Just right!
The other day one of the grandsons and I were in the car. Whizzing along we sang, “HI HO, HI HO, it’s off to work we go”, you know, the song from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
It’s the same song his mom and I sang years ago as we marched out to the clothesline, to hang up freshly laundered clothes on sunny, summer, Monday mornings. (We had lots of clothes to hang up!)
When my kids were little (and since they’ve grown up and when they were in-between!) they commonly said, “Mom, can you please not sing!” So when the grandsons are willing to tolerate my singing, I take it for all it’s worth.
This day though, we weren’t off to the back-forty to hang up clothes in the summer breeze, we were in town heading for my office, preparing to work on the tools of a Young Learner’s Reading Program. Everything felt just right!
As we drove along, passed through an intersection, and then began to move downhill, (going to pick up a little speed here, I thought to myself!) a truck pulls in front of our line of cars. A large… slow …truck.
So we sang a little more!
The car windows are rolled down because instead of a roasting 110ish-degree day, as we’ve had for the past 40 some days, it was a wonderful 90-degree morning. (Hum, just right for clothesline hanging-out.)
Instead of whizzing now we’re creeping, but no matter, because everything was pretty perfect in that moment. Beautiful sky, lovely temperatures, cool breeze and great company. What more could I ask for!
A nice Columbia, Missouri police officer monitoring my speed? Rather, non-speed!
As we hit the bottom of the hill and cruised past the black-and-white car casually pulled to the side of the road, I looked right at him, and laughed. My eyes could barely stay open I was laughing so hard. I was close to crying. “I’m, a grown woman singing “HI HO, HI HO it’s off to work we go” at the top of my lungs, with the windows open, whizzing down the hill…um, wanting to whiz down the hill, creeping along like a turtle because of a huge, boxy very convenient truck.
The quote from the English poet and playwright William Shakespeare’s work “all’s well that ends well“ sums it up. All was well. I wasn’t trying to mock the police officer, no way, I was so relieved that I wasn’t speeding that I was overcome with joy and wellness!
The feeling that I had in that moment was perfect. Just right. I was relieved, happy and joyful all rolled into one knowing that if not for the truck I could have rolled along into a speeding ticket!
That, my friends, is how it feels to be “focused”, to be“on-point”; that’s how I would explain the feeling the tool of focusing gives to me when correctly using the Davis Dyslexia tool technically called ‘Orientation Counseling’.
Children and adults who work with the Davis Dyslexia Correction Program and Davis Autism Approach experience this feeling, as soon as possible, at the beginning of a program. After all, it’s a very important tool.
Don’t all teachers expect their students to have the ability to listen and participate in the classroom; to be able to take in information they can later apply in other settings, in other ways?
Don’t all employers expect their employees to know how to pay attention so they can be productive; to be on top of what they’re making, creating, explaining, selling, moving, promoting….?
Don’t all parents appreciate a child who hears what they’re saying, not a child who seems to selectively misinterpret everything they say?
And, when I truly learned how to get “focused” that’s exactly how it felt for me…like everything had just fallen exactly into place and it was “just right!”
“HI HO, HI HO, it’s off to school/work/ home we go!”
