We walked and we passed three people that I know when we walked yesterday morning, and it went okay. I tapped my button and everyone was cool. They talked to me, and I gestured and even said a word or two very quietly and with great effort. I love having my buttons, so people know that I am not rude for not speaking.
Then we went into the village to shop for things to make another pasta recipe of Angela Harnett, a chef I’m very fond of because she’s so gentle, happy, talented and warm. I watch her video podcasts called Dish; that’s where I am finding the recipe’s I love. The one I made yesterday, is caramelized fennel and shallot with shrimp (she used crab). I used pappardelle noodles for mine, not linguini, made with Italian Durum wheat.
Then I cleaned up the kitchen and retired to the chaise until it was time for our afternoon walk. It is such a pleasure to walk Her Highness during these warm but refreshing temperatures. And I Facetimed with Beth who is in Madrid. It was just great to see her. I listened, got a couple of words out, gestured a lot, and then, when the call was finished, I sent her an email of all I wanted to say but couldn’t during the call.
We walked the Elder Cedar trail. We haven’t walked that trail in a long time. It was great. We only saw one other person who was very friendly, I just made a couple of noises and walked on. This is changing me, this problem, and how I interact with people. When I came home, I wrote to Eoin to alert him to my situation. We’re going out to dinner tonight and I have no idea how I will be doing.
Something that happened during my appointment with Jess was interesting. She asked me to look into the camera, and to blow as though I was blowing out a candle. I could not do it. I couldn’t get any wind out of my pursed lips. A short while later, she asked me to put a straw in a cup of water and blow, and I did it immediately and easily. So then, I tried to blow out an imaginary candle and did it right away.
When I was listening to the opera yesterday afternoon, I wondered how people sing. All those notes are made by the vocal cords; they are muscles we cannot feel. Somehow, our brain does what we want to do, when we want to do it. A singer wants to hit high C, and she does, using muscles she has trained, but it’s the mind that sends the right information to the muscles to tighten or loosen on every note.
It seems to me that my mind currently cannot make the right muscles work. I have all that’s required to speak, but my brain is not sending the required signals. It also is very active often, sending signals to move my arms, legs and feet, to make my eyebrows go up and down in constant motion when I talk. The signals are garbled, too, hence the blocks and stammers, and my brain tenses all my upper body muscles, especially in my neck, when I speak.
I’ve been living in silence for 22 days. On 4.5 of those days, I could speak to some extent. Based on my experience to date, I can speak 20% of the time. The two, two-day speaking days were on two consecutive Wednesdays and Thursdays, the week of and the week after I saw Dr. Shoja, whom I see tomorrow. I’m tracking patterns to learn; I’m a knowledgeable patient for my medical partners.
Absolutely nothing feels better than hugging Sheba, and making a fuss over her, and having one or both cats with me on the chaise. Bengals are aloof. These two came to me in separate cages. They were unknown to each other, and they wanted to kill me.
I put them in the bathroom together to work it out. It took two days. Then I put them in a guest bedroom. I carried them separately wearing industrial gloves, and I left the door slightly ajar after I left the second one. They always had food. Eventually they emerged, and it has grown slowly into a wonderful family relationship.
These Bengals don’t like to be picked up, so I never have, except to take them to the vet. They emerged into the house and grew to trust and feel safe with me. They don’t want to be on my lap. They like to lean against me. Fred is a slut for affection, however, and I love, love, love, to give it.
Sheba is my intimate partner. She still sleeps on my bed sometimes, but she slept with me every night from arrival until about two years ago. She’s a big girl, she’s going to be nine in September, and she has weakening back legs, so sleeping on the floor beside my bed is where she likes to sleep now.
It’s my beloveds and walking in nature that fills me with such a wonderful feeling like a drug. All worries, all concerns leave my mind. Having Sheba with me everywhere I go and being at home with her nearly all the time has built a strong bond between us.
I’ve told the story before; my first love was a cat I watched for years that lived outside, owned by people who never let him inside. It broke my heart to see that unloved cat. Our dining room window faced their house, that’s why I knew Aleck’s story, and that’s why I watched Mrs. Blanch come outside, pick up Aleck, and walk up to our front door to give Aleck to me. She’d first checked with Don.
I didn’t know that I was being neglected and destroyed. I didn’t identify at all with Aleck. But I saw him as neglected, and that with him, I no longer felt alone in the world. He was my first love.
Next came a dog and another cat. Connie and Don seemed to be aware of my solitude and my love for animals; they gave me pets for company instead of themselves. They scored big time with Aleck, and when he died, I felt another emotion. I cared about him so much, I missed him every day. I was innocent and unaware of the emotional void between me and Don and Connie.
Every child must feel love. To love, it must be the first lesson we learn. We smile long before we learn where to pee and feed ourselves. I don’t know how I was treated in the orphanage, of course, or in my early years with Don and Connie. All I know is that my world view changed when I met Aleck.
I had not experienced constancy and affection until I met Aleck. That’s why I think I am so passionate about animals. Animals unlocked emotions that wowed me; I was hooked. That never happened between me and another person until I met Steve. By then, I was 30. And then Dwight moved in. Family.
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When I woke up this morning after a death-like deep sleep through the night, the first thing in my mind is, ‘can I or can’t I?’ I choose not to speak to delay the sad realization of being unable to speak, but when I took Sheba outside and walked with her to the gate to open it, without thinking, I tried to speak and couldn’t. And instantly, it’s a day during which I want to avoid people and video chats.
Just 20% of my days, on one in five days I can speak. Today is day three of this crisis of silence. Tomorrow, I see Dr. S. I have hopes of speaking tomorrow or Tuesday when Di arrives. Fingers crossed.
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