David Attenborough ♥️❤️🌹

I awoke on Wednesday to pouring rain, but by the tie I was ready to leave with Sheba to walk with our friends, the rain had stopped, and the sky was bright and clearing. What fortunate timing. The walk was lovely. I continue to love forest walking regardless of the weather, except when it’s really coming down. After the walk, we went into the village to do some shopping before returning home for the remainder of the day—except for my walk with Her Highness in the afternoon.

The most exciting thing of the day was this: As I was leaving the grocery store, a favourite checkout person wished me a happy day, and I replied, “Thank you.” I have been unable to say “thank you’ for almost eight years. But I said it clear as glass yesterday. I was thrilled. 

Bronwyn was back in the afternoon to spray all my fruit trees. My gardens and trees are getting care they deserve, thanks to her. And as she worked, the clouds rolled in. I was glad. The clouds keep us warm in Winter and although snow is again in our forecast, the -10° temperatures are no longer predicted. God, I hope it doesn’t snow!

In the afternoon, I returned three of my devices to CAYA. I am not using them. I have kept two devices that I use often. Also in the afternoon, I was grateful for my relationship with my bank manager because I was locked out of my online account. All I had to do, was write to him and he will help me fix this problem. If I called the banks ‘customer service’ line, I’d wind up frustrated and exhausted from the effort of trying to deal with them.

When I sat down to read, I fell asleep. I’ve become quite the tired fellow.

•

From The America is Fucked Department: A school district in Florida pulled multiple dictionaries and reference books off its library shelves for including descriptions of “sexual conduct.” Escambia County School District removed five different dictionaries, eight encyclopedias and the The Guinness Book of World Records from its collection after determining the titles could run afoul of Florida’s HB 1069 bill, which restricts sexual content from being taught in schools.

•

Today will be a good day. It is bright and clear today. There isn’t a could in the sky, but it is cold. It’s minus two degrees; the cold snap has begun. It’s predicted to cloud over later and snow tonight. Shizah! My fires will roar this week. Winter is here. I shall read today and attend to domestic chores.

Bald eagle claw.

Fighting the Dragon

 monday

It’s predicted to be -10° on Thursday night. Fuck! That’s the bad news. The good news is the lift I’ve felt since my epiphany on Sunday night. Last night I watched two movies—yes! Two movies —without shaking or hyperventilating while watching them. It could be coincidence, or it could be progress resulting from my recent epiphany.

Monday was a wild weather day. I walked in the morning with Regina and her dog Molly, we were both bundled up for the cold, and as we walked the snow was sticking to the ground. Back at my house, lower in altitude from where we were walking, the precipitation was mixed snow and rain, so no snow was sticking to the ground.

By evening, the precipitation was entire rain, but the raindrops were huge and heavy. As I went to bed, the rain was making a thundering noise on my metal roof. I loved it. I had a fabulous sleep last night.

I have no appointments or visitors for the rest of the month. I have one medical appointment on the 19^th, and that’s all. So, for the rest of the month I have a lot of time to myself. I shall enjoy every minute. I see Dr. Shoja on the 30^th, and I’m really looking forward to seeing her and talking about my recent epiphany night.

tuesday

Tuesday began stunningly bright and relatively warm. Her Highness and I loved our morning walk together. My spirits were very high. When we came home, I got busy with domestic chores before lunch while Sheba napped. As clouds rolled in during the early afternoon, I actually did some yard work. 

Mid-afternoon, Bronwyn came to prune all my fruit trees. They’ve been hobbled. I was shocked, but I have full confidence in Bronwyn. She said that they will burst with new growth and she’ll do it again, but there are more blossoms and fruits with pruning. I’m glad she’s my gardener. As we walked around the yard, it was shocking to see how close to bursting with blossoms or leaves many of the plants are, after our unseasonably warm Autumn.

•

I’ve seen psychiatric sessions portrayed, and I’ve seen victims of abuse portrayed. They bear no resemblance whatsoever to my experience. However, no two individuals are the same, practitioners have different methodologies, and disorders manifest in different ways in different people.

My psychiatric experience is in text, and broken speech, often with long gaps. I’m extremely happy/lucky that I had Dr. Shoja’s hand to hold; I am sticking with her for a while. I’ve had a cathartic experience that’s left me sad. I have been recalling things I said, and said often, to others, things that should have made me realize.

had to bring “victim of neglect” into my identity. It has hurt, hurt, hurt, lately, but the reward is understanding. Birth always comes with pain. Sunday night was my coming out night, to myself. Coming out as neglected. But also grateful for a great life of wonderful friends and pets. The best part of this, is that I may apologize less for my symptoms. 

I feel more ‘in control’ in my own body. I am currently in negotiation on my symptoms. I’m using calming and control techniques to catch the minor seizures before they turn into full seizures. I feel I have power because I know where the dragon is coming from. Why it is here. And I am not afraid. I do not want to kill the dragon. Killing is not in my repertoire. I want to establish boundaries with the dragon. And I’m going to push for as much as I can over the next several months.

This is embroidery!

No Pictures, Just Insight.

Sunday night was cathartic—truly cathartic, and I am thrilled and proud of what I went through even though it was monstrously painful. Grossed out by the Golden Globes (I lasted mere seconds), I chose to write and thing about why I was feeling worse than ever. As I wrote, some sentences caused me to seize. I knew that meant I was on the right track. What I wrote is for Dr. Shoja. Here is what I wrote: 

I was watching a movie that I was really enjoying. It was about a mother of three adult children. The mother was played by Vanessa Redgrave and the major themes of the movie were painting (and more broadly, the visual arts) and family relations (and money). I worked for three decades in the visual arts, Vanessa Redgrave is a goddess to me and ‘family relations’ are always a huge trigger for me. This film resonated.

I’m helpless when it’s Vanessa Redgrave. She seduces me into her character. I was hyperventilating all through the movie. I have breathing issues when I have a seizure, but it’s mild compared to what I was doing during this movie. It’s like my diaphragm goes into spasm; it has the seizure, and not my whole. body.

The night before, I watched a very clever movie about two sets of parents. The son of one couple hits the son of the other couple with a stick—and in the face. The movie covers their one evening together. They assemble to resolve any tensions between them, but it turns into a searing portrait of marriage, status and power. It was horrifying to watch, but compelling.  I watched it silently, reading the captions to lessen the emotional impact. Regardless of having the sound off, I was having monstrous physical symptoms in my arms and legs. 

Physical stress is a new symptom. When I try to talk, I get severe head bobbing and shoulder lifting, and now I react with physical tremors a lot when I am made tense by a film or my life. I call it dancing. These are two different physical reactions to movies—tremors or shaking, and hyperventilating. These symptoms happen in my life when I have a serious health crisis., but all the time when I watch movies.

I asked myself: What is going on?  Why am I developing another symptom andgetting worse? My speech is getting much more challenging. Speech problems are even happening more with my closest friends. 

For the past seven years, I have been through a big change. The first two years were torture. The next six had me relocate to a forested island and into a house with 16” wide logs. Silence. Plus, during those 6 years I learned how to function with my symptoms. I spent six years adapting, but now I feel fully adapted thanks to the help I’ve had establishing email relationships with my banking, pharmacy, medical clinic, etc.

So, with all my adaptation done, my mind turned to ponder why all that’s happening to me, and it feels to me, that as I dig deeper into my ‘whys,’ my symptoms get worse. Another way of putting that is this: the reward for thoughtful insight is physical torture.

Also, lately, I’ve been pondering things that you’ve told me. You’ve mentioned my “failure to bond” with the Tyrells and you used the word “neglect.” That word, as I’ve thought about my past, hurts. When I wrote the second sentence of this paragraph, I burst into tears and had to take a break. I cry a LOT. Again, I ask myself why.

The cause of everything about me that I ponder is neglect. Neglect is the sun in my universe.

If I had to paint a picture of myself, I would paint a picture of our universe. I am a universe of thoughts, feeling, and memories; each one of them an object in the universe that is ME. My big life events are the planets; significant events are the asteroids. The Sun is called Neglect. I suddenly see that ‘neglect’ is central to who I am, and it has hurt terribly to realize that.

I’ve been reviewing my past through the lens of all that you’ve taught me. This new word, ‘neglect,’ has become a cancer in my brain. When I wrote that sentence, I had a seizure, and again, I had to take a break. As I write this, I feel like I am live streaming a meltdown. I seem to be feeling now, all the sorrow I never felt as a child.

We have seldom talked about my past. I told you about it in our very first meeting, but since then, we’ve just referenced it. Lately, I’ve been seeing everything in my past differently through this new lens of neglect. And it’s hurting me—hurting at 9/10 sometimes. As I’ve pondered aspects of my character, personality and behaviour—I’ve come to understand how neglect has so thoroughly invaded every aspect of my psyche. I realize that the issues that plague me now have, but to a modest degree, been with me all my life. They exploded in 2016.

I have decided that that night was my ‘rock bottom’ moment. At least, I hope it is. I think what I have been going through lately is because of how sad I am about what happened to me. Some fellows find Nirvana at the end of their journey of understanding of themselves; the end of my journey of understanding has proven very, very painful.

It occurs to me that I may be going through physical hell as I emotionally accept what neglect has done to me; the rest is uphill. That’s why “neglect” is printed on the sun in my painting. I get it. I feel that there is no further to go. I feel there is to be no more searching. I feel I truly understand myself—not in a bravado way, and not as a victim, either. I understand that neglect is central in my mind, body and soul.

That night was very painful. I cried a lot, and for milliseconds, I felt bereft. But there’s one thing that everyone says about me: I’m a survivor. It could be my greatest skill. Although it was very sad for me that night, I am thrilled to believe it was a milestone moment. I feel that the worst is over. I feel this had to happen and that it may help me suffer from my symptoms less over time.

One thing that night has done, is make me more at peace with my symptoms. I see them as a badge of courage for what I’ve been through.

I am going to get better. I am at peace with what happened. I wish it hadn’t happened, but it did. I keep wanting to say, “I get it.” Finally, I do. And I get it deep down inside me. I truly get it and that, I’m sure, is a good, good thing.

My Dull Life

Saturday, as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, dawned beautifully bright and sunny, but it was cold. When I rose, the sky was full of stars; I knew it would be a lovely day. But the cold made me long for a day by the fire, so I lit a big one to really warm up the house.

When it came time to walk with Her Highness, I wore a warm coat and gloves. Our walk was an almost divine experience. I realize that although I love my walking pals, it is wonderful to walk alone with Sheba. I appreciate the silence, walking at my own pace, and being free of the idle chatter we undertake when we walk as a group. Plus, Di, who is slightly deaf and often walks without her hearing aids, talks mighty loudly.

The silence, the clarity of the air, the birdsong, the fragrances, all these wonderful aspects of forest walking made yesterday morning’s walk a spectacular one. The highlight of the morning was coming upon some kind of fungus that is shockingly bright yellow, and delicate. I had never seen it before. When I got home, it was time for fireside reading.

All the rest of the day was spent reading, but we went to Rollo Park for fetch in the afternoon. All day, and all day on Friday, I thought about Norman. His friends and family have been posting photos and memories on Facebook, most of which make me cry. 

I’m not sure what to do about blogging. Now that my life is so small, there is little to write about. I got into blogging to record the process of things I was making and of the places I was visiting, but now every day is spent in this wonderful home, and I do nothing worth talking about. Perhaps I’ll just blog less regularly. We’ll see….

Today, we walk with our big group, and later I Zoom with theatre pals. 

The only reason I went to Namibia was because I had the
time and it was close to South Africa where I'd been with
Steve. I am SO glad I went. It is a highly unique country
that is full of glorious sights, but the Namib is tops!

My Dear Norman

The short story: Thursday and Friday were both entirely uneventful days. The best thing about Thursday was the sunshine. The best thing about Friday was having an entire day without speech after our morning walk with our friends. The worst thing about Thursday was the 1.5 hour Zoom session with my fellow FNDers in the UK. Speech is brutally hard right now. The worst thing about Friday was waking to an email telling me that my long-time and wonderful friend Norman had died. I met Norman in September 1950. We’ve been friends for 72 years.

•

Sometimes I am glad that I am single and without family. I watched the movie Carnage last night. It’s what made me think about being lucky.

Carnage reminds me of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf because it’s four people in one room, all of whom are over-the-top caricatures of personality. If I didn’t have FND, it would have been a good ride, but I trembled and shook through much of the last half. But let me tell you, I’m glad I stuck to it.

One of the most magnificent things about the movie, is the last thirty seconds. I think this film is breathtakingly brilliant. The writing, THE BLOCKING, the acting, the fun of watching people spar before devouring each other. It is clever, clever, clever, and horrifying at the same time.

It took me about eight months after the onset of FND, to be able to go out looking normal. I’d become used to wearing two sunglasses to keep the light out of my eyes, and a lot of ear protection. I was entering Stanley Park, and I passed a tall man in conversation with a shorter woman, and as I passed them, I was shocked and angered at the tone of his voice and at how he was speaking to the woman. As I continued walking, I cried for 200 meters.

I’d always been sensitive, too sensitive. Well, now it’s clinical. I overreact to many stimuli. I’ve never had a physical fight with anyone in my life. This is me: I tap every piece of wood that I am going to burn on the concrete floor of my shed. I do not want to kill any insects. I am allergic to conflict—in life, in conversation and in movies and television. I’m a runner, not a fighter.

I paid for my extreme compassion for animals. The Tyrell’s had a neighbour names Ralph Jackson. I believe he saw the lack of engagement of my parents, and like other people in my life who engage with me. If I could have one wish, I would bring back Mr. Jackson. He treated me like I was his best friend. He let me walk his gorgeous Red Stetter, Benji, around the neighbourhood. He took me for rides in his convertible. I helped him create a pond in his backyard. I adored him, and still do. He moved away after about seven years as neighbours.

One day he asked me to go hunting. I didn’t want to go. But I didn’t want to say No to Mr. Jackson. So, I went. But at some point, I told him that I had moved the scope on the gun. I don’t remember why I did it. All I remember is how angry he was. He told me what he had to do to refocus it and how long it would take. He was furious.

I am pretty sure I did the jiggering on purpose. It’s been a major theme of my life. I kill nothing. When I break a branch of some tees, I see time lost as well as the limb. It’s that kind of sensitivity I’ve had my entire life exploded when FND came on. And now it has taken a turn: I’m getting the shakes. I shook through all the long second part of the film.

I can stop it by lying down or slouching in a chair and totally relaxing. Having had to do that several times now, I believe I am carrying a lot of physical tension. I can feel various muscles relaxing when I lie down and concentrate on relaxing. There have been times when I’m rather shaky on my feet. 

I’m waiting to see where this goes. It only happens when I’m relaxed, such as when I am on my chaise or comfortable in a chair. It’s a gentle issue sometimes, often I don’t feel it at all, and there are times where it’s very, very busy. I shall see where this goes.

I can’t believe I went through that movie. It made me extremely tense. Me, who was upset hearing a man berate a woman. Carnage was a festival of the emotion I felt that day as I walked.

•

Today has dawned bright and clear, but it's cooler than it’s been since last Winter. Snow is predicted for late in the coming week. My fires will be big this week. For the coming months, I have nothing scheduled except a few scattered medical appointments. I will have little to write about. All I do is walk Her Highness, eat and read. It’s dull, but I’m always happy. I love my slow life.