I’m putting this separately so those who are not interested can choose not to read it.

   

    I’ve been reading Brooks’s thoughts on marriage. I don’t get it; he sees personal growth as contradictory to a deep commitment to marriage. He sees personal growth as ego-driven. Huh? I don’t know who he has been reading and who he’s been talking to, but he works with very different premises than I do. 

    To begin with: his implicit definition of ego. Yes, ego has Something to do with the individual, but it does not necessarily mean individualism.  (But that’s another who topic.)  People in collective societies see themselves as part of the whole have egos. In these cases, they see themselves as a member of this group versus that group.  Ego just answers the question: who am I? and what am I? Now, some people resist any form of change. 

    While I can see why groups calcify with each individual in the group bolstering the rigid thinking in each other,  that is a group ego, ethnocentricity.  But in today’s world, I have no idea why individual egos calcify when they don’t have the pressure to remain constant, and become smaller and smaller people in defense of Something or another.  These people can be wholly devoted to a cause.  They can be self-sacrificing. But that is all part of their self-image; the ‘who I am’ that they will fight to the death to preserve.  

    Some people study and learn but only memorize what they have been taught. They remain untouched by what they learn, except in some small neurological way that the cells change with every new experience.

    I entered my relationship with Mike as an adventure, wondering how it would change me. That it would change me was never a question. I had specific parameters in mind for a partner. I wouldn’t have engaged in this experience with just anyone. He had to have a robust ethical framework, and he had to have the necessary intelligence to cope with mine without feeling diminished; that was a must.  He had to be someone who had a respect for me just not as a woman but as a person.  He couldn’t have one criterion for a man and a totally different one for a woman when it came to respect my point of view.  That was out!!!! I had spent my childhood defending myself from a mother that couldn’t tolerate a point of view that differed from hers. No more! I had done my tour of duty, thank you anyway.

    You’re not to think that Mike always saw it my way.  No, no. I wouldn’t expect any human being to see everything my way.  I think that’s Something we all want, but being able to cope with it not being on life’s menu is what separates the men from the boys.  I often had to stand up for my point of view. What he offered me was a  commitment to consider my point of view, even if it was difficult for him. He was somewhat more rigid in his thinking that I am but committed to considering what he heard.  He wanted a worthy opponent; I was that for him, and he welcomed that. There were moments in our marriage where he stubbornly stuck to his point of view.  However, when a third person spoke up to defend mine, and he saw that he had wiped me out, he was devasted by his own behavior. 

    We both saw each other as someone who would help the other grow.  We accepted the other as a teacher, as in the way life is a teacher.  I would be worn down and expanded in ways that only Mike could affect me.  We both thought we would become bigger, better people. We both wanted to be good people. That was our priority. We both realized that if we failed to meet that goal, the other would help us get better, larger.  We both became bigger people because of our marriage. Sometimes it took some energetic work to iron things out.

    I think Mike was more willing just to accept things about me he didn’t like than I was to accept Something about him. He was less likely to think I would respond to his requests;  I think because in his history, he found his family of origin was unwilling to respond to the needs of others except under pain of Something. But I have faith that people are willing to change to accommodate the needs of others – as best they can.  This does not mean that I say I see someone else’s point of view and make an immediate change, or expect the other person to do so in response to me. Real change takes time and effort and loving reminders. Also, it is everyone’s job to discern what changes to be open to.  If it is always one person who is making the changes and accommodations, Something is very rotten in Denmark.  Unless someone married the second coming of Christ, both parties in a marriage are flawed.  Discerning which one has to make the changes or if both have to make changes on a particular issue is vital.  

    If there is one party in a marriage who believes or has been convinced that they are always the one in the wrong, boy oh boy, Something is terribly wrong. Well, if it is both, jumping up to accommodate someone’s’ s stated need is not always the most loving thing to do.  I think we’re in the area of codependency now.  Brooks described a couple who agreed that they would always respond to the other’s request no matter how outrageous. As with all agreements, it requires faith that it will not be abused. 

    Mike and I had an agreement.  Ours was created out of our needs to control our boundaries. We had been raised in families where our boundaries were not respected.  I suggested a signal which would tell the other person to stop whatever they’re doing on a dime unless there was some life-threatening situation in play.  

    I had taken a course in Life Saving. We learned ‘the life-saving tap,’  which students use when they are practicing saving someone who is ‘drowning.’  Since the ‘drowning’ person has to struggle against the ‘lifesaver,’ there has to be a signal which clearly communicates that one of the practice partners is indeed in trouble and needs to come up for air.  They tap twice on the other person’s body.   Mike and I used that for years until it became needless. Again, this, too could have been abused.  One party could have used to limit the other from just about any activity, speaking, breathing, coming within 10 feet.  If someone’s priority is control versus connection, anything can and will be abused.

    Mike and I both became more of the people we always wanted to be in this marriage. I can’t think of a better evaluation of a marriage.  And we both became better people for ourselves and for others. We didn’t just become better at skills that were only related to the relationship or the larger community. I became more tolerant and less reactive.  This does not mean that I don’t reject people for their behavior. Believe me, I do. Tolerance is never total. That is victimhood and codependency. 

    What we adapt to has to be subjected to serious appraisal.   Actions that are bad for ourselves and bad for others should not be accommodated.  That is doing harm to self or/and to others.  We have also to stand up and set our boundaries. Again, I refer to the narrow way: the way that is perfect for both the self and others, where perfect does not mean giving people what they want in all cases. Never that. Saying no can be the most loving and healing thing a person can do.  We must set our boundaries.  If we don’t, we turn the other into the villain while we suffer nobly.  If we allow people to victimize us, when there is an alternative available, we are as guilty of doing harm as the ostensible villain.