Words

Let me see the world with brand newborn clean astonished eyes, this fresh new 2017. Let words be only feeble pointers toward notions, notions being new things and not tired; words being worn in and comfortable. A word has been used already, for someone else's thoughts. And mine are new. Let me never once assume that these words of mine have conveyed to someone else, this sparking new thought of mine. For each person has his own old and comfortable, or not so comfortable but at least we're used to it, meaning for each word. Let me stand far out on the diving board of words this 2017. Let me stretch meanings as wide as love's arms can stretch. Let me find new ways of getting across what I am newly thinking. Outside of boxes and swimming in fresh thawed glaciers, new waters that were solid ice just moments ago. Let me invent, this year, new modes. New Year's Resolution for 2017. To enter every dialogue wide open to learning, to clarifying my own notions, and most of all, to be ready for a shift in my notions. "Scout" Listening, the kind of curious, open listening we do when we truly intend to learn. Not "Soldier" Listening, on guard to defend every inch of our preconceived notions. Oh, and the loudness and the passion that attend energetic dialogue are just fine. They are a sign that we care enough to learn. " For last years words belong to last year's language and Next years' words await another voice and to make an end is to make a beginning" T.S. Eliot 2017. No sense of "entitlement". I will never ever just assume that the words I send forth from this idiosyncratic oneofakind being that I am, will travel safely and unharmed into the other person's ears. I will send off each word with a small blessing: Travel like the milkweed seed, dear word. May gentle winds carry you, rains germinate you in welcome fields. May you sprout and grow. Words, I let you go. Travel well dear words. Our house has been so filled with beautiful people and songs and food this past year, it's fitting somehow that tonight'/ New Year's Party was the two of us, velvety, loving, soft. One very big lobster for the two of us, eaten noisily. And then karaoke by the fire, we two singing our little souls big and hearty to Simon and Garfunkle and Jeffreson Airplane. Don't you want somebody to love. I have somebody to love. Plus I have so many many people to love in that friendship kind of love. I also reviewed the events and the visitors of the past year, and felt replete with the many many relatives that have come to Victoria. Good night 2016. You've been good to us.

Shabbat Chanukah 2016

Just delight. Laughing together with Adam in the deep of night, after the Shabbat candles have flickered down to dark, and the last of tonight's seven proud Chanukah candles have given way to one tiny lingering flame that lasted and laughed and waved gently in the dark room and was gone. I cannot simply get used to Adam being here beside me. Miracle means you never just say of course. I cannot simply get used to these dear Friday nights with Mommy and Daddy, moules frites tonight, and since that is a dish they serve in Brussels, of course Brussels sprouts. There. I can say of course. Of course I can. Let 2016 flicker down to its quiet end tomorrow night, singing of course these beautiful times will last forever. Of course the circle of the year. Of course the snowdrops will miracle their brave way through icy earth again. Let me trust this good earth just enough to make promises and take on resolutions for the coming year. And let me always, always, be astonished.

Speech Therapist Victoria BC

Here follow my notes for a homily, to be presented on January 22, 2017. Introduction *"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." These words are from George Bernard Shaw. I'll take it further. Communication can't happen until we let go of all our expectations from the other person. Lisa Genova, neuropsychologist and author of the novel Still Alice, tells how the Yes-And notion from Improv theatre helped her communicate with her grandmother who had Alzheimer's and didn't recognize her. Here's the Yes-And idea. If you're on stage and the other actor says "Look at my magic flying carpet", the show will go nowhere if you say, "That's no flying carpet. That's a doormat. "Yes-And" has the improv actor asking, "What year is that flying carpet? What kind of mileage do you get on it?". Lisa Genova didn't spend her time convincing her grandmother of who she was. She'd forget anyway. She related right now to her, chatting and cuddling and bringing her tea. Dementia is the extreme, and I work with the extremes of nonverbal autism, people who have no speech at all, and with people who have what's called high functioning autism Or Asperger's Syndrome, called a mild disorder but in reality a huge and potentially debilitating disability, as well as a gift. Today we'll explore the reasons why Communication is impossible. the term "Neurodiversity" is used to refer to people who are diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum but we are all NeuroDiverse. I'm in here, You're out there. Communication is impossible. After we establish that Communication is impossible, I'll tell you about my work as a Speech Language Pathologist, and my credo that all people can and do communicate. A sweet young couple told me their little girl, we'll call her Emily, couldn't communicate at all. Emily was doing a puzzle, and I thought I'd join in, holding up two puzzle pieces so she'd choose one, bringing me into the game. Emily started banging her head on the carpet in a very obvious protest. I hadn't noticed that she does this puzzle in a specific order. I looked to the parents. She communicates. Loud and clear. Are we listening to her? I go on the assumption that all people can communicate. Whether through speech or signing or pictures or typing or blinking, Communication is possible. I'd like to share with you some of the methods we use in Speech Therapy, and to explore the possibility that these techniques may help us NTs to communicate. NTs? If NeuroDiversity refers to people on the Autism Spectrum, NTs are NeuroTypicals. I'm not sure there are any NTs. In short, we'll explore why Communication is impossible, we'll learn some speech therapy techniques that make communication possible for people who can't talk, and we'll close by listing some habits that can improve communication for all of us. 1. Communication is Impossible Let's begin with the idea that communication is impossible. We all enjoy talking about how impossible translation between languages is. Words like the Yiddish Chutzpah, or the Japanese "genki", some shining positive and productive smiling energy. These words have to be spoken in their own languages. I wonder if we can understand them at all if we are not steeped in each culture? Well, we're all unique. Maybe we're all neurodiverse. Different brains. Never assume that what you mean by a word is what the other person interprets. Check. Robert McCloskey said, "I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant". There's another reason that communication is impossible. It has to do with the species that we are. We have trouble with paradox, with contradictions. We can't handle contradictory requirements like, "Be Direct and Clear" versus "Use your social filter. Think about how the other person might feel" "Be honest" versus "Be Kind" "Stay with the problem until it's solved" vs "Let it go". "Stick to your principles" vs "Be flexible" "Be what the other person needs you to be" vs ""Fill your own needs". How can we be there for the other person, mindreading what that other person needs from us, and at the same time true to our own values and filling our own needs? Maybe the whole thing is impossible and the process of trying, getting it wrong, trying again, and truly truly caring that the message get through, maybe that is what being human is all about. Alone inside this skin, reaching out to connect. Often succeeding. I believe we can all succeed. I'll show you some of the tricks we use with NeuroDiverse people.

Science and the Mystic

I could write to you about the nighttime mountain air, the rapids over rocky streams, each ripple and eddy a study in chaos, complexity, and the intricate order of all things, even the most seemingly chaotic. I could write about the deep beauty of being with Mommy and Daddy, seeing the loving way they were welcomed at this year's Banff International Quartet Competition. They are regulars, and are loved. I could tell about the vibrant young energy of the quartet playing in the lobby, or of the woodland view from Mommy and Daddy's room. I could tell you that Daddy is turning over a new leaf and taking on a project. I could tell you the white downy bedsheets at the log cabin in Lake Louise and this cozy feeling of return to a place where we loved each other so well when we were young, and love each other an older, more accepting, love, now that we are older. But tonight I will tell you about the book I am reading. Daddy is practicing a most strenuous form of reading. I have often over the years tried "Read a page, Write a page" letting the words I read serve as a diving point into the clear alpine lakes of my own writing voice. But this method is different. It varies from summarizing each paragraph, to Daddy's current work of meticulously selecting quotations from the book that may convey in brief the main ideas in the text. The book I am gulping hungrily is Imagery for Pain Relief, by David Pincus and Anees A.Sheikh. I can't explain the years long allure to me of any writings about imagery, metaphor, ways of seeing. Poetic Medicine by David Fox is a favourite of mine. Here is the paragraph in imagery for Pain Relief that launched me into opening this dear old blog again, here in Lake Louise. A sort of call and response. "In the age of space travel and 100-year life spans, how did we end up becoming such strangers to our ancient, familiar, and universal companion, pain? The answer lies in the history of our relationship to pain, to healing, and to some unfortunately overblown assumptions of the scientific revolution such as mind-body dualism and reductionism." More in a moment, as I read on.

Here I Am

Daddy says if you don't write it, you didn't think it. And Daddy has a coherent mind that follows a train of thought. When I don't write, my thoughts tangle and redund, winding around themselves and chasing their tales. Here is the tangle of thoughts I would like to unravel and weave into something both practical and beautiful. I would like to spin together strands from a good book I just spotted by chance at the library, "Dignity Therapy" by psychiatrist Harvey Max Chochinov. Chochinov has studied the effects of asking one question to patients: "What would you like me to know about you as a person, so that I can give you the care you need?". The whole person. The "patient" is the one with the illness. The person is the whole life, the values, the character, the needs, the story. I want to live this in all of my spheres. Where Chochinov is talking about individuals in their final days, I'm remembering the Talmudic advice, something like, "On the last day of your life, reach out to everyone in your world with clear connection, mending, respect, and love. Since you do not know which day is the last one, do this every day." I'm thinking of the window box outside of each resident's room at Kensington Gardens where my Uncle Izzie lived his last days. Most had lovely wedding pictures, photos and mementos of who they had once been, indicators to staff and visitors of the dignity they still deserved, the image they would still like others to see, if they could choose the impression they gave. My Uncle Izzie had one item in his window box, a framed calligraphy piece: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for I am the nastiest son of a bitch in the valley". I must find the exact wording. A saying goes, "We do not change as we grow older. We simply grow more clearly ourselves". We stop being g able to pretend. I have somewhere in my papers a poem by Yevtushenko that begins, "As we grow older we grow honester. That's something". That question from Dr. Harvey Chochinov: The Patient Dignity Question (PDQ) The PDQ is a simple, open-ended question: "What do I need to know about you as a person to give you the best care possible?" Research has shown that this single question can identify issues and stressors that may be important to consider when planning and delivering someone's care and treatment. The intent is to reveal the "invisible" factors that might not otherwise come to light – and to identify these concerns early in the process. Why not ask this question as we enter any encounter? With anyone? Like "Namaste", I bow to the holiness in you. Like the letter Lucy Calkins sends out to the parents of every child in her class at the beginning of the year, inviting them to tell her about this unique little child they have entrusted to her for the school days of the year. Calkins' book is called "Living Between the Lines", a way to encourage children to bring their whole lives into their writing. I have nothing to write about? Well, tell me, what do you do, when you are not at school. Nothing. Nothing? Nothing. I just feed the pigeons. And soon the little boy is writing a beautiful life story of the pigeons he feeds. He is writing between the lines. His teacher has simply invited him to bring his whole self to school. For awhile in my therapy I liked asking the Miracle Question from Solution Focused Brief Therapy: “I am going to ask you a rather strange question. Imagine you go to sleep tonight. In the middle of the night, a miracle happens and the problem that prompted you to talk to me today is solved! But because this happens while you are sleeping, you have no way of knowing that there was an overnight miracle that solved the problem. So, when you wake up tomorrow morning, what might be the change that will make you say to yourself, ‘Wow, something must have happened—the problem is gone!’” But in my experience, people don't want the miracle question. They don't want to focus on a specific and visualized outcome. They want me to accompany them on their journey. If you don't write it, you didn't think it. I am beginning, just beginning now, to think it.

Here I Am

Daddy says if you don't write it, you didn't think it. And Daddy has a coherent mind that follows a train of thought. When I don't write, my thoughts tangle and redund, winding around themselves and chasing their tales. Here is the tangle of thoughts I would like to unravel and weave into something both practical and beautiful. I would like to spin together strands from a good book I just spotted by chance at the library, "Dignity Therapy" by psychiatrist Harvey Max Chochinov. Chochinov has studied the effects of asking one question to patients: "What would you like me to know about you as a person, so that I can give you the care you need?". The whole person. The "patient" is the one with the illness. The person is the whole life, the values, the character, the needs, the story. I want to live this in all of my spheres. Where Chochinov is talking about individuals in their final days, I'm remembering the Talmudic advice, something like, "On the last day of your life, reach out to everyone in your world with clear connection, mending, respect, and love. Since you do not know which day is the last one, do this every day." I'm thinking of the window box outside of each resident's room at Kensington Gardens where my Uncle Izzie lived his last days. Most had lovely wedding pictures, photos and mementos of who they had once been, indicators to staff and visitors of the dignity they still deserved, the image they would still like others to see, if they could choose the impression they gave. My Uncle Izzie had one item in his window box, a framed calligraphy piece: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for I am the nastiest son of a bitch in the valley". I must find the exact wording. A saying goes, "We do not change as we grow older. We simply grow more clearly ourselves". We stop being g able to pretend. I have somewhere in my papers a poem by Yevtushenko that begins, "As we grow older we grow honester. That's something". That question from Dr. Harvey Chochinov: The Patient Dignity Question (PDQ) The PDQ is a simple, open-ended question: "What do I need to know about you as a person to give you the best care possible?" Research has shown that this single question can identify issues and stressors that may be important to consider when planning and delivering someone's care and treatment. The intent is to reveal the "invisible" factors that might not otherwise come to light – and to identify these concerns early in the process. Why not ask this question as we enter any encounter? With anyone? Like "Namaste", I bow to the holiness in you. Like the letter Lucy Calkins sends out to the parents of every child in her class at the beginning of the year, inviting them to tell her about this unique little child they have entrusted to her for the school days of the year. Calkins' book is called "Living Between the Lines", a way to encourage children to bring their whole lives into their writing. I have nothing to write about? Well, tell me, what do you do, when you are not at school. Nothing. Nothing? Nothing. I just feed the pigeons. And soon the little boy is writing a beautiful life story of the pigeons he feeds. He is writing between the lines. His teacher has simply invited him to bring his whole self to school.

Dignity Therapy

"Practice until you see yourself in the cruelest person on Earth, in the child starving, in the political prisoner. Continue until you recognize yourself in everyone in the supermarket, on the street corner, in a concentration camp, on a leaf, in a dewdrop. Meditate until you see yourself in a speck of dust in a distant galaxy. See and listen with the whole of your being. If you are fully present, the rain of Dharma will water the deepest seeds in your consciousness, and tomorrow, while you are washing the dishes or looking at the blue sky, that seed will spring forth, and love and understanding will appear as a beautiful flower." ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Here I Am

Daddy says if you don't write it, you didn't think it. And Daddy has a coherent mind that follows a train of thought. When I don't write, my thoughts tangle and redund, winding around themselves and chasing their tales. Here is the tangle of thoughts I would like to unravel and weave into something both practical and beautiful. I would like to spin together strands from a good book I just spotted by chance at the library, "Dignity Therapy" by psychiatrist Harvey Max Chochinov. Chochinov has studied the effects of asking one question to patients: "What would you like me to know about you as a person, so that I can give you the care you need?". The whole person. The "patient" is the one with the illness. The person is the whole life, the values, the character, the needs, the story. I want to live this in all of my spheres. Where Chochinov is talking about individuals in their final days, I'm remembering the Talmudic advice, something like, "On the last day of your life, reach out to everyone in your world with clear connection, mending, respect, and love. Since you do not know which day is the last one, do this every day." I'm thinking of the window box outside of each resident's room at Kensington Gardens where my Uncle Izzie lived his last days. Most had lovely wedding pictures, photos and mementos of who they had once been, indicators to staff and visitors of the dignity they still deserved, the image they would still like others to see, if they could choose the impression they gave. My Uncle Izzie had one item in his window box, a framed calligraphy piece: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for I am the nastiest son of a bitch in the valley". I must find the exact wording. A saying goes, "We do not change as we grow older. We simply grow more clearly ourselves". We stop being g able to pretend. I have somewhere in my papers a poem by Yevtushenko that begins, "As we grow older we grow honester. That's something". That question from Dr. Harvey Chochinov: The Patient Dignity Question (PDQ) The PDQ is a simple, open-ended question: "What do I need to know about you as a person to give you the best care possible?" Research has shown that this single question can identify issues and stressors that may be important to consider when planning and delivering someone's care and treatment. The intent is to reveal the "invisible" factors that might not otherwise come to light – and to identify these concerns early in the process. Why not ask this question as we enter any encounter? With anyone? Like "Namaste", I bow to the holiness in you. Like the letter Lucy Calkins sends out to the parents of every child in her class at the beginning of the year, inviting them to tell her about this unique little child they have entrusted to her for the school days of the year. Calkins' book is called "Living Between the Lines", a way to encourage children to bring their whole lives into their writing. I have nothing to write about? Well, tell me, what do you do, when you are not at school. Nothing. Nothing? Nothing. I just feed the pigeons. And soon the little boy is writing a beautiful life story of the pigeons he feeds. He is writing between the lines. His teacher has simply invited him to bring his whole self to school. For awhile in my therapy I liked asking the Miracle Question from Solution Focused Brief Therapy: “I am going to ask you a rather strange question. Imagine you go to sleep tonight. In the middle of the night, a miracle happens and the problem that prompted you to talk to me today is solved! But because this happens while you are sleeping, you have no way of knowing that there was an overnight miracle that solved the problem. So, when you wake up tomorrow morning, what might be the change that will make you say to yourself, ‘Wow, something must have happened—the problem is gone!’” But in my experience, people don't want the miracle question. They don't want to focus on a specific and visualized outcome. They want me to accompany them on their journey. If you don't write it, you didn't think it. I am beginning, just beginning now, to think it.

250-217-8123 Nomi Kaston, M.Sc., Speech Language Pathologist

Nomi Kaston, M.Sc., Speech Language Pathologist 250-217-8123

www.speechvictoria.wordpress.com