I love Sade. I love her voice and her gorgeous gracious self. This is her latest video. It is a tribute to her trans son. What a mother! Fuck Trump, the Republicans and all the other haters.
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Thursday was another slow day. I was up early to walk Sheba in the half-light of dawn before going to Life Labs for a gazillion tests. I’m going to struggle to make a success of my sputum analysis, but I’ll do my best. Once done, I hurried home to be ready to Zoom with my UK stuttering/FND group. And what a session we had!
Over the past month, I have worked hard on our mailing list because we knew people on it weren’t getting our messages. Yesterday, it was positively thrilling to log in and find out group size had more than doubled. What a wonderful reward it was for me to see such a great response.
When the Zoom session was done, I went to bed. I was tired. And the rest of the afternoon, after my nap, was diddled away on YouTube and reading. The night was like every other: movies, snacks, cuddling with the pets and a nice warm fire.
Friday began with a walk with our friends, and then I had a long Zoom call with Cathy before lunch. After lunch, we all just hunkered down in the house. It was dead silent all day, now that Dave and Ursula have moved into their yurt house, and Dave has started working where Ursula works, so I don’t see them much anymore. When it is cool outside and looks so unwelcoming to me, Mr. Sissy, who loves to be warm, I love being indoors with a roaring fire.
When I was talking with Cathy, she noted my fluency and complimented me. I told her that my fluency with her was due to her. I’ve known for a long time that my capacity to speak depends entirely on the situation and, more than anything, the person with whom I am speaking. For example: border officers.
All my life I’ve hated crossing the border. All the officers who speak to me do so with a tone of suspicion. It makes me nervous and so I become mute. It’s the same for most of us with psychoneurological speech disorders. It’s such a problem, the American officers now will make appointments with people like me and an officer meets us who interrogates us courteously.
It's not up to me what happens whenever I speak. My subconscious is in control and decides the level of disorder I’ll have at any given time. I love my talks with Cathy. She is always happy, I can hear her happiness in her voice, and my fluency proves the depth of my trust and affection. I explained all this to her, and then I thought of something. To test my theory, I did an experiment with Cathy I had never done before. The idea came to me as we were talking.
I said to her, “Watch this.” I was speaking like I knew what would happen, but I didn’t. I just new that my speech was tied to my emotional connection with the other person.
I closed my eyes, and as soon as I did, I could not say a single word. When I opened my eyes, my fluency returned. I repeated the whole thing and again, I became mute. I proved to Cathy, with my fluency, how good I feel about her, and I think that’s a wonderful aspect of my condition. I can prove I love and trust you with fluency.
Some people on the spectrum are blessed with spectacular skills. Many great creative people suffered ill mental health. I think being able to prove my love and trust is my superpower.
I am fluent with my four-legged family. Duh. They have the most beautiful faces in the world, and all I see is trust when I look at them, and it’s like medicine for my soul.
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Pinecone Park is looking mighty nice, considering we’re in December. My Hellebores and Fuchsias are blooming, and it’s tidy everywhere. This is new. This is Henri. He’s not coming back until February, when he comes to prune all the Ferns. I’m so glad to have him.
Come Springtime, when the garden is looking really good, I’m going to have the realtor over to talk about the value of my place. I’ve met a female realtor here whom I like. I see my pulmonologist this week. Come the spring, I expect to know why experienced a sudden loss of power, and what that means for my future. Plus, I’ll have the evaluation of my home, in case I want to have more cash on hand as I become more dependent on assistance services.
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