texting

Can Tenor be Read?

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“The Tenor of Their Texts”

Tenor is a natural singing voice of a male singer. We males tend to have a lower range than women. Is that because we have longer vocal chords? Tenor also means the drift (idea) of something spoken or written. It may or may not be something that the writer intended to convey to the reader if the piece is written. There is more information if the phrase is spoken. There is even more information if the phrase is spoken in person and one can view facial expressions and other body language.

For me personally, the voice of the writer of a short text message is not always obvious. I often ask follow up questions and get chided for it. (Well, duh. – is often a response.) Pithy statements can be lost on me. I do not see any color or hear any tone in the words.

Somehow though that does not seem to occur on Debbie’s end of the exchange. “The tenor of their tests” is her phrase. She commented that you can tell a person’s feeling and mood from the tenor of their texts. Most times she seems to be able to discern mood (mine) merely from my response to her texts. It is an amazing ability. I think she can even detect if I was yawning while typing a reply. I do not know how she does it. She is an empath. Perhaps that gives her an edge that I do not have.

I still struggle with finding tenor in other’s written words. Most Facebook advocates do also, I think. Often I have noticed that when someone speaks their mind about something, anything, politically or not, many comments – if a comment is made – are about some other idea for which the commenter is passionate. Attacking the original commenter is used to distract into cacophony any lucid line of thought. Any tenor is muddled by crowd noise.

Sometimes, though, I can detect her anxiety and concern. There is more to learn as life goes on. I was very tuned into Cheryl and her needs and her moods. I had taken fifty years to accomplish that.

I will have to learn at a faster pace.

Carpe Diem.

Tiny Changes, Creeping Anxiety

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Tea or no tea today? A morning cup of tea after the bowl of cereal breakfast and taking time to work on the puzzles in the newspaper was/is her favorite morning wake up. This is changing. It is more random less routine.

Get ready for church on the wrong day – this past Sunday after three tries, we made it. We did not get up at 2AM to get ready for church at 10AM. On Saturday we visited our son and his family. That activity left Cheryl exhausted and ready to sleep when we arrived home. Perhaps the moral of the story is a good nights rest and my assurances that she had plenty of time to take her pills rest and take the 10AM dose slightly early allowed sleep without anxiety?

Blank stares at the computer screen… The screen that used to be second nature is now often befuddling.

Old messages on the cellphone – seem confusing because dates are confused and not meaningful. A year ago I had the brilliant idea to get Cheryl a smart phone so that her brothers and sisters who seemed to  communicate often by group chat could read their messages directly.  She has long been a email communicator.  Initially she adapted well.  As time went on I realized that not only was she reading old emails as though she had just received them but she was doing the same with old text messages. Sometimes emergency responses were sent back to a five month old text.

Her sisters have adopted the use of several emoji hieroglyphics that are meaningless to Cheryl.  This particular one — 🤷‍♀️ — a little girl with her hands up at her shoulders which could be used for “dunno” or “whatever” or a woman shrugging her shoulders in frustration is particularly meaningless to Cheryl while it is particularly meaningful to her sister.

Cute little whatever girl.

I think of the new smart phone now as “almost a good idea” and recognize that I made a mistake. Her sister has either wisely or unconsciously returned to the practice of sending the messages on the chat about another sister in Florida who is very ill with the Covid-19 virus to me. I interpret those to Cheryl. Cheryl seems comfortable with that. I leave out all the emoji icons that seem to clutter up the chat line and frankly mean little to me either.

Poor sleep patterns produce a late morning and long naps. It is a situation that feeds on itself. Sleeping late produces poor sleep at night which causes napping which produces poor sleep at night and on.

And the morning question, Where are we? worries me the most. When Cheryl describes this it is an out of body experience.  She knows that the furniture and decorations are much like hers but cannot make the connection that she is home. It too seems to occur after poor sleep that she has awakened early from. In the morning twilight her brain is confused. Two days age she asked, Can you tell me were we are? (Tears came to my eyes before I could stop it.)

She forgets the why or who of things on the bulletin board. Below is information about our grandson showing an amazing growth spurt over 24 months. Seven months or so ago when this was posted on the bulletin board we talked about it extensively.  We talked with the parents, with the neighbors, with friends. On this day seven months later she asked, what is this for?

Forgetfulness is more prevalent than merely that which accompanies old age. It explains many new behaviors.  The information about our grandson above is just one of them.

Parkinson’s is physically annoying and then you forget about it.