Memories like the corners of my mind…



Barbra sang it. I live it. Everyday. No, not the poignant, water-colored memories of The Way We Were, but the prosaic, fleeting, forgetful memories of everyday living, a half remembered phrase, someone’s name on the tip of my tongue.  A letter usually comes to me—is my mind’s filing cabinet better organized than my cluttered office? Her name was... started with an S and had an L in it? Or did it start with an L and have an S in it? I go through the alphabet, as if doing a crossword.  Sally, SaraLee,  Selma, Shayla, Shiloh,  Sharleen,  Shirley. That’s it!  Whew! Shirley, Shirley bo-perly, banana fanana fo-perly,fee fi mo-merly. Shirley

Sometimes I start a sentence and I see a word, like a horse in the Kentucky Derby, rounding the far clubhouse turn and pounding the turf to cross the finish the sentence line in time. The mud is flying, other words moving up threatening to obscure the finish and steal the ending for my word.  Did you notice I speak in longer sentences these days?

Example:

She: It’s a long story, I just don’t like her.

Me:  So maybe you don’t like her because of her background; she didn’t come from money, but wants it now. She’s just a ____ ______(hooves are thundering, but still at the final turn). So I improvise: You know, someone who is ambitious, wants more, wants to move up the ladder, join the in crowd, be in society, be a --ta da-- SOCIAL CLIMBER.

I shout it out like I’ve just buzzed into Jeopardy and I’m beating out ___ _______, that little blonde guy who won a million dollars, my mom loved him,  he was from Oklahoma, worked in I.T.  KEN JENNINGS!





Won $25.Million and has a blog now, too: http://ken-jennings.com/blog

It’ s most embarrassing when it’s a simple word that eludes you like plunger or scooter.  It gets you thinking about the existential nature of that object.  If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it make a sound? If you can’t identify a simple plunger, does that diminish the plungerosity of that simple tool?  OK, maybe too early in the morning for this discussion.

Misplacing objects is a whole other scenario.  My normal multitasking day goes like this: Morning breakfast, reading the paper the old fashioned way, sun coming in the window, enjoying my coffee, nice and relaxed. Then it starts:  Where is my phone, my keys, my sunglasses. Track down the usual suspects, phone in handbag, on charging stand, dresser, car or left in the pocket of whatever I wore yesterday. And that was…what? Which jeans, jacket, sweater, gym clothes?

Simplify! If you have less stuff, you’ll lose less stuff and have less stuff to go through to find your lost stuff. So if you see me in the same jeans, sweatshirt and jacket every single day, don’t be alarmed. I’m not homeless, just putting the new system  in place.

Sticky Notes:  little reminders everywhere so I know what  I have to do today and checklist for going out the door.  The only problem with sticky notes is they proliferate, reminding me of that old commercial for that labeling system with the cute name where you could easily print out labels and actor has them all over his body and  face—the label maker…. P-TOUCH!  A friend suggested using a notebook instead, so I carry a little book, but sometimes I lose that, too.

The silver lining is I’m not alone in this.  Gary and I sometimes play the alphabet litany/jeopardy search game together, piecing together our separate memory fragments to get to the Eureka moment of the right word,  place, movie, book or name.  I commiserated recently with two good friends over dinner. What had happened to us? I was glad it wasn’t just a side effect of my chemo treatments, aka “chemo brain”. It afflicted us all, so seemed to be more a consequence of  “aging”—such a nasty word.

What about our parents’ generation?   Did they have this much trouble?  Have we been duped into thinking we could really multitask and now our brains are rebelling and paying us back?

Back to basics: what about that game you played as a kid—pat your head and rub your stomach, then switch and rub your head and pat your stomach. It took a lot of concentration and  I remember collapsing in  laughter.

For now I’m limiting my multitasking to walking and chewing gum and that seems to be working. Now let me just find my keys and I'm out the door...