My Trouble With Travel

I've written a bit, here and there, in my Facebook status updates, especially today while traveling to Traverse City and back. While I do joke about it, I have a very difficult time riding in vehicles, and also being in public places. I've never been a good rider and always did the driving wherever I went, with whomever. On those rare occasions when I had to ride, though, I could handle it.

Now, things are different. For one thing I have lost 95% of the vision in my left eye. All this has done is mess up my distance perception, especially under certain circumstances (ie, with bright light or dim light, or with reflective or transparent objects). The last time I drove, a couple of years ago, I was scared to death. Every mailbox on the side of the road my eye(s) saw as something IN the road. A puddle is a hole in the road. A tree or a pole anywhere near where the road bends is dead center where I will crash into it. The lines between lanes look like posts sticking up out of the road. And even driving at 40mph, it appears that the trees along the roadside are rushing right at me at twice that speed. So given my perceptions, driving AND riding is a scary thing.

Add to that the "cerebrovascular event" that occurred in the fall of 2008. While it presented as a stroke, complete with massive head pain, aphasia, etc. and left me with temporary physical issues, my official "diagnosis" upon release was "headache". Of all the doctors I've seen, then and since, the best explanation has been that I had vascular spasm in my brain that morning. (This makes sense to me as I've had prinzmetal's angina for well over a decade.) And while the initial physical effects have pretty much cleared up with therapy and time, I feel like I have a different brain now. There are quite a few things that are different (I frequently use wrong words or "lose my place" when I'm talking, my incredibly fast and accurate typing skills are no more and I have to retype at least half of my words because I typed a different word than I was thinking, or typed a word in reverse order, or whatever, my multitasking, organizational, and mathematical skills are all but gone, etc.), but put together with the vision issues, I now get differing messages to my brain when riding or driving. What I SEE - which is skewed - and how my brain interprets what I'm seeing - which is skewed - make travel more like a scary amusement park ride than a ride in the car.

Pete and my sister have been able to accommodate me pretty well, either by how they're driving or how they anticipate my reactions and reassure me ahead of time. And Casey is getting better and is at least aware. But when I'm in public, either in a car or on foot, I have become dependent on Pete; he "gets" me. As I am mis-perceiving what I see - and even feel - he can anticipate. He stays on my blind side in public, and watches for perceived "obstacles" in my path. He keeps me appraised of things I can't see...because it isn't just a startle when I turn and run into someone or knock into a display; it is the chaos that happens in my brain because it isn't comprehending, as it used to, all of the input. I will freeze or panic in public places, my brain doesn't take in all of the information, interpret it, and tell me how to proceed in a split second like it used to...it shuts me down, stopping me in my tracks, and I can't do anything at all until I "catch up" to myself - or at least, that's how it feels...

I used to be independent to a fault, stubborn, strong-willed, and 100% self-sufficient. Maybe this is God's way of tempering or softening me? I obviously prefer my well-known home to every other place now. My family watches out for me, no kids are zooming around me as I'm negotiating around a crater (who thought to put those advertisements on the floor at Walmart anyway???) and my limited concentration is centered on that, there aren't curbs to step off - or over - when I have no idea how high it is, or if I'm stepping into a puddle or a hole. I know every tiny dip or rise in the floors. When I'm in public threats are all around, I can't react to them because I misinterpret what I'm seeing or feeling, and my sluggish brain can't seem to catch up from one thing to the next. When I'm with Pete though, I feel as secure as I can be; he's in charge and takes care of me and I can do it. Handing over the same control to anybody else though...like Casey or anyone (other than my sister who also "gets it") else driving me...that's really tough and scary to me.

Weird, huh?

Kind of a Fun Morning - In a Musical Sort of Way...

I have talked about my beloved Yamaha keyboard (a PSR-9000Pro) ad nauseum, I know. And we also have my mom's little Yamaha keyboard - a YPT-20 - here. I've loved using mine at church, but it is a bear to move back and forth. It's heavy and large and awkward and I'm always afraid of damaging it going up and down steps, in spite of Pete's brilliant carrier he made out of a hand truck, foam pipe insulation, and duct tape...so I have started taking my mom's keyboard on Sunday mornings.

However it is so unsatisfying! I like using the instruments and rhythms (or, voices and styles in Yamaha-speak), although the styles were more of an issue than they were worth, it turns out, and didn't allow me to follow the song leader's changes in tempo. But still...

We also have here a little 10-year-old Radio Shack keyboard - MD-981 - that we'd gotten several years ago for $15 from someone who was cleaning out her closets. No power supply or music stand was included, but I thought it might be something fun for my daughter to use so we bought a power supply at the time. While Casey lost interest after a short while, I'm keeping it for a friend who'd like it once she moves to our area. In the meantime, however, we had misplace the power supply for it (in fact we couldn't even find the keyboard itself for quite a while!), so it just sat.

This morning Pete happened to find the power supply while looking for something else. What fun! Of course there is NO comparison to the Yamaha in sound quality, in the same way that there's no comparison between eating hay or prime rib. But it has quite a few different instrument sounds on it, they are at least identifiable, and the good folk at our small country church aren't musical snobs - in fact quite the opposite.

So we hooked it up to some nice speakers this morning and lo and behold, not bad! There's an output jack for the speakers at church, one for a sustain pedal, and we have a portable music stand that I can set up behind it, so I think all systems are go. It's very light-weight (8#) too.

Meanwhile, my Petey has wanted to learn some keyboard basics. Between some beginner books and some YouTube videos (he doesn't seem to want my help) and this keyboard, he'll have something to play with and learn. (He already plays his Suzuki QChord - an amazing little MIDI device!)

I was thinking about getting a more portable Yammy this summer anyway, but this might just fill the bill until then, and in the meantime Pete can have lots of fun with it :).

When Do You Pray?

That's my shortened version of a question recently asked online. I just have a few thoughts that were triggered when I read it.

I guess I was a little surprised. When DON'T You Pray? is what I would have expected, maybe. Awareness of God's presence within and around me is a constant, and there is usually some sort of dialogue going on with Him, no matter what else I'm doing, and an ongoing sensitivity to the guiding of His Spirit as He guides me through the day.

Both music and the reading of His Word open my heart for deeper, uninterrupted conversation with God. I wish I had more of that in my life. No, that's wrong. I don't make enough time with Him alone. Maybe that's what the question meant? Even reading the Word, though, or playing or hearing music that exalts Him, it's the same sort of praying, the kind where I question and He answers or He illuminates a truth, or whatever. But those are also the times when I can become overwhelmed with His presence and feel more as one with Him.

Another time is when He brings someone to mind, I know they need prayer for some reason right then, that very moment, and I provide it. Prayer opens up God's power in our lives and in the lives of those for whom we intercede, and these are the times when the person He put in my mind needs Him to move. I consider these times to be about as special as it gets.

Someone mentioned, at the above-mentioned site, that prayer is treated among Christians as a duty ("price to pay" for being a Christian was his phrase) instead of a privilege, an opportunity to go directly to the Creator of the universe on our own behalf or on the behalf of others. Think about it: Can you go talk to the owner of the company where you work whenever you want to, any time of the day or night, and his his full attention to your concerns? Your mayor? Governor? The ruler of your own country? They are all our equals on a spiritual plane, and there is only One Who is greater - yet because Christ bridged the gap we can go directly to Him with anything and everything that concerns us!

Walking with God is an amazing experience. And people have pigeon-holed prayer into various types. But just to be with Him, 24/7, to talk to him, to listen to Him, to let His Spirit guide us from the most mundane to the most important parts of our lives, day in and day out...well, that's when I pray.