Speller Salons

Dear Friends,

Last year, Tara and another S2C practitioner started holding speller study group sessions for several of us older spellers. This was an effort to provide much-needed intellectual stimulation and social time. We are so starved for both.

We called these “salons” after the French tradition of intellectual gatherings. This was a dream of mine: time with a group of friends spent sharing our ideas and learning together.

Tara always cautioned: “I am not going to start a day program! That is way more than I can take on.” And I respect that. But she and her collaborator Gigi couldn’t sit by while we had such a need for any activity that would be intellectually and socially fulfilling. So they decided to offer these study group series to help fill the gap.

They started with the Coursera course by U Penn, Modern and Contemporary American Poetry or ModPo, that I took five years ago. We met once every two weeks to review material and discuss. We loved it! It was so much fun. And I learned a lot from how my friends responded to the poetry.

Now we are doing weekly meet-ups to discuss Judith Heumann’s memoir, Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist. This has been fantastic! We are discussing deep ideas about disability and inclusion and advocacy. My friends are finding newfound conviction in their right to have a fulfilling life and to stand up for that right.

These salon series will continue through the year. I am so proud of Tara for doing this and thankful to Gigi for hosting many of the gatherings. I appreciate them creating this space.

The need for truly challenging intellectual stimulation is so real. Our brains crave it. I hope one day our intellects are truly appreciated by more of society. I am not saying this out of arrogance, and I don’t think intelligence should be a requirement for being treated with respect, but I am sharing that our minds want to be engaged and there is so much we can share with the world with the right support and opportunities.

Your Friend,

Danny

Proud Moment

Dear Friends,

A small but mighty update: Today, I managed to put a puzzle away before finishing it. This is a big win for me! The puzzle was wearing me down. It was consuming my brain. It was about to spiral into fixation. I am not feeling great physically, so I was extra worried about the prospect of being up all night obsessively working on it when my body needed sleep.

Tara asked if I might allow the puzzle to be put away without being completed. I replied that it would be very stressful to my compulsive side. So my mom offered to help me complete it as soon as possible. I resigned myself to having a long night of toiling away on something I didn’t even want to do. But at least it would be faster with my mom’s help.

But minutes after this chat, I was able to convince my body to clean up the puzzle! I just got up and walked over to the table and swept the pieces into the box. I couldn’t believe it!

I feel so proud. I am gaining confidence in my potential to develop pathways to help me with my most disruptive compulsions. This will be a long and difficult journey to achieve, but I am growing less hopeless about it.

Your Friend,

Danny

Days Like This

Dear Friends,

These recent days have been so wonderful. I am so grateful to have days like these.

I am going to just list some of the fulfilling things I experienced: Stand-up Paddleboarding two Fridays in a row; dinner with our kind neighbors; coffeeshop reading and writing sessions; runs in the sun; celebrating my late dad’s birthday and St. Patrick’s Day with family; new issues of my favorite food magazines arriving; the speller salon study group that Tara and a friend are facilitating; hiking with my mom and Riko; swimming in my neighbors’ pool with their dog; doing reading for the salon with my mom on the deck; and writing a lot of poetry and recording All Our Brave Hearts episodes.

This is possible due to my regulation being steady lately and my family.

I know good times like these are temporary. But I also know they return.

I feel so calm and happy and also very confident that I can have a fulfilling life. I hope to help make this sensation possible for more of my peers. A world where we can have beautiful lives is possible if people learn to choose to care about us. That is my belief.

Your Friend,

Danny

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

Dear Friends,

It is St. Patrick’s Day! My dad used to love celebrating. We would go to see a parade and enjoy the festivities at the House of Ireland at Balboa Park. He missed Ireland, even though he stated that he could never live in that weather again.

His birthday is actually the day after St. Patrick’s. So that added to the celebrations.

I am proud to be Irish. It is a special place. It endured so much under brutal colonization by the British, and yet its language and culture are thriving. It is a place I hope to live one day.

I am grateful to be connected to spellers over there. Their community is growing. It is exciting to see!

So this is just a quick post to recognize a special day. Eirinn go Brach!

Your Friend,

Danny

Exploring Anger

Dear Friends,

I have been in a great place recently. Regulated and mostly happy. So it was a good time to dive into some heavy stuff with my therapist.

I have been wanting to figure out how to transform my rage into a less destructive feeling. It is only in adulthood that I have felt explosive anger regularly. It is not my nature. It is not how I want to feel. And it makes me do things that I don’t want to do.


It has been challenging to explore this, because whenever we try, I get dysregulated. My therapist is good about treading lightly, but I still would get so triggered. So it has been slow going.

This week was different. I was able to dive below the anger and into the deep sadness. The anger is protecting me from an endless grief. That is so profound to realize finally. I knew it intellectually, but I finally felt it this week.

Wow, a lot of thoughts and feelings came up! I kept spelling torrents of sadness. It flowed out of my heart onto the letterboard. It was so cathartic.

I have a lot to process. It is heavy, but it is something I need to do. It feels liberating to be in the process of familiarizing myself with my emotions.

I know that I have many reasons to be angry. But I don’t want to be controlled by anger. That is a big goal of mine.

That is it for now. It is good to share this journey with you.

Your Friend,

Danny

Ocean times

Dear Friends,

This winter has been unusually warm here. It is a bit bizarre, and I worry about how this might impact local ecosystems. But it makes for nice ocean adventures.

I am sharing a more close-up photo of my best wave from last month (photo by Cliff Schumacher). I also am sharing screen grabs from video of a nice SUP outing from last month. It was so warm that we jumped in the water to cool off!

I was sort of hoping for more typical winter weather, to feel the chill and have some more cozy rain days. But it is March, and the forecast is all mild to warm for the next ten days. I know we are fortunate to have such a pleasant clime when much of the country has had a harsh winter. It just feels a bit odd that we never really had any of our typical winter, except some stormy days.

This wasn’t supposed to be about the weather. I got carried away…

To be able to enjoy the ocean in these ways started six years ago, when I was finally able to tell Tara that I wanted to learn how to snorkel. Spelling opened up this world for me. So did my family learning more about apraxia, which helped them better support me in learning new skills. And I am so appreciating all I have learned from Erin at Sunrise Therapies and the Waves4All team. I am still in awe of all I can do in the ocean now.

What is something you enjoy now that once was just a dream?

Your Friend,

Danny

Waves 4 all

My first solo Uber ride

Dear Friends,

I had an important first today: I rode alone in an Uber for the first time! This is a big step for me.

To get to Tara’s neighborhood, and all the great cafes and restaurants around there, as well as Balboa Park, is a forty-plus minute drive. So it is a pain for Tara to pick me up then bring me to her neighborhood and then bring me home. And there is no direct bus or train. So the only feasible option is Uber or Lyft. They are expensive, but I do have some funding from my services to cover transportation. So I could do a rideshare ride once or twice a month.

I practiced a few times with my mom, and since I felt pretty calm this week, I decided to go for it on my own. My mom arranged the ride, and Tara met me on the other side.

It went smoothly and we had a great day! I love the coffeeshop we met at – it is a cool spot with great vibes. It is called Mnemonic, and it is one of my favorites. The two owners are so awesome. They cultivate a wonderful sense of welcome.

I wrote a poem and enjoyed a new-to-me type of tea. Then we walked in Balboa Park nearby and wrote some more. Then lunch at Ranchos Cocina, another favorite. Then we headed home before afternoon traffic picked up. I was so tired but happy.

Here is my little poem from the coffeeshop.

YUNNAN TEA ON ICE
Today I tried a new-to-me
Type of tea
In a coffeeshop
With a kind barista
Who smiled
As I shouted
My order
As if my voice were like
Music
Instead of embarrassment

This ability to have such a day is so empowering to me. It is the type of day that makes me feel alive and part of the community. I appreciate being able to do so.

Your Friend,

Danny

Despair

Dear Friends,

I am struggling with a sort of quiet despair. It is triggered by the news, and I am not sure if it is driving my compulsiveness or vice versa. I just feel so low about the evil and hatred that our society and our species is not only capable of, but allows and even celebrates. It is so disheartening.

I am not seeking political opinions. I am expressing the anguish that I feel. I am sharing the sadness that my sensitive heart can’t help but absorb. As a vulnerable person who relies so heavily on others, as an immigrant, as a hyper-sensitive brain, all of the news of abuse and abductions and injustices is so heartbreaking. I also feel so keenly how unfair it is that I am seen as a burden on society while so many in power choose to effect direct and indirect harm on society for their own greed.

It is a lot to cope with. I am so swirling in awful feelings. I am not sure how to cope. But expressing it helps.

How do you all handle such grief and anger?

Your Friend,

Danny

Standing Up

Dear Friends,

I had a great triumph this morning! I stood up multiple times on the surfboard! And I had my longest standing ride yet. This is huge for me!

Usually I ride on my knees or tummy. I have tried standing, but have only succeeded a handful of times. But today it clicked more than ever before, and the volunteer working with me did a great job coaching my body step by step. And the conditions were so perfect: small and long waves with no wind to add chop. It was a gorgeous day!

I needed this time in the sun and sea. I have been quietly compulsive for days. My spirit felt rundown by it. The ocean and the Waves4All community always make me feel better.

I am so grateful for mornings like this.

Your Friend,

Danny

Some writing

Dear Friends,

I am still stuck in compulsive mode. I wrote this piece to try to express what it feels like. It was so tough to get my finger to my letters today. But I managed it.

You can read it here: https://inconvenientlyyours.substack.com/p/stuck

For more of my creative writing, subscribe to my Substack, Inconveniently Yours (inconvenientlyyours.substack.com).

Thank you for being with me.

Your Friend,

Danny