My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor


My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Insightful first person narrative of a brain scientist who gained spiritual and personal insights when she had a severe stroke. About the time I read the book, a good friend, who is a college professor and a great writer, also had a stroke. This book and my friend's experience make me anew recognize the variety, delicacy, and intricacy of life and experience.




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1965 My First Paying Job

Our camp rested at the base of a forested ridge that rose up behind it to the north. Our beige canvas tents, which we paid rent for and were probably Army surplus, were situated on mostly level ground in the sagebrush flat, out in the open, exposed to the summer sun. There must've been ten tents or so, and the tents were big enough for six or seven people, but usually only housed four or five, max. We slept on cots in sleeping bags. Each tent had a stove in it, and we put ours to good use in the early, brisk mornings. We'd have fetched a nice log or two, sometimes split, sometimes not, that would fit comfortably into its belly the night before. Then we soaked the mess in diesel fuel, so starting a fire in the brisk morning air would be no challenge whatsoever. It was also the reason it didn't matter if the logs were split or not. It took no time at all to have the pipe coming out of the stove and going up through the roof of the tent glowing red hot in the first morning light. After the tent was heated up we rolled out of our sleeping bags and comfortably dressed in the warmth.

We were buggers, but not buggers in the sense that the English use the term to denote a sodomite, a contemptible fellow, or a fellow chap, although we would come to know that we were often held in similar derision. We killed bugs, at least that was the reason we had been hired, but that was never the reason for anyone holding us in derision.

The camp was located within Teton National Park in the Pilgrim Creek drainage. The year was 1965. I had just barely turned seventeen. I had finished my junior year of high school and would be a senior in the fall. This was my first paying job.

I have Norman Hansen, a goodly neighbor and friend, who lived behind our lot, to blame for it. Or to bless for it. He had talked me into it, or rather, told me about the opportunity, which I readily chomped at, eager to work and to earn money. Of course, Norman hadn't experienced the work and didn't know its expectations upon us; otherwise, I doubt he would've ever told me about it or thought to go work there himself. In retrospect, I suppose you'd have to be semi-crazy to have worked that job.

Norman's dad, Phil Hansen, had a garage full of tools; Phil was a salesman who traveled around selling tools for mechanics around the west. He had also worked as a mechanic, I think, so he had a garage full of every conceivable tool that a mechanic would envy having. In any event, Norman and his older brother, James, were always in the shop at their house using those mechanics' tools. Shortly after Norman got his driver's license, he began assembling a dune buggy. He got the frame off of some old jalopy, used a welder to cut it in half, and cut out a piece of the frame on both sides to shorten it. Then he welded it back together. He continued assembling the dune buggy, giving it a seat, an engine, and, what I remember most, an aluminum beer keg for a gas tank.

Not only was that aluminum beer keg unique, it shocked me to see that Phil, a highly spiritual and religious man, allowed Norman to put it on that dune buggy.

In any event, it was in that dune buggy that we traveled up Highway 89, through Jackson Wyoming, and on up to Teton National Park.

Day Three

I don't remember the blood. I don't remember my father's shock. I don't remember what happened to Brent and Tom. I don't remember the reaction of my mother when she came home.


I do remember the doctor above me with his tool in my nose, pushing on it, and the pressure I felt, along with some pain. I remember the fear, but not major fear, only minor. I remember the lights above me, shining into my eyes.

I don't remember the specifics of much of anything else. I don't remember my sister's reaction. I don't remember my brother's. I do remember that Brent brought me a gift, something to reconcile himself to me, something to give me comfort. It was a mitt, a baseball glove, a first baseman's. He got it, I think, using his parents' S&H Green stamps.

One other thing I do remember. I remember at home looking in the mirror before we went to the doctor's office. I remember seeing my nose underneath my right eye. I also remember that there was a gash in my nose. The doctor gave me a couple of stitches to take care of it.

That's about it. Beyond saying that I would have to invent. Even at that, I am aware of the frailty of my memory and the propensity of mind to create and fill in the empty spots we think we need. I will say this. The breaking of my nose was a major event in my young life, one that has stayed with me and in some measure molded me, in conjunction with the choices I freely made, to become the person I am.

Day Two

Today I am to think of childhood experiences, for good or for bad, that left a lasting impression upon me. I've talked about them other places. I'm supposed to list five or ten and pick from them one that wants to be written about. I don't know about that. It doesn't appeal to me. I guess it doesn't matter. You can't always do what appeals to you.


I remember distinctly so few childhood experiences that almost all of them I do remember must have left a lasting impression on me.

1. Sitting underneath a tree for shade in the hot summer time with friends, then dozing off, and then waking up knowing that I had missed some important conversation and possibly some activity.

2. Taking a bath.

3. Breaking the glass in the coffee table.

4. Going with my dad to salvage lumber at Hill Air Force Base.

5. Having my nose busted by Brent.

6. The announcement of the winners in the decathlon contest at my elementary school.

7. Digging out the dirt underneath the house in Clearfield.

8. Cleaning out the attic in sunset.

9. My grandma cussing out Helen Dunn.

10. Going to the movies with my sister.

Now, the idea is to select one of the above and then to freewrite about it for ten minutes.

Okay. I've written about it before, but I will write about it again here. Number five.

My best guess is that it happened in the springtime. For some reason it seems like the leaves on the fruit trees behind Tom's house were fresh and perhaps in blossom. In any event, we had gathered there behind his house early and had enough time to spare to play before leaving for school. I'm thinking we were all sixth-graders, eleven or twelve years old. I think it was that sixth year because that is the only year I think I had classes with both of them, Tom and Brent. It may have occurred in fourth grade, however, and I'm just not remembering clearly.

It surprises me to think that we had gathered there early enough to mess around with a bat and ball before heading out to school. My recollection of behavior from back then is that I generally left home and went straight to school without any deviation. However, on this particular occasion, my father was home asleep and my mother was at work. I wouldn't have remembered that except for what happened.

Tom was pitching the ball, and Brent and I were taking turns batting. For some reason, I'm pretty certain that it was Brent's bat, however, I could be totally wrong about that. The edge of the bat around the bottom that permits a batter to keep his grip when swinging all out had been partially knocked or chipped away --- maybe the bat was old and had been mistreated or whatever. Anyway, Brent was up. While Tom was retrieving the ball, Brent was swinging the bat with all of his might. I was waiting for my turn at bat. The next thing I knew, however, the bat was headed straight for me, and there was nothing I could do about it. I didn't even have time to raise my hands up to protect myself. It came around from its twirl and caught me directly in the nose, moving my nose beneath my eye.

Blood gushed out my nose. I guess I started howling and moving toward home, and home was about a half a block away, so I was leaving a gruesome trail of red blood along the sidewalk all of the way. I wasn't paying attention to who was following me or anything. I was just headed for home. I don't remember much, other than my father told me to stick my head in the sink --- although my father always said zink instead of sink --- so I wasn't dripping blood all over.

Eventually, he packed me up and took me down to the clinic to Dr. Peterson, a tall man who was slender and older than my father. Dr. Peterson put crowbar-like instrument in my nose and moved my snoze back where it should be.

Kill the Watcher

The question always arises as to whether you want to be a writer or you simply love to write. Of course, questions like that are dichotomies and I much prefer continuums. I suppose I fall someplace between the two extremes. I don't think I can say that I love to write, not yet anyway, although I could say I want to write. It brings to mind my youth, after I had moved in with my family to a location different than the one I had grown up in. The new location took me where I didn't have any friends and there were no nearby neighbors, so I had a lot of time on my hands and my father had jobs for me to do if I wanted to do them. I did. At first, I wasn't very good at what he wanted me to do, and I didn't like it that much. As time went on, and I exerted myself, I got better at the tasks and I began to like it. I suppose writing to be like that. Now, it just so happens, I've been at it a while now, however, to some degree or another, because of work or other things I was attending to, including many distractions, I never focused enough on the process and the actual exercise of writing. I've written a lot, a book on taxes for writers and artisans and a novel of over 400 pages, so I'm no beginner. But in a sense, as a writer, I feel like I am.


The fellow whose book I'm reading --- well, one of them; it was written by two men --- was more like I am. He didn't have a compulsion to write. It took some doing for him, kind of like it has for me. He indicates that at first he hated individuals who have that innate compulsion and desire and, perhaps, talent. Actually, he says he and beat them. He says as a child he composed stories in his head but he didn't like to get them down on paper. I can identify with that. Well, I can to some degree. I'm not sure I ever liked to compose stories in my head that much. I've thought a lot about that and I don't think I did. There might have been a time when I was quite young that I like to do that, playing with the cars and toys in the sand, but after that I didn't do it that much at all.

There were times off and on when I tried to journalize my thoughts --- to keep a diary --- but I was never successful. I'd start out gangbusters and then peter out. I always seem to do pretty good in the subject of English, however. I seem to remember that I did alright writing essays and short stories and the like. I always got Bs or better, even when I didn't always finish my homework and, especiallystudy my spelling words. I even did alright on vocabulary tests because I always made the effort to look words up and create my own list of words to learn and then studied the words on it.

The author tells about a conversation he had with a friend that he describes as loose and unstructured when he realized that hour after hour of conversation had yielded them significant insights about the topic they were discussing. And he realized that they had been trying to do that; it had just happened. They had done it by merely saying things off the cuff, things that they haven't analyzed and nudged here and there to get just right. They had simply talk with a degree of sincerity and openness to each other. He learned from that to concentrate on the process and not the resulting piece.

The assignment today is to address the internal critic, the Watcher, and tell him what I think.

Dear Watcher,

I don't want to be too harsh to you. You have caused me some grief but I recognize some value also in what you do. In fact, I suppose I have valued what you do more than perhaps I should have. Perhaps I should give this other a try, and let you sit on the sidelines for a while and watch. Then call you up after I have had my way without your interference to help me out. What do you think about that? Can he do that? That's, I think, what I want to do. To put you out of the way and let myself go. Deal? Why am I asking you? I guess, because I have great respect for you. But for now, let's do it my way, this new way.

Refuge

I read the memoir, Refuge, by Terry Tempest Williams, long ago, when my wife bought it and read it. That was not long after my wife had been treated for cancer. My wife read it and promptly added it to a small bookstand on her nightstand next to her bed. It's where I think she adds favorites she wants nearby to inspire her dreams. It's still there to this day.


Refuge excels in interweaving several different narratives: that of a dying mother, the influences of natural phenomenon on life and death, the beauty and ugliness of the world, the wantonness and the care and concern of mankind and its institutions, the nuances of religion for good and for bad. It's a book I should revisit, because its subtle shouting voice and its terrible tender stories are ones that seem kindred to me. It somehow captures not only the serene beauty of the bleak desert and the dead sea of the Great Basin where I often live, but also similar places found inside culture and people whereever you are. There is an ebb and flow, not unlike the lap of waves on silent shores.

Love, Harmony and Cooperation

The whole universal system is held together through love, harmony and cooperation. If you use your thoughts according to these principles you can transcend anything that gets in your way. --- Dr. Wayne W. Dyer.

A couple of thoughts come to mind. One of them is the expanding universe. I'm not convinced that it necessarily manifests love, harmony and cooperation. The other is evolution. As Darwin put it, there is a competition between species for survival. While I personally believe that everything is held together through love, harmony and cooperation, it isn't that hard also to see hatred, disharmony, and polar opposites fighting with one another. In my entire lifetime, I don't believe I've ever experienced the degree of outrageous behavior, self-righteousness, and intolerance by the conservative realm. So you can see why it seems to me difficult to believe that the whole universal system is held together through love, harmony, and cooperation.

On the other hand, we are talking about a "holding together". Cooperation, of course, brings us together, holds us from separation and divisiveness. Competition, on the other hand, tears us apart. It results in war and destruction.

Therefore, I subscribe to love, harmony and cooperation. Now I need to implement them better in my life.