Category: dyspraxia

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Happy Solstice

The northern hemisphere summer solstice, as you probably know, is usually on the 21st June, but fluctuates because the convention that Earth’s orbit around the sun takes 365 times as long as each rotation is an approximation – the real figure is closer to 365.24, but with the addition of an extra day every four years, it’s a pretty good approximation to keep things consistent within the average human lifetime – though it does go adrift over the centuries, hence the introduction in the Gregorian calendar of another fix to remove a day from three centuries in four – an improvement adopted by the English less than three centuries ago, years after the rest of Europe, and then only with much grumbling, propagation of misinformation and conspiracy theories, and rioting in the streets. Plus ҫa change.

There I go again. Nobody likes a smart-arse. But the point is… when I’m doing the Cassandra smart-arse thing, it’s not that I’m trying to show off – well, maybe it is, but only because in the normal run of things, I feel there is so little I can show off about. In the normal run of life I am so chaotic, clumsy, awkward, forgetful, messy, slow, disorganised… dyspraxic. That’s who I am, it’s who I’ve been all my life, and (though I’m not a big fan of putting labels on people) it’s a relief to have a word for it.

When I started seeing my therapist, I told her all this and she began by trying to find a more positive word than ‘chaotic’ (though the one she came up with: ‘ditsy’ – didn’t strike me as an improvement). Like most people I’ve tried to speak to about this, she was making the assumption that it was just a story I was told as a child, and that I’ve been repeating to myself ever since, it’s not who I really am.

One day, after I’d been seeing her for a couple of months, she suddenly said: ‘What you’re saying reminds me of another client I used to see – I think you might be dyspraxic.’ So I looked it up and read the characteristics associated with dyspraxia – and saw myself laid out, even down to strange apparently random things like: not being able to read my own handwriting; lacking confidence in my appearance because I can’t do hair, make-up and have no dress-sense; took years to learn how to ride a bike…

I find it difficult to explain this to people. It sounds like excuses, doesn’t it? I think that’s probably been the problem all my life – I am so conscious of my shortcomings because surely, with a little more effort, I could find ways round them? So I try and fail and get frustrated and hate myself.

Maybe I should come back to this another day. Because what I started to write about was the Cassandra thing, because sometimes it feels as though a head full of useless knowledge is about the only thing that I’m good for.  

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Mirror, Mirror

I was going to start writing this morning by saying: ‘Suddenly, nothing makes sense.’ But I realised that’s not true, there’s nothing ‘sudden’ about it. Individually, nationally, as a culture, as a species, we’ve been heading for disaster for – how long? God knows – ever, I suppose. Just when it feels as though things can’t get any worse… no, I’m not going to end that sentence.

Most mornings I coax myself out of bed by thinking of some joy-giving activity I can do in the day to come. Yesterday I didn’t find much joy in anything. So how about today?

There’s a mirror on my wardrobe door, facing the window, in front of which is a dressing table, with another mirror, and between the two is my bed. I lay in bed this morning, with my back to the window, looking at an image of the edge of the dressing table mirror and the curtain behind, and trying to work out which side of the mirror and curtain it was. I finally convinced myself that it was the same edge and bit of curtain that appeared a little to the right in the dressing table mirror, but somehow this seemed all wrong. Shouldn’t it be the other side? Of course it shouldn’t, because it was a reflection of a reflection of a reflection, so it ended up the same as the original reflection of the curtain, but it still disturbed me.

I’ve written before about life feeling like a hall of mirrors, or a labyrinth. It’s a bit of a cliche, but this morning for a moment I felt how disorienting that experience can be.

It made me think of crossing the road in a country where they drive on the other side – although reason tells you that the traffic on the side nearest will be coming from the opposite direction to where you’d expect it from, sometimes your brain just can’t handle it, and you have to think really hard about which way you normally look so you can look to the other one. When we first moved back from the US, I was very nervous about driving in Milton Keynes, because on the wide dual carriageways I panicked that I would turn into the wrong lane. It may, of course, just be me – possibly related to dyspraxia, though I don’t usually have problems with telling right from left.

And here I am struggling to write with a cat in front of the computer and a mouse which isn’t working and a brain full of mush. I’m used to working without a mouse on the laptop, but on the PC I’m really struggling – again, it’s something I can usually do without thinking about it. Having to sit with the keyboard on my lap or to one side because the cat’s in the way doesn’t help.

I have to wrap a present, write a card and take a parcel to the Post Office this morning. Those are my tasks.  

Happy Monday.

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Let There Be Light

The light switch in my downstairs shower room and toilet has an intermittent fault. When I say intermittent, I don’t just  mean sometimes it works and other times it doesn’t, I mean it stops working and stays not working for indeterminate periods, and then one day, unpredictably, it will start working again. A friend (the same one who helps with the hedge-cutting and feeds the cat when I’m away) once took it apart and put it back together again and it started working, but he admitted he didn’t know what he’d done. It’s the sort of job that’s not really worth calling a professional electrician for, but it is annoying.

It was still working at half term when the family came, but it stopped again soon after, round about the start of lockdown. There’s no window, but there are frosted glass panels in the door, so some light comes in from the hall, good enough to get by, but really not good enough to clean. A bottle of nail varnish fell out of the bathroom cabinet one day and the top came off, so the hand-basin now has turquoise stripes (and I can’t have turquoise toenails, which is a source of great sorrow). Also I worry about the hygiene implications.

I have thought about attempting the taking-it-to-bits approach – after all, I salvaged the hedge trimmer, but I can’t quite face the palaver of it all, especially as I’m not sure I’ve got a decent torch. Even if I could find one, standing on the stepladder holding a torch would be enough of a challenge, never mind trying to wield a screwdriver (or whatever) in the other hand; and with my eyesight, I probably wouldn’t be able to see what I was doing anyway.

So this morning I was sitting on the loo in the gloom muttering to myself: ‘must remember to take the basket of washing out of the kitchen when I go back upstairs, don’t forget, don’t forget, don’t forget’ and thinking about my yoga teacher saying: ‘always have a place for everything and you’ll know where to look’ and me replying: ‘…I do, but the problem is not knowing where to look, but remembering to put things in the right place at the time I put them down’. In 2011 I did a Businesslink course on Self Organisation, talking about time management and list making and prioritising etc, and I broke down and confessed to the tutor that I just can’t do that stuff. She replied: ‘Maybe you should think about trying to get a job instead of starting a business’ and my heart sank as I thought: ‘If I could find anyone who would give me a job I wouldn’t be doing this.’

Well, after my exercise session I went for a shower, pulled on the switch without thinking and heard a snap. I expected it to come away in my hand, but when I noticed it hadn’t, I pulled again and the light came on.

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Screws and Fuse Blues

After my post yesterday I went hunting for the poem I mentioned, and couldn’t find it anywhere. I think I know the title: ‘Walnut’; I know the last line: ‘I was younger then, and I looked good in pink.’ I can remember the experience which inspired it – both at the time I wrote it (finding a matchbox with ‘Walnut’ on the side) and the memory of that restaurant in West Hampstead which it triggered. I know it was in this house, so has to have been within the last three years (most likely 2018), and I know I blogged it (or at least put it on FB) because I remember a comment from one of my FB friends.

I’ve scoured through my poetry folders, through this blog and the previous one for that time period, even my two Facebook pages, but with no luck. All my blog posts are saved in Word in either of two folders, one on Onedrive and one on my desktop, the former imaginatively titled: ‘Blog’, the second: ‘blog’, saved with a filename of the date when they were written. I didn’t look at how many files were in those folders, by that point I was losing the will to live.

The day went on. I decided to fix the hedge trimmer (I cut through the cable when I tried using it last month). When I went to the shop on Wednesday I noticed the hedge is growing over the gate so that soon the postman won’t be able to get in (or I out – I could become like sleeping beauty, there’s a thought). So I got out all the tools and found the bit that I’d cut off (it was still over one of the kitchen chairs), unscrewed the connector that my ex attached the first time I cut through it, cursed the fact that I couldn’t find the better screwdrivers and myself for not being able to get a screwdriver into the slot correctly and hold it tight enough to actually turn it so I always ruin screw heads and drivers alike; chanted to myself: ‘don’t lose the screws’ but of course did, lost every little thing that could be lost and had to look for them all three times, but that’s my life in a nutshell, just a normal part of dyspraxia.

Then when I had it all back together I plugged it in and – nothing. Of course, it must have blown the fuse when it happened. Did I have any spare fuses? No, but I remembered two old appliances (coffee maker and microwave) were still in the bottom cupboard – but both their fuses had already been cannibalised. Went round the house looking for other things with fuses that I don’t want. Found my old hairdryer and tried that, but it still didn’t work, that probably blew when it broke as well.

In bed this morning I remembered I’ve got an electric heater I shouldn’t need any time soon. I’ll try that today.

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Hors de Combat

I’m back from my weekly Tuesday morning shopping expedition. The emergency run for cat food two days ago doesn’t count, because I couldn’t bring myself to do the sensible thing and work out a full shopping list before I went, so I ran out of fresh milk yesterday as usual.

Before I left, I prepared breakfast for my return, and, in the process of slicing the end crust of the loaf into two to fit the toaster, cut my left index finger. I held it under the cold tap, wrapped it in kitchen roll, and kept pressing it and moving the kitchen roll as it became soaked in blood. Then went looking for plasters, which I found in the form of continuous strips in the downstairs bathroom. Hunted for the scissors – on the kitchen table, among all the card-making stuff. Cut a biggish strip off and wrapped it over the wound and round the end of my finger.

Collected together bags, wallet, phone, checked I had the right cards, filled Miko’s water bowl, made sure she was inside, she started running around manically so I spoke to her gently and sat down with her for a few minutes to calm her down, checked the list (on my phone), picked up the scarf I’ve been using as a face mask, wrapped it round, left the building, and in locking the door realised there was fresh red blood dripping down my arm. I must have put pressure on the wound somehow, probably when pulling up the door handle.

So I went back into the house, and tried to work out where I’d left the plasters and the scissors. I noticed that everywhere I’d walked there were perfectly spaced, perfectly round bright red drops of blood on the floor. They looked like tiddlywinks.

I thought: never mind wrapping a scarf round my face, I really can’t go round Tesco dripping blood everywhere. I decided I was hors de combat, and could justifiably excuse myself from shopping duty – the main priority was milk, and I’d got a carton of UHT (bought for making yoghurt, but also as an emergency reserve) and a tin of evaporated.

I found the plasters back in the bathroom cabinet, but only at the second iteration – the box was lying down behind the lip at the bottom of the cupboard, and I didn’t recognise it. I stuck another one over the first and that seemed to do the trick. Might as well go shopping after all, as I’d psyched myself up.

So, once again I went through the whole palaver of remembering everything I needed to take, including the scarf which I’d discarded over the back of a chair, and this time I opened, closed and locked the front door without injury.

I haven’t even got enough words left to tell you what happened en route to the supermarket and after I got there. Give me rules to follow, and I’ll panic about getting them wrong. Thoughts for another day.

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Chaos in the Co-op

I keep thinking I’ll get up first thing and walk to the seafront. Delayed gratification – I know it will make me happier, but I still don’t do it.

Yesterday, I thought: I’ll run out of milk by the end of the day, so I’ll wait till tomorrow, and go to the shops on the way back. Because the lovely sunny mornings are here to stay, right?

I could hear the rain when I woke up. I dozed off again and woke at 7, and got up and dressed ready to go. I’ve been rotating around Co-op, Sainsbury’s and Tesco, it was Co-op week, and I remembered they don’t have self-checkout, but thought, I’ll go there anyway, they might have stuff I can’t get in the other two.

The plan is go-straight-there-and-get-it-done. No exercise, no writing, no breakfast, not even coffee. I started looking for my credit card, it’s not the only one I’ve got, but I get 1% cashback for using it in supermarkets. Looked everywhere – no sign. This is hardly unusual, but still annoying. I know the last place I used it was in Tesco last Tuesday. I checked my online banking and it hasn’t been used since then, so it’s probably still in the house. How desperate am I? Milk’s the main thing, and I’ve got a pint of UHT (for making yoghurt, but also as a backup). That’s ok then, I don’t have to go out after all. Leave it for another day, when I’ve got my card and it’s not raining.

Well in that case, I’ll revert to normal morning routine. Did my half hour tai chi/yoga/meditation and felt loads better. And it had stopped raining. Right then, it’s still only 9 o’clock, off to the Co-op after all.

There was no queue at the shop, but no baskets, just the things with wheels that the baskets are stacked in, and trolleys which require a pound, and I’d only brought my phone, credit card and loyalty card. I looked around for someone to ask, and saw someone using one of the basket holders as a substitute trolley, so thought, I’ll do that then.

I found most things I wanted, including the last bottle of Lea & Perrins but not Marmite. I got to the checkout and got into an altercation with the checkout lady about why I’d got the basket holder.

‘You should have got a basket, or a trolley.’

‘There weren’t any baskets.’

‘They’re just over there.’

‘There weren’t any when I got here.’

‘Well you should have asked.’

I got angry and swore. I knew it was myself I was angry at, not her, so I apologised. Then I tried to swipe my card but it was too much, then I used the wrong pin number because it wasn’t the card I normally use.

‘It’s getting to all of us’ said the checkout lady kindly. But I wanted to tell her: this isn’t who I am. Well, the chaos is, but not the rudeness.