Oilslick slippery / Peanut butter thick
What is it?
Long-Covid? Early onset dementia? Standard issue old age? Or some combination? Perhaps none of the above?
I’m not sure. And that uncertainty has a sidecar: fear.
And fear has questions. So many questions.
Is it something worse? How fast is it moving? Can people tell? Is this the beginning of the end? Is this actually nothing but then my overinflating of the nothing actually turns it into something? Is this just normal “being human” stuff? Am I trying to convince myself I’m special via some “condition”? Do other people just have better coping strategies? What’s the name of this neighbor kid who my son has played with every day for years, who we brought bowling tonight, so I can input it on the electronic scoring screen?
In the past few years, even before Covid for what that’s worth, I’ve noted what feels like a cognitive deterioration.
One of its most common and obvious manifestations is an inability to fetch words (the name of the boy in the questions above, for example) quickly. I’ll get stumped mid-sentence, unable to dig up the specific word I’m looking for1—troubling, when you make your living as a writer, but worrisome for anyone really, though I know this frequently happens to many. I know how the usual “brain fart” feels. This feels….extra.
The brain freezes, locks up. Like a brainful of gridlock traffic, horns start honking but nobody’s moving. It’s why I don’t make fun of ol’ Mitch McConnell when his software seizes up; I know how it feels. I just want ol’ grandpa to retire and hang out at home and dote on his grandkids (and stop supporting fascism).
It also manifests itself in an inability to remember things in the short-term. Sure, your garden variety “walk into a room with an objective that you promptly forget.” But, again, more. Forgetting tasks, and pressing ones at that. Spacing out of things that previously required no Google Calendar pop-ups or giant notes on the bathroom mirror. Losing track of whether I’ve taken my daily medication or not. This is when I think it might just be old age. They make those daily pill containers for a reason.
I don’t think I’m getting dumber in any grand way, although I am—separately— settling into that portion of life where I think a lot of humans start realizing just how much we DON’T know. There’s a quote attributed to Einstein about that: “the more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.” And I’m fine with that. It’s motivating. Grounding. It even feels a little like…wisdom. But, no, I don’t think my intelligence is waning, necessarily2. The processor up there, though, seems to be working harder than it used to need to.
One way I’ve found to describe my situation is that everything cognitive has become…simultaneously oilslick slippery and peanut butter thick.
On the recommendation of a friend, I started watching a documentary series on HBO called How To With John Wilson. Wilson is a filmmaker who shoots all kinds of footage and then puts voiceover essays—under the loose pretense of giving advice, hence the title HOW TO—over them, to quirky ends, usually with some unpredictable detours. It’s weird and good, for the right kind of person (me) but not for everyone (to wit, there’s a circumcision-driven3 episode that I can’t bring myself to watch).
The second episode is called “How To Improve Your Memory.” Wilson, following the threads wherever they lead, ultimately ends up in Ketchum, Idaho at a conference (in a little motel conference room; “conference”, in this case, is an aspirational term. There were maybe 10-12 people.) about The Mandela Effect. As I watched the people assembled for the conference, it blew my mind. This was a group of people who, rather than doubt the faultiness of their memory, instead choose to leap to all kinds of wild things—labyrinthine conspiracies, multiversal scenarios, deep government coverups. They go to great and absurdist lengths, in denial of (Occam’s Razor and also) the fact that memories are just inherently fallible. Anyone who’s ever been in an argument with a significant other knows that human memory does not bat 1.000.
I guess I mention that to make sure you don’t think I’d expect my memory to be perfect. Or even “really good.” I recognize its inherent flaws. But, like I keep saying, this maybe feels different than standard issue?
I feel like I can hear the proverbial laptop fan whirring madly away inside me, trying to keep the critical pieces cool. Only sometimes succeeding.
A year-plus (98 posts!) into Substacking4, I reflect on my Why. Why do I keep writing here?
The answer is complicated and sprawling. But one reason I write is simply because I need to. It fills something in me. It’s a couple slices of the pizza-sliced pie chart that is my What Helps Me Feel Alive (In A Positive Way) gauge5.
But, lately, another reason I write? To preserve. To keep. To put it down in words while I still have it.
“Put what down in words?”
Yeah, I suppose that nobody would argue that documenting my favorite recorded moments by U2’s The Edge or my thoughts on 90’s songs or fiction about cursed praying mantises is exactly ….necessary. At least on a grand, global scale. But it’s necessary on the personal scale, which is where I’m operating from. In those globally unnecessary ramblings—amid my take on guitar solos and the American flag and the turning off & on of light switches—are true pieces of me.
Of course, if my kids someday wanna get to know me better and look this up to get some ideas of how I thought about things, how I talked when there weren’t kids around6? Great. That would be meaningful to me, for sure. And still, like many things that matter to me, I don’t do them because they’re going to change the world; I do them because they change my world.
Would it be cool if my kids someday knew me better through this? Of course. Is it ok if they don’t? Absolutely.
One of the songs I’m currently working is called “You Won’t Remember This” about just this thing. As any parent, I find myself doing all kinds of things for and with my kids. In the moment, I think—to borrow from Pixar’s Inside Out—”Paul, you’re creating core memories.” And I pat myself on the back. But then, especially in my slippery/sludgy brain phase, I reflect on what specific childhood memories I have of my own parents and, honestly, there’s a handful. (At least unassisted by my mother’s unbelievably comprehensive scrapbooks.) I don’t have encyclopedic reserves of memories with my parents between the ages of 3 and 18. I have the core memories. Some of them. But it’s no e’er-flowing river.
Last month, I finished reading The Girl Who Drank The Moon by Kelly Barnhill with my youngest daughter. And we both loved it. It’s fantastic7. We were both dreading the story ever ending, wincing as the distance to the final page shortened. I can’t actually believe it’s not a tv series or movie yet. Anyway, as I read it, I was all-in: each of the main characters had a unique voice8 I’d use and I’d read it with an Audible-narrator level of drama. Once I finished the last page of each night’s reading (after a headlining-band-caliber “last page of the night” fakeout, in which I pretended to be done with the book, only to relent for the inevitable encore when she begged for one more chapter), she’d ask if I’d tickle her back while she fell asleep. It’s a small thing but also a big part of our rhythm and a living polaroid of the best part of parenting: warmth, connection, love, minor doting, SILENCE, etc.
And one day—it could be today—she will likely forget it.
Hence my work-in-progress song, “You Won’t Remember This.”
But I’ll remember it. Either because it meant a lot to me (it did) or because I wrote it down right here (I did).
Writing songs. Writing essays and secret screenplays and whatever else. Playing music with my friends. Serving with the members of my congregation. Bringing home ice cream for this child. Sending Star Wars memes to another. Tickling my daughter’s back as she drifts off to dreamland. Making a Lego WWE stage with another.
These are not world-changing gestures. They don’t have the effect that a Bill Gates or Elon Musk could with their money. Or that a Joe Biden or Donald Trump could with their power. Or that a Taylor Swift or Beyonce could with their music. They’re small things in my small world.
That’s a long way to repeat what I already said paragraphs ago: I write because it changes my world for the better. And if someone reads it and feels something, all the better.
“You Won’t Remember This (And That’s OK).” But I’m trying to.
“I hope you’ve been keeping some kind of record” wrote Leonard Cohen in his masterpiece (one of them, at least), “Famous Blue Raincoat.”
While we’re talking lyrics, let’s do some Peter Gabriel too, from “Blood of Eden” to get us back to that feeling of slipping.
My grip is surely slipping
I think I've lost my hold
Yes, I think I've lost my hold.
I’ve never been the swiftest, wittiest conversationalist or replier-in-person (or, on the rare occasion that I have, it has been more serrated than is prudent), especially in groups. Part of that is a by-product of anxiety. Worrying about saying the wrong thing. Wanting to say just the right thing, just the right way. Worried what people will think. Perfectionism. And, by the time I finally formulate what I’d say, the conversation has typically moved on to some other topic. Or I’ve given whatever throwaway answer my brain spits out in a panic. So there is some precedent of needing some extra time to process and get my thoughts out; it’s part of my identity as a writer, I suppose.
But this? (All together now! Like a class of third graders!) “This feels different from that.”
I dare not test the treacherous waters of WebMD for fear of discovering that this is inarguably an inoperable tumor found in only .00001% of the population, typically baritone-voiced redheads with last names ending in -sen.
A couple years ago, I asked my therapist about it, mentioning my concern that I was experiencing a noticeable cognitive decline. Her reply, “you seem pretty sharp to me” was flattering but far from reassuring. Something (Here we go! I wanna hear you scream!) “just feels different.” I can’t put my finger on it.
It’s probably just all in my head.
For instance, in the previous paragraph, it took me probably 6x as long as it used to just to dig the word “cognitive” out of my brain.
Those around me might argue.
First and last time I’ll say “circumcision-driven.” Promise.
Not to be confused with my What Helps Me Feel Alive (In A Negative Way) gauge, which includes stuff like “physical pain” and “too-early mornings” and “hearing that one WWE wrestler’s aggressive entrance song at top volume for the 1000th time.”
Sorry for the WWE song slander in the previous footnote, Elliott! Love you, buddy!
Maybe my favorite kids’ book I’ve read with her. It really makes it hard to read other, less well-thought-out books.
This is where I should be clear that, really, I have about 8 mediocre voices in me:
regular me (usually the main character)
higher pitched me (women, children, small talking animals)
lower pitched me (someone old or huge or both, large talking animals)
scratchier, raspier me (old or tired or mysterious)
British me (in the last book, I tried one character as posh British and another as cockney Brit-ish, to middling results)
New Yorker with a little Boston in there (The Girl Who Drank The Moon had a witch who, by her accent, must be from Long Island; this was a thing in Disney cartoons in the 80s/90s, where they loved to give the sidekick an accent straight out of the Bronx or something)
Cowboy twang & drawl (works for any sorta renegade character, think Han Solo or Star Lord)
Villain voice (you know the one…Snape, Saruman)
After that, it gets pretty ugly. Before that, it’s pretty ugly too, honestly. Usually I’m glad nobody’s listening in to hear my putrid attempt at Michael Caine-ing a line. Sometimes I’ll regret using one of the accents too early on a minor character.
I’ve experimented with a Southern accent (not my worst), an Eastern Block/Russian type accent (meh) and an Australian accent (probably my worst) as well as various degrees of gruffness and/or timidity. Sometimes a younger or hyperactive character will rattle off dialogue faster. I’m smart enough to stay away from most accents that might have some racism in there (basically anything that doesn’t read vaguely caucasian). I don’t need my kids going to school telling their friends how their dad does such a fantastic Mulan or Speedy Gonzalez.
I want to read The Girl who Drank the Moon with or without you. 😉.
Brilliant. Insightful. I feel the peanut butter thick as well.