To Nicole
These unsettling pandemic years have changed so many things, including when we were able to meet. Nearly a year you were a case manager for our son before we were able to finally work together in person, and yet you still always called to check in with us and make sure we were doing ok. I thank you for that. You will never know how much your enthusiasm to work with us once we were able to start getting together in real life has meant to me. I am thankful for the listening ear you have given me when things were hard, for your flexibility and understanding when we needed to change things for Tony, and for your eagerness to help out in any way possible when things weren’t going as planned for our family (i.e. that fridge delivery). Pieces of our son’s progress wouldn’t exist without the time you have contributed each week to work with us on generalizing his cooperation to others in public spaces, and it isn’t something you had to do. And there aren’t adequate descriptors for that depth of gratitude. Thank you.
Some Reading To Consider
The Importance of Our Time Perspective, by Rosemary K.M. Sword and Philip Zimbardo, Ph.D. (you can click this title for a link to the article if you choose to read it).
This is a quick read, though if you find the information intriguing or potentially useful, Zimbardo does have a full book (titled The Time Paradox) that goes into much greater depth. The authors contend that a person’s perspective on time and the events that transpire plays a critical role in mental health related matters, and in fact, Zimbardo markets this approach as being useful for depression and anxiety, as well as a cure of people experiencing symptoms of PTSD. Zimbardo and Sword posit that making conscious changes in how a person is viewing time can improve their quality of life and their mental health, and I can support that. However, I would contend that a person experiencing symptoms of PTSD may require a multi-faceted, multi-disciplinary approach to find a more healed state.
Having a good memory can be a gift and a curse, blessing when joyful memories abound, and keeping a person in a more tortured state of mind when they do not. Flashbacks are their own particular kind of hell, and even other types of negative memories can bring all of that misery into the present moment, destroying the ability to enjoy what is actually happening now. There was a period of time when someone would ask me about my brother or his death, for example, and I would have a series of vivid memories flashing through my mind. I wouldn’t even need to close my eyes to smell the dried pool of blood covering almost the entirety of my grandmother’s kitchen floor when the police released custody of the house back to our family. Even now, someone asking me something about my childhood can trigger a cascade of memories that I have to work hard to quickly staunch so they don’t turn into emotional quicksand. For me, I stopped being so easily controlled in the present by those past moments when I could create a separation and say to myself, “that was then, this is now…and right now, I’m safe.” And now it becomes a game of creating positive memories and making sure my mind focuses on those, dismissing the negative ones as quickly as possible. I find this a useful explanatory and introductory read in the benefits of controlling one’s time perspective, and again if you find you want more detail, you can move on to the book 🙂
Miniature by Sarah Biffin, 19th Century Artist Born with No Arms or Legs, Exceeds Estimates at Auction, by Nora McGreevy, writing for Smithsonian Magazine (you can click this title for a link to the article if you choose to read it).
I have taken art history classes before, and this woman was never discussed in them, and yet, if you read this article, it gives one the sense that her talent, life, and career certainly could and should have a place in those kinds of discussions. This article doesn’t show many images of her works, but if you Google her paintings, they are exquisite. So I wonder, does history only whisper about her because she was a woman, because she was disabled, or perhaps both? Hers is a story of perseverance and success in difficult circumstances at a period in time that made that all the more remarkable, which is why this article is recommended reading.
A Door Into Evermoor, by Kent Wayne
This is the first book in what is planned to be a YA fantasy series, and I ended up reading it because I had read some of the draft chapters on the author’s blog and found them to be very creative. I don’t often recommend fiction here, and in general I rarely review fiction. I find so much to be subjective and a matter of preference that on those rare occasions I do reviews these days, I prefer generally to do so based on content that can be evaluated on criteria that can be more objective. Yet I have already publicly reviewed this book on Goodreads (so I’m not going to rehash all of that here) because I did love it so much.
This is a fast paced book which might perhaps not appeal to someone who wants epic levels of detail or appreciates a slower story build up, and yet, I can also appreciate the faster pace as a woman who inwardly groaned reading Madame Bovary and thought, “do we really need detail about this guy’s boots squelching into manure for goodness sake?” For me, what especially delighted me about this book was that I couldn’t predict some of the plot points. I read a whole lot of books where I can see what’s behind the turning of so many pages well before I actually get there, so it made my day to be surprised in that way.
I also really loved that he created a strong female heroine who rescued the male lead at points. I think we need more stories that celebrate the strength a woman is capable of, and don’t just cast her as an accessory. If you were to read between the lines of all of my posts, you might very well guess that my personal motto is “I can slay my own dragons, thank you very much.” And I love seeing that kind of mentality in fictional female characters.
I do have to give a couple of content warnings. Not for the book, which I would feel comfortable recommending to any of my loved ones concerned about avoiding entertainment with sexuality or too much profanity. There are only a couple instances of swearing, and the content would otherwise be considered clean…there were female writers from my former church that put more description into their books when it came to a kiss. However, if you end up liking this book, you should be aware that some of his other books and blog content does have a very adult level of profanity and sexual references if that is something you prefer to avoid. That being noted in case it matters to you, I really loved this particular book and am looking forward to reading the rest of the series as he finishes them.
