Kiss Your Brain

As the autumn of 2020 approached, we made the decision to sign up both kids for the online option that our school district offered. We felt that it would be in their best and healthiest interest to do so, and made accommodations to turn a room in the house into a makeshift computer lab for their class attendance and homework.

Our then-7th grader was more left to his own devices. I can’t recall much that he had in the way of actually watching classroom instruction. It was more a series of tutorials provided by a third party educational company with occasional check-ins with actual teachers. He actually didn’t do too badly at this, so it was fine.

Our then-1st grader, however, had a teacher dedicated to the online students. She interspersed talking to the kids with individual offline assignments throughout the day, the latter discussed together when all logged back into the common online space.

What I remember most from our daughter’s brief online learning sojourn (she’d eventually transition to in-person learning) was something the teacher would say when telling the class they’d done a good job with a lesson: she’d encourage the kids to “kiss your brain,” which entailed kissing one’s hand and then tapping oneself on the forehead.

I always got a kick out of this gesture. What better way to celebrate the work your brain had just helped you accomplish than to give it a symbolic kiss?

My own brain has needed some tender love and care lately. A few weeks ago it took some unfortunate bumps to the inside of my skull while I was at karate, resulting in a mild-to-moderate concussion. I detail the story on my podcast.

I’ve been needing to take things easy for a time, including more frequent trips to the chiropractor and taking time off work. I had to minimize screen time and felt the need to take near-daily naps. When I signed the publishing agreement for my upcoming book, I celebrated with sparkling grape juice rather than something harder. I’ve been drinking what seems like my weight in water every day.

There has also been the increased anxiety that this has caused me. The uncertainty and sadness that I experienced those initial few days after it happened carried me down to a dark space. It helped to talk about what was happening with my squad, and as I received greater clarity about how to best deal with the situation and as I received messages of support from friends and family, I was able to calm down and eventually see things more clearly and calmly.

I’m glad to say that as of this writing I’m feeling much better. I’m still proceeding cautiously, re-introducing former activities as I feel comfortable. Karate will wait at least until the New Year, with confirmation first from my doctor that it will be okay. Most other things, I’m already back to doing in some capacity.

This has been a hell of a way to wrap up my year of focusing on the word Heal. My brain has needed rest more than kisses, and I’ve been doing my best to give it that. And thankfully, healing is happening, day by day.