Nice email note from Kippy (aka Adrienne) overnight pointing me toward an article about Sidney Papert in yesterday's Globe. Papert is one of the more amazing brains of the past century, an inventive and curious person whose work with LOGO, LEGOs, and children's educational processes has made a difference in the lives of both my daughters, my son, and me. Kip said she was inspired by the article and that it reminded her of me.
I wasn't able to watch all of the film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which I rented from Netflix recently. I sometimes turn off or walk out on movies that I don't like, but it is not often that I turn away from a movie because it is too painful to watch. I can handle some pain. But that movie was especially difficult for me, I think. I watched a lot of it, I suppose.
Sidney Papert's recent story covers some similar ground, and even more than the movie, placed my focus on two things:
* My grateful awareness that, if I am possessed of any form of brilliance or competencies or inquisitiveness that can bring joy or a better life for myself or for anyone else, this is a wonderful blessing that I must not squander, even at this late date.
* But I wonder, if my brain or body begin to fail me in some significant way due to atrophy, age, illness or injury, how will I proceed? Will I struggle either alone or with loved ones to recover and restore my faculties so that I can return to bring the person I had been, so that I can impress the people who feal cheated by the loss of the person I had been, so that I will not have to adapt to being some other person? Or will I just settle, and change, and adapt (or not) to change.
I am in the middle of a stretch of five days in which I having good friends or family members over for a meal five times, and cooking for them. It is such a blessing to have space, a place of my own to cook for people I care about, and comfortable rooms.
I've never been someone to have parties, but I've always loved having people over for a meal. During my first marriage I was the one who cooked. When I bought my first home in Dallas in 1976 I used to have members of my organizing staff over for Sunday dinner almost every weekend. Stewart Acuff never missed an invitation for pot roast, Yorkshire pudding, and some steamed veggies. 30 years later, and a lot of water over the damned dam, but maybe I will try a pot roast again soon. A little red meat now and then never hurt anyone. To my knowledge.
If I can't write books for people (and myself) any more, I hope that I will still be able to cook for people (and myself).
1 comments:
In my experience working with people with brain damage, I find that it is the relatives and friends who cause the most problems trying to get the patient "back to normal". Relatives feel like they are less now because the patient doesn't remember them or their past together. I feel that the patient needs to be accepted for who they have become... the patient can see the disappointment in the eyes of the family and friends and it is very frustrating for someone who cannot control how they have become. They feel that they have disappointed their loved ones.
In many cases, people with brain injuries become different than they were in very positive ways, like the client who told me that since her accident she was no longer a bitch or afraid of snakes.
The author of "My Stroke of Insight" tells it all beautifully.
Donna
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