Day Eleven - On Living Till Dying

The changing of equal experiences based on our age.

Older people are known for having a lot of knowledge from experience. If an 83 year old sits down and listens to a 5 year old, and the young one listens, really listens to the elder, they find their own knowledge and opinions are very very different.

Each experiences where they are, what's happening, and compares it to what they already know.

A bird flies overhead, and sings a song. Young person enjoys it and tries singing a similar set of notes. Children a re growing by mimicking what's around them in order to understand/know it.  

Both people smile and enjoy the bird's flight and song. Older person may also know the kind of bird it is, and perhaps can say so if there is interest from the young person. This is assuming the young one doesn't yet have the "phone addiction" and looks it up in his hands.

Basically, the experience is totally different for these 2 people. The thinking process of a young person is based on wonder, awe and curiosity. There are not the resources from experiences in their mind compared to the older person.

Can the older person enjoy the same experience with some of the child's emotions? It is unlikely. That person's feelings are muted by all the memories stacked up in their head.

But, older teachers, or others working with young people, can still feel and see the emotions of the child. I've noticed that in one of my friends who taught for many years. She has sparkles in her eyes if a child points something out to her while walking in the woods. She also does the same thing for me, with a gasp of "ah" to point to an intricate morsel of leaf, fungus or bug.

I'm glad that my middle son has this ability...to stop and really examine things all around him. He's definitely shared that with his 3 daughters  too, one of whom is now a teacher. But the drawback is that he is determined to read each description of items in a museum. It takes a long time to go through the exhibits with him!

Living till Dying Day Two

 It's the First of May...

I catch echoes of a tune from "Camelot" which a blogger used to post every year. She was called HecateDemeter. I miss her posts.

Today I added this quote to my regular blog about May Day.

We are bodies. We do not have bodies... If all our ‘inputs’ are visual and textual, and all we touch is frictionless surfaces, and if we have not reinstated the rich and varied physical life that lockdowns and contemporary electronic habits have stolen from us, then we will, very simply, be somewhat ill. One birth right of humans is a place in the ongoing physical life of earth. Without it, we are without context, (literally - not in the fabric), sullen, and prone to dubious medications peddled by the Machine.

Am I asking you to roll on the ground in the sunshine or push your faces into the hands of willing friends? Well, that would be a good start, as it would deliver a life-enhancing dose of the a vitamin we are mostly all deficient in - foolishness. Pioneers such as Moshe Feldenkrais and Thomas Hanna based their lives' work on returning people to natural movement. I would encourage us all to urgently attend to the state of our tactile lives, to touching and being touched, to feeling things under our hands and feet that are not manmade.

SOURCE: 

A Low Slanting Ray - Antidotes to the Hubriscene part 4, from the archive

by
Uncivil Savant <carolineross@substack.com>

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I post it again here after reading some blogs and making some comments. I need to get up and away from the computer soon. But it's definitely addictive to me.

Self-care is my mantra today.

I keep giving all the details of my current health on blogs, and am so grateful to have a supportive community here, but I think I'm failing myself. I'm not doing the care that I should, and I wonder how much that contributes to poor health.

Not just eating right....but also

Taking long hot soapy showers or baths.

Skin care.

Dental care.

Hair care.

Digestive care.

Household upkeep

Doing laundry.

Changing the sheets on the bed.

Doing dishes.

Making phone calls regarding medical care

Going to appointments (I'm pretty good about this!)

Car upkeep!

Exercise! Oh my yes...getting myself to just DO SOMETHING!

OK, that's the laundry list of where I know I'm not doing as much as I know how, as much as minimally is needed to be healthy. NOBODY else is responsible for these actions.

So maybe each day of my recovery should have just one of these as the focus. I know I am unable to accomplish all of them daily...even weekly! 

So I lean back into my bag of counseling tricks. What is in my way? 

Not laziness and procrastination...because they are constants about everything except a few bodily functions that break through and I do pay attention to them. 

Denial? Perhaps. Like the one about dying eventually and have I done anything/everything I can before then? I'm writing here as a step in that direction!

I do have a mental barrier about lots of these things...psychologically I mean. The first thing listed is showering, and I do minimal daily cleaning of my body. But getting into the shower has become rare. 

A big part is the evidence that shower leads to wetness in the bathroom, which leads to mold inside the walls, window frame tracks, and the drains. I am so afraid of mold these days. It's a big thing, and I'm avoiding it by not showering at all. I do so weekly so my hair gets a good washing. And then pay attention to drying off the areas in the room that I can. I have 2 fans I use (the ceiling one, and a portable one on the floor.) The maintenance man put a little pot of white and yellow beads on the floor that's supposed to absorb dampness. The dampness is under the floor and behind the fiber-glass shower unit...and gets worse after rainy days. Of course having high humidity each night doesn't help dry the building out.

I just remembered, I have an appointment to have a haircut (with hair wash included) next Wednesday. Shucks, I'm not going to go that long without washing my hair. So today it's full blown shower. And focus on drying the room out afterward. 

Sorry if this is way too much information about rather mundane private stuff. But this is what I'm trying to change in my life, and I make these kinds of attempts to change ever so slowly...just like how long did it take for me to stop having daily showers? It was very gradual. And it has probably been supported by being able to read blogs first thing with my coffee...rather than shivering to dress afterward, and doing all those demanding routines for drying off the room. As the apartment warmed up, I could easily go get cleaned up and dressed after an hour or two...and the easiest way was what my mother called "spit baths" or harking back to using warm water in the basin and washcloth (washrag would be mother's term) with soap. I could dry off in no time, and be dressed.

I want to keep track of my acknowledging this as something needing my attention. This is my baby step today.