Strange Occurrences In Nature, A TV Show & A Book
Yesterday I was outside with Charlie and there was all this commotion in the air above me. It was dragonflies. I’d never seen so many at one time. One was piggy backing on another. (Mating behavior?)
I patiently waited with camera in hand for one to land. But it never happened They flew about ten feet in one direction and turned around and went about the same distance in the other. In a loop. Over and over again.
It seems there’s strange behavior going on right now with nature in general. No birds. None.
Hawks sitting on my fence. Dragonflies of all varieties on my patio. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen a single dragonfly since I moved to Tulsa in 2011 before last week.
When they do land, they always tend to land on one of the vines. They must be attracted to the flowering vines.
The squirrels are snatching up my morning glory leaves and nibbling them down to nothing.
I didn’t know squirrels ate morning glory leaves. It must have been mighty tasty because this squirrel ate one after another as I watched.
This morning I got a not so great photo of one of the dragonflies. As soon as Charlie and I went outside, I saw it flying overhead.
Did any of you happen to watch the first two episodes of season two of “The Sinner?” I watched a couple of episodes last year then forgot to watch the rest. I would still like to watch all of last season.
Bill Pullman is terrific in his role as detective. He is cautious in his words and seemingly touched by a tragedy from his own past.
Jessica Biel is not acting in the series this season. She is the executive producer. The season only has 10 episodes, so the plot moves fairly quickly.
Bill Pullman is called into this case by a friend from another police department. A young boy traveling with a couple inexplicably poisons them while staying at a hotel. This leads them to the boy’s mother, who seems to be the head of a local cult.
***
I’m now reading “What Happened That Night” by Sandra Block, a practicing neurologist in Buffalo, NY.
Synopsis via Goodreads:
One moment Dahlia is a successful Harvard student. The next, she wakes up from a party, the victim of a brutal assault. Her life veers into a tailspin, and what’s worse, her memory of the attack has been ripped away, leaving a cold rage in its wake.
Now, years later, Dahlia is a tattooed paralegal suffering from PTSD, still haunted by that night. Until one day, a video surfaces online, and Dahlia sees her attack for the first time. Now she knows what happened to her. And she knows who to blame. Her rage is no longer cold, but burning, red hot.
And she is about to make everyone pay.
***
I found it odd that within the first 20 or so pages that the protagonist had “lost time” after a tragic event. I too have lost time in my past. The actual reason for this is called dissociation.
Then another man enters the plot. And he has Asperger’s Syndrome. As you know I have Asperger’s Syndrome.
It was really hitting close to home.
For those of you who don’t know anything about dissociation, from Psychology Today: Dissociation is a mechanism that allows the mind to separate or compartmentalize certain memories or thoughts from normal consciousness. These split-off mental contents are not erased.
You become “disconnected” from wherever you are. It is a defense mechanism of the brain protecting you.
I remember once I was in a restaurant. Some sensory trigger in the room must have set off a reaction, because suddenly this dreamlike disconnected feeling swept over me.
The voices around me began to fade into the distance. Complete calm descended, as though I was watching where I was from afar.
A trigger can be a sight, sound, smell or touch. But you have no idea what memory is associated with the trigger. And you don’t know what the trigger was; whether it was a sight or sound or smell. It is something the brain keeps you from remembering.
It began happening in my early teens, or at least that’s when I first recall it happening. It hasn’t happened to me in quite awhile.
Only once do I recall actually losing hours of time, which was about a decade ago. I was alone driving home after a trip. I “lost” two hours and had no idea where I was. I had to stop at a store and ask what town I was in. I had never been there before.
A very strange and scary feeling because you have no idea what happened to those hours.
***
Today is the third month anniversary since I lost my Abi Rose. I miss you sweet girl. Mama will always, always miss you.
And now, as always happens when I look up a photo of you, the crying commences. You were one of the brightest lights of my life.
hi Brenda, Abi Rose will always be watching over you and Charlie. 3 months can seem like a fog when you are grieving. it’s been a strange year for me b/c of a big loss last year in August. Our hearts are with you. <3
Brenda, it’s been since the middle of this last Feb. since I had my Tavi-boy euthanized and I still haven’t been able to look at the photos I took of him that day right before he died. And the last two books I was reading came to a part where the dog in the story was sick and dying and I just shut the books and couldn’t finish reading them. The loss is still just so close to the surface for me. So, I’m not surprised that you cry when you see sweet Abi’s picture. I know I will, too, when I get enough courage to look at the photos of Tavi.
I’ve been enjoying keeping a dog belonging to my daughter’s friend while she and her family were on vacation last week and now I have my older daughter’s boxer while she and her family are away for the weekend. I enjoyed having a dog around again as, in general, I like dogs, so it’s been fine. But no substitute for my dear Tavi. It’s kind of like just getting my “doggie-fix” but nothing permanent. And that’s okay for now.
That is a weird phenomenon you described with the dragonflies. I’ve never witnessed them doing that. Maybe it does have something to do with the hot, dry weather. And I haven’t seen the squirrels around here since I took down my bird feeders to replace them so I don’t know if they are eating weird things or not. I suspect not since, although we’ve had really hot weather, we have had some rain, too. And Michigan is so humid anyway, that even when we don’t have rain we probably don’t get as dry as where you are. It’s the Great Lake affect.
Pats for Charlie and hugs to you, Brenda. Have a pleasant weekend.
I couldn’t finish a book with that in it either. I could not read, even in a novel, about a dog dying. It would do me in. Last night I was reading a novel and a paralegal protagonist in the book mentioned a lawsuit over a botched cataract surgery. Now I have never even read anything about a botched cataract surgery before. But of course I read that when Wednesday I go to have my first eye cataract surgery done.
Brenda a few years ago I caught cicadas ‘having it on’ but never dragonflies ( probably depends on the area )
I miss seeing Abi here / so sorry / going through the same thing with my cat 🙁 We just have to work through it and get used to it 🙁 But that’s just taking ages 🙁
I’m sorry about your cat. It is so hard. Harder than you can even put words to.
A sweet photo of Abi! Thanks for the book suggestion; I just bought in for my Kindle.
You and Charlie have a lovely weekend!
Carol and Molly
xoxo
You too, Carol and Molly. Try to stay out of the heat and read. I think that’s what I’ll be doing.
We haven’t had lots of birds this year either…but the ants, gnats, and mosquitos were bad, and we had so many fireflies. So I’ve seen lots of bats feeding at night!
That is the sweetest photo of Abi…
Oh, how I miss her.
I’m not a believer in time heals all wounds but it seems to help the hole in our hearts.
I swore I would never have another pet after I put our lab down in 2010,coming home to that empty house was literally incapacitating to me.
I had about a 30 mile trip to the hospital my hubby was at in end stage cancer,wasn’t eating much or sleeping at all,I wound up at a stoplight about halfway there without any recollection of how I got there, it is a terrifying feeling.
It happens under stress or when triggers signals a memory of a trauma and/or a time of great stress. Your brain removes you to protect you. After that one episode, it is one reason I don’t drive far alone. A doctor once explained it to me this way after that happened: “Your brain does this to protect you when you’re young and it knows you can’t handle certain things. It can’t “unlearn” this. So it continues to protect you.”
LOVE THE PHOTOS !
I REMEMBERED (believe it or not I think of ABI everyday ) WHAT TODAY WAS AS I GAVE CRICKET HER BREAKFAST. PERHAPS IT’S BECAUSE CRICKET HAS HER HEALTH ISSUES, BUT I PREFER TO THINK IT’S BECAUSE YOU ARE MY FRIEND, AND I CARE ABOUT YOU, YOUR ABI EVEN NOW, AND PRECIOUS CHARLIE ARE NEVER FAR FROM MY THOUGHTS.
TAKE CARE, SNUGGLES TO CHARLIE
Wow, I didn’t know you recalled along with me. Thank you for being a great friend!
Pope Francis says we will reunite with our pets in heaven. I believe him. If I get there before you do, I will tell Abi Rose what you said about her here.
Oh, what a sweet thing to say!
We have had an over-abundance of Dragonflies this summer and our squirrels have been eating up all of the green pine cones this past week. The weather has been so hot and dry up until this past week, I can only guess that their normal food source had dried up. I can’t recall a time when I have lost any amount of time but, I have had some really weird Deja Vu instances in the past. Sounds like a good book; I hope it isn’t too unsettling for you.
I don’t think dissociation is at all common. No, the book won’t be unsettling to me. I’ll find it interesting to make comparisons to my own experiences. I can already tell I’m very much like the man with Asperger’s.