I come from a long line of women losing their minds, or rather their memories, and as I rapidly approach the age of 60, I’m finding my genes are wrecking some havoc on my own recall abilities.
I keep a small spiral notebook close at hand to write down everything from movies I’d like to see to what to buy at the grocery store. When I interview people for my new vocation as a writer for “Gorge” magazine, I use both the trusty notebook and the recording function on my cell phone. This handy 21st century tool is amazing, and like computers and copy machines, I wonder how we ever got along without these devices.
The experts say that keeping your brain engaged is an essential way to ward off memory loss. One of the best practices is to learn another language. To that end, I’ve joined a Spanish reading group to brush up on a language that I once spoke effortlessly, but now mix up verb tenses and forget vocabulary. I’m good at circumlocution, though, so if I can’t remember the Spanish word for “paintbrush” I can describe it in Spanish by saying, “The thing that’s made of wood and hairs that you use to put paint on paper.” Not very efficient, but it does make it possible to communicate.
My Spanish/English dictionary is getting a real workout. I find myself looking up more than half the words on every page of the novel we’re reading, then looking up the same words a few pages later. It makes for slow going — reading 30 pages can be an all-day effort. Thankfully, our teacher is gracious and helpful as she listens to us mangle her native language.
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Losing language has not only happened in my second language, but also in English. I sometimes forget words like “backhoe” when I’m in conversation with family and friends, and resort to calling it a “thing that scoops.” Conversation can become a contest of filling in the blanks. It’s like a TV game show without the host or the cash prize to the contestant who most quickly deciphers my message.
Some of my elderly friends struggle with memory loss much more than I do. They ask the same questions multiple times, forgetting the answer as quickly as they hear it. At the same time, they can recall with clarity and detail what happened 50 years before. My grandmother, who had severe
dementia, could look at my mom and say, “I had a daughter who had red hair and knew how to knit just like you.” In the final stages of my mother’s life, she would cuddle up to me and say, “You are the love of my life,” confusing me with an old boyfriend. On days when I feel my own brain function malfunctioning, these recollections can fill me with anxiety and dread. Thank goodness for Billy Collins, former poet laureate of the United States, whose wonderful poem “Forgetfulness” skillfully weaves together the humor and pathos of aging and memory loss, and reminds me that I’m not alone on this journey.
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Forgetfulness
The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion,
the entire novel which suddenly becomes
one you have never read, never even heard of,
as if, one by one, the memories
you used to harbor
decided to retire to the
southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village
where there are no phones.
Long ago you kissed the names
of the nine Muses good-bye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize
the order of the planets,
something else is slipping away,
a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle,
the capital of Paraguay.
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure
corner of your spleen.
It has floated away down
a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L
as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion
where you will join those
who have even forgotten
how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.
No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle
in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window
seems to have drifted
out of a love poem
that you used to know by heart.
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Billy Collins, “Sailing Alone Around the Room — New and Selected Poems,” published by Random House, 2001.
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