Roberta M Roy

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Sunday, May 30, 2010

Memorial Day Remembrances

It's Memorial Day weekend. Life, while ever interesting, crawls and I wonder if others lives are similar in texture and given to hills and valleys rather than ragged peaks and cliffs.

Never having been one to set easy objectives, most of my projects take months or years. As such, news along away is simply small blurbs like: I met Jesse Saperstein. Or, last night near the FDR home I dined in a place filled with GIs and their families. Or, I'm reading War by Sebastian Junger. Or I sent an email off to Lorna Tychostup in Iraq to let her know I was thinking of her.

But somehow on this Memorial Day weekend, they are related. All stories of people struggling or fighting, each on his or her own front: Jesse on Asperger's, the military in their odd search for peace, Sebastian and Lorna on the search-for-truth-humanity-and-understanding one.

So did I tell you I met Jesse Saperstein? Just happened into B&N when he was doing a local-author book signing. Wonderful guy. Pretty much who he says he is. Honest, unflinching, with high expectations. When I told him what a wonderful book Atypical is, it was through tears that welled in my eyes as I was reminded of his courage and determination.

Once Saperstein learned I was a speech language pathologist, he queried me on my take on prognosis in Asperger's Syndrome. We discussed brain plasticity through the lifespan and though I have not done therapy with people with AS who were older than twenty-one, I could attest to the fact that with motivation, intervention, and support, its symptoms continued to ameliorate over time from which I hypothesized the possibility of continued growth and positive change over a life time. Chin up, Jesse. You're very young and look at what you have already accomplished.

Oddly, Jesse's mom had referred him to this web site so he had read the reference to his book I had written (Blog for 4/14/10). . . which he quoted from by rote, pretty much verbatim. Said he liked it. Told me he thought I write well and that blogging was something he didn't think he could do. (Well, not yet:)

We hugged before we parted. It was only appropriate.

Then there were the military families. Men in their pale Desert Storm fatigues. Women with their '40's hair styles. Beautiful children. Most were meer toddlers. Babbling. Trying out first steps. A reminder that no matter how far away the war is physically, it's really here.

And then there is my reading of War by Sebastian Junger. He's the NYTimes photojournalist (video) and author of The Perfect Storm. Very special . . . videoed hours in the Korengal Valley and then in War wrote about it pretty much as a he-said-they-did-I saw report. Which is possibly the reason I can handle it. Just as years ago I was able to read Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage.

I wrote to Lorna how I hate war. Hate the thought of it. Yet the dearest, most devout, kindest family man and fire chief, my uncle Arthur, fought in WWII, almost starved there, wound up with malaria, and shared with me in a special letter how the question of having enough food to eat can lead a man to kill in battle. Heart rending.

So far I've finished the section in War on Fear. I'm not sure I can tackle the one on Killing. I probably will.

But it was not the book on the Korengal Valley, from where, I believe, we have finally withdrawn. It was seeing the military families that prompted me to write to Lorna, way over there, probably in Iraq, doing her photojournalism and reporting next to nothing out at this time that I can find any place.

Seeing the military families was almost novel and reminded me of how far away the war is . . . no wonder we let it go on . . which is why I am forging through Junger's book, to on the one hand to remind myself that the Korengal is only physically far, but the people are like me, regardless of from which side of the line they aim.

Still, reading Sebastian Junger's book means coming closer to inhumanity and offers the risk of becoming less sensitized to it . . . one of the reasons I'm reluctant to finish it . . . although so far, so good. But I would like to understand how the young men . . .there were no women in the valley . . . kept sane and held together emotionally. And I can't think of a better writer than Sebastian Junger to help me.

Roberta in Po-Town
Memorial Day Weekend

10:30 am edt Comments

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Dopey-Tawk

The first time I fathomed the dopey-tawk concept was when I was an assistant professor at the State University College at New Paltz. At that time, Theatre was part of the Speech Department. In it were two professors, one mature and seasoned, one fairly young and with a dream. And one day the two of them announced they were leaving the Speech Department and would form their own Theatre Department to which we responded in one voice. "You can't do that."

"Well," they told us, "we can."

"They'll eat you alive out there. Just two of you. Who will protect you? How will you get funding?"

They were implaccable.

"But why?" we pleaded.

Their answer was simple and to the point. (They didn't say dopey-tawk, because it hadn't been invented yet. No.) What they said was one word that described their motivation: "Identity."

It was then I understood: They did it because their inner selves compelled them to do so. Their passion for theatre was part of it. But it went deeper. Identity. And our suggesting they be other than who they were was just dopey-tawk.

Wisely, however, they stuck with their identity and within a few years the number of theatre majors had grown and they not only maintained their Department of Theatre, they even had to add staff.

Gratefully, they had closed their ears to our words . . . our dopey-tawk . . . and stayed with who they were . . . as should we all.

Just becoming acquainted with the term 'dopey-tawk?' . . . I suppose it could be spelled 'talk', but it's such new coinage . . . my son came up with it last week and I believe I am the first to write it and I prefer the dopey-tawk spelling. But let's talk more about its meaning.

Well, dopey-tawk is what we all do when we close our mind as to who the person we are discussing really is and say things like, "I don't why he plays football. It's so dangerous." Dopey-tawk. He plays football because that's who he is. He's a football player.

Or, "I don't know why he doesn't give up playing in the band and go back to college and study computer science." The reason? He's a musician. Got it? Just dopey-tawk.

So whenever one suggests a direction or plan that, given the identity of the person in question, the likelihood of them ever taking that route is pretty much nil, what the speaker is doing is best termed dopey-talk. Why?

Well, first, it's not what the person in question wants to do. Second, . . . difficult as it may be to believe . . . he or she probably couldn't do it if he or she tried. That could be for many reasons. No money. Not enough time. Not his or her preference. No interest. The list goes on. But the bottom line is that it's not them.

So I figure that instead of suggesting a person become someone else, I might as well support who the person is. Not only will my efforts be more likely to be met with appreciation, I think there's a good chance they could help the person to be more successful.

And just as the theatre people had closed their ears to our words . . . our dopey-tawk . . . and stayed with who they were . . . so should we all. The difficulty lies, however, in the fact that sometimes we are so caught up in the social fabric of our lives and just surviving financially, it becomes difficult to emerge to the extent that we can appreciate ourselves at that level. But whoever we are, we are all really special. And wonderful!

Roberta in Po-Town, Truckin'

7:22 pm edt Comments

Friday, May 7, 2010

Special Kids I've Known . . . on Mother's Day

In my work as a speech-language pathologist I've known a lot of kids. Many remain memorable for their special skills or the endearing things they did.

Some days were longer than others and only the laughter got us through. Sometimes it was the mild sense of being entertained. Like today when a boy with whom I work drew a picture of a child with only one ear.

The student, a ten year old with special needs, apparently had developed a sense of perspective and recognized that when the head is turned to the side, two eyes remain visible but one ear may be hidden. So when the boy drew a person and looked at the results, he pointed to the side to the right of the paper where no ear was visible.

"There's an ear there," he said.

"Yeah," I said. "It's on the side. Where you can't see it."

"Well," he said. "There really is an ear there."

After a bit of thought, he again picked up the pencil and drew an arrow pointing left to the side where the ear was out of view and near the arrow's end he wrote, "ear" and put the pencil down. He looked at it a bit more, picked up the pencil and above the word "ear" he wrote "left."

Yup. There it was what we couldn't see: the left ear on the right side of the head as it faced us.

. . . .Then there was the boy who always tied a string to the corner of his pictures and carried them homeward like kites.

. . . And the one who started on the left side of the page and never lifted his pencil and drew the most elaborated pictures of people and scenery while never lifting his pencil from the paper until he had reached the right edge of the page and so was done.

Each of these children was some mom's child and special in his own way.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms of the world wherever you are.

You are all special.

Roberta in Po-town, Remembering her mom

10:01 pm edt Comments

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Here you're suppose to learn about my personal life, my love of learning, the dog I don't have, my house that sits empty on a hill in Port Henry 'cause on the one hand I don't want to sell it, 'cause I love it too much, but on the other hand, I never seem to find the time to get there anymore but I haven't found a buyer. Of course I haven't been looking either. Too busy with Jolt. Also this site is still under construction so I probably won't get to selling it this month either. Well, that means, at least I can run up there over Labor Day and party with all my friends and neighbors there which is enough to make me want to hurry up and finish this so I can get ready to leave.

Here I am supposed to write more about myself and think about putting a picture of myself someplace below, except I put the picture in before I did anything else because I thought I was suppose to get rid of the butterfly but it didn't, which is probably just as well because I like the butterfly better. That's because it doesn't make me feel exposed like the black dress I'm wearing below does. The reason I chose that picture is because my sister C. thinks it's about the best picture of me I ever had taken. That's because I'm more mature now and most pictures look awful because they really look just like me. Of course C. thinks the one below does and all the other ones don't. Which a bit of a trip in itself. But what is there to say? And I'm glad she took it. R.