Nellie McKay sings, “The Dog Song.” This is a very catchy tune which I am sure you will love even if you don’t have a dog. I was walking my dogs today with this tune running through my mind, so I thought I’d post it to share with everyone. Enjoy!
This afternoon I was so excited to learn by telephone that my eldest daughter had just given birth to her second child, a son (ten pounds, twelve ounces). He was one week late. Both of them are doing great. I could hear on the telephone that he has very healthy lungs and a big appetite! They should be home from the hospital tomorrow. Her first child is not quite twenty-two months old now. The two little guys should have a lot of fun playing together once the baby gets mobile in a year or so.
This new baby is my second grandchild. It is such a blessing to have lived long enough to see grandchildren, especially because I married rather late for my generation (I was almost 36 years old when my first child was born). My four kids (two girls, two guys) are all adults now. I am so grateful for my family, they have been such a blessing in my life.
My eldest daughter lives about three hundred miles away. My wife and I will drive there tomorrow. One or two of our “kids” will be here to look after the six animals who share life with us. I will stay a few days and then return to look after the animals. My wife will stay with our daughter and her family longer, to help our daughter when her husband is at work.
Anyway, I just wanted to share my excitement with you, my Bloggyland friends. You have been a real blessing in my life, too. Thank you!
I haven’t posted for a while so I thought I’d copy/paste one from my other, mostly inactive, blog. This was published there on May 25, 2010. It is primarily about religion, but applies to any groupings or divisions shaped and defined by words, such as ethnic, racial or political differences, sexual orientation, beliefs about educational philosophies, child rearing, debates about global warming, conservation, etc.. We are all in this mysterious thing called life. We need to pull together. Let’s let Love prevail.
Here’s my old post (slightly modified):
I have heard that there are well over two thousand Christian denominations and countless divisions in other religions too. And I ask what causes the divisions? Both within and between religions? Words. That’s it. Just words. And they are man-made words. Words thought up by (mostly) men. Human ideas about how it should be. People’s ideas about how they have it right and everyone else has it wrong.
These words cause “us-and-them” groupings and divisions. People gather around one set of words and take comfort in the false certainty that their words are “right” and others’ words are wrong, or at least mostly wrong. Then they get puffed up with pride in their superiority and feel they must defend and assert their “words” even at the cost of shunning the “others”, or even killing them. See the Inquisition, witch-burning, pogroms, suicide bombings, communist re-education camps,the KKK, the Holocaust, Rwanda,… just for starters.
But words are just symbols. They just stand for reality. They are not reality. The map is not the territory. Reality doesn’t change. Words do. We used to describe the world as flat. Everyone believed that. Now we describe it as a sphere, a ball. The world hasn’t changed but our words about it, and our beliefs, have changed a lot.
I can count on reality but I can’t count on words. Words are useful to the extent that they provide a predictive model that helps me prepare for what is coming next. But in the history of humankind the models have always required updating and improving as our understanding grew. Clinging to a model and defending it with one’s life betrays a lack of understanding of the tentativeness of models. Even worse is defending it by taking the lives of others.
There is an analogy from the East: words,dogmas, doctrines, beliefs, creeds, are seen as a finger pointing to the moon. The moon is Love. It’s the moon that matters. It’s the moon that is the object worthy of attention. It would be silly to stare at the finger (words), polish its nail, put a ring on it, worship it… all the while failing to notice the moon (Love)!
Now suppose there are six, eight or ten of us standing in a circle at night. We are each pointing a finger at the moon and at the same time we are each gnawing on our neighbour’s finger trying to destroy it, while at the same time trying to protect our own finger from the teeth of our other neighbour. Nobody has time to look at the moon (Love)!
Fingers (words, beliefs) will all age, wither and die.
Only the moon (Love) will remain!
Words, dogmas, doctrines , beliefs, creeds, will all age, wither and die (how many revisions have there been down through history?). Only Love will remain. Only Love is a constant.
And so with gratitude I will focus on Love. I will practice returning in gratefulness to Love whenever I wander or deviate from the path.
Love is a fire. May my divisive words be consumed by the fire of Love.
May Love abound. May Love flourish. May only Love remain.
May all beings everywhere be filled with Love.
I did a follow-up post later called “Bent fingers, Blind eyes.” It was about corrupt or misleading beliefs (crooked fingers) and about some people’s inability (blind eyes) to put even good beliefs into practice (inability to see the moon or Love). But perhaps that’s a post for another day.
I hope this post isn’t divisive. I hope it fosters unification in Love. Let me know what you think.
I have heard comedians and marriage counsellors suggest that the honeymoon is over when one partner realizes that their spouse squeezes the tube of toothpaste at the top rather than from the bottom (or vice versa), or they insist the top should be replaced on the tube after each use (or not replaced as the case may be).
This is not a complaint or gripe about my wife. It is about my own peculiarities.
I remember very early in our relationship seeing my wife dig the bristles of her toothbrush inside the toothpaste tube when putting paste on her brush. This was such a violation of my personal standards of hygiene that I was shocked and felt revolted by this. It is possible to apply paste to a brush without the tube ever contacting the brush, I do it all the time. And the adverts on the television demonstrate it repeatedly. So from that moment on, and for the next third of a century until the present, I have kept my own tube of toothpaste separately along with my brush and my floss. I keep them not in the bathroom, but on the second shelf of one of the upper kitchen cupboards, and nobody touches them but me. I also provided each of my four kids with their own tubes as well.
As a result of this and similar strategies on both our parts, our marriage and our sanity have survived over a third of a century. As I indicated above, this is not a complaint about my wife. She has been a great support to me and a real blessing, especially considering I have been disabled for approximately twenty years with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and I am very grateful for our marriage and family.
Since I enjoyed kissing my wife, and since more “germs” were undoubtedly transferred in that way than would ever be transferred from brush to tube, I realize my reaction was not rational. I had tendencies to perfection, I had become a “clean-freak” by that point in my life, and I had a probably irrational “fear of germs.” Hence I found putting a brush in the tube quite off-putting.
This was probably more a reaction (disgust) to what I judged to be “slovenliness” on the part of my wife. And I know I am not God, so my judgements are very fallible! For all I know, the majority of people may dig the bristles of their brushes into the tube. But this is about my own weirdness, namely:
my strong reaction to violations of my own standards of hygiene, and
the fact that in general I am not keen on other people touching my stuff, especially if they treat it differently to what I consider correct.
I do seem to be loosening up a little as I age, and I am developing more tolerance for different approaches to life. This seems to be leading to less stress. But in the area of hygiene I still seem quite rigid.
However I don’t know if these peculiarities are simply my own eccentricities or if they are shared by other people on the spectrum, and I would like to hear from you, dear readers. How do you feel when your standards of hygiene are not met? Does it put you off? Are you bothered when people mess with your stuff?
Today I am assessing how I handled the holidays this year compared to other years, now that I self-identify as an Aspie. What difference has my “diagnosis” made in my ability to cope with the social stressors of the holidays?
My Family:
All my family gathered for a few days at our home for Christmas. We had eight people (my wife and me, our two sons, our two daughters, our son-in-law and our grandson who is one-and-a-half years old). We also had five dogs in the house (our two, our son’s, and our daughter’s two). We live in a relatively small house of about one thousand to eleven hundred square feet, so it was fairly cramped for space.
I am always very thrilled to have the whole family together under one roof. It gives me a sense of contentment — that all is right with the world at least for now while we are all together. I think it brings back feelings of warmth and love that remind me of when the kinds were young and we were all together every day and night. I consider my family members to be my biggest blessing.
My family is very supportive, courteous, and caring towards each other. We don’t argue, attack, or put people down. The social atmosphere is very pleasant in our home and everyone seems to enjoy the reunion. Even the dogs enjoy each other’s company. Of course it is particularly enjoyable to see our little grandson playing with his toys and board-books; it brings back memories of our own kids when they were small.
In Retreat:
However, I spent the majority of our holiday time in retreat in the bedroom where my computer resides. This is because I know that engaging socially is such a tremendous energy drain for me. This is particularly so when there are multiple conversations occurring. And there is the sensory overload from the sounds of music, bright lights, toys, dogs trotting around, etc.. To avoid exhaustion I need to retreat and have a lot of what I call “down time” where I can be quiet. I seem to just exhaust all my energy when I am in social situations.
A Major Difference:
A major difference this year was that, being conscious of Asperger’s and my need to limit stimulation and the stress of conversation, I managed to withdraw to my room prior to reaching a state of exhaustion from too much socializing. I then could enjoy my down time, and then return to the group situation later, feeling refreshed and ready for some more contact. I would then retreat again before exhaustion got the better of me.
In previous years I would often remain engaged too long, get exhausted, and crash on my bed unable to enjoy my down time, and too far gone to recuperate sufficient energy to re-engage. This state of exhaustion I usually found very depressing, and I would be quite angry with myself as well.
I Congratulated Myself:
This year, while my family were all here, I found myself wishing that I could be with them more, but I congratulated myself on managing my energy well, and I knew I was doing my best and doing the right thing.
Then Sadness Crept In:
However, when my older daughter and her family left for their home three hundred miles away I slipped into a bit of a depression that lasted a day or two. This was partly because I knew I wouldn’t be seeing them for a while, but also because I got down on myself, annoyed, and disappointed with myself, for not being able to spend as much time with them while they were here as I would have liked.
I Felt Accepted the Way I Am:
But the bottom line is that I believe everyone had a great time gathering together and seemed to enjoy each other very much. I am not aware of anyone being upset because I retreated upstairs (I guess that after seventeen years of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome disability they are accustomed to me taking breaks).
Focus on the Successes:
So I am trying to focus on the fact that I did have some time with my kids and grandson, and not worry about all the time I could have had if I were someone else! And I am feeling quite good about our family gathering and the way my new understanding of my Asperger’s helped me to manage my energy.
Blessed by my Family:
I am so blessed by my family’s love and acceptance and by their gathering here for Christmas.
Support from Bloggyland:
And I am so very grateful for all the support and encouragement I have received from my Bloggyland friends. You have given me a base of acceptance, and a sense of belonging that is new for me, and this is very empowering. I am moving forward in a way I could not have imagined prior to meeting my fellow Aspie/auties in Bloggyland and getting to know myself through your writings. It is such a relief to have found people who understand me in my depths, without needing an explanation. Thank you all so very much. Love and hugs to all of you.
Alienhippy’s most recent (lovely as usual) post spoke of how a chicken rekindled her faith. That reminded me of an encounter I had with a little bird many years ago:
One day about thirty-eight years ago when I was a student, I approached the twelve story glass, steel and concrete tower that my class was in. Just as I neared the door a little sparrow hit the second story glass and fell to the ground as if dead.
I dropped everything, forgot about my class, and cupped my hands around the little sparrow. I held it against my beating heart as I sat down on the sidewalk with my back leaning on the building. I hoped some energy might transfer from my heart. After twenty minutes the little bird opened her eyes. Then she began to look around. Next she was sitting up and then standing. At about the forty minute mark she took off, flying perfectly. I never did get to my class.
I imagine one or two of the many people streaming into the building must have thought I was nuts sitting there with a seemingly dead sparrow clutched to my heart. But I know that I was witnessing God’s hand. He brought that little sparrow and me together just so we would both know His deep love and care.
A Different Drummer
If a man does not keep pace
with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears
a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears,
however measured or far away.
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