AS TIME GOES BY

There are some days I wake up focused--clear brained.  And there are days when my head, as well as the outside air is muddled by smog.  Too many voices talking at once bidding for my attention and creating a cacophony of confusion.

On those mornings, with agitation growing, I pause and try to get my thoughts to become more linear.  I inhale deeply as I go through this jungle in my head--scything away--trying to clear the overbearing distractions intruding on my brain.

I am finally able to "talk myself" down.  Find my spinal cord--my center--and venture out with a clear head--if not a clearer direction.  My brain is like my computer.  It carries a cache that needs to be emptied.  I've used up all my ram space and the rom is also full.

I joke about Alzheimer's.  I have the opposite.  My short-term memory is fine.  It's the long term that I am losing.

All the old show tunes I used to be able to sing have now lost their notes and lyrics.  All the poems I was able to recite, now remained buried.  Al the books and history I've read and experienced has become scattered and lost in misfiling.  Oh, how I wish I could call up my Mac "spotlight" to easily find what's hidden in my brain, as I'm able to do on my computer.  I now rely on "Google" to help my vague recollection to find those lost poems, the titles and authors of books and the stars of those movies I so loved.  My brain is like Wikepedia--it might have some information, but I cannot trust its reliability.


Last month we celebrated July 4th at my son's in laws.  Here we were, 10 people swimming in the afternoon and then, after dinner out came the iPads.  My son's niece, 13, asked her father, "Where is the old people's game app?"  "What old people's game?" I asked.  She said she called it that because her Nana said it was an old people's game.  It turned out it was a picture comparison game where you have to detect the differences in two similar pictures.  Three generations and 4 iPads started to play the game.  We all did well.  How reassuring.  There was a time when kids and adults would compare their various collections.  We sat with our iPads exchanging and comparing applications.


Has my computer become an extension of my brain--remembering for me all that I can no longer absorb?  Maybe there is some way to create an application for Alzheimer patients to be able to help them in their recall.  It is certainly working for us CRS (can't remember s--t) sufferers.