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I try not to be negative.
I try to be positive.
I try independence.
I try to be encouraging and uplifting.
I try not to mention it.
I try not to feel sorry.
For me, or for anyone.

The other night I had a vivid dream. I woke up in the morning knowing but not remembering exactly what. And I felt really bothered because the memory of it was right there, sitting there at the back of my mind behind it all and I had a feeling about it. But I couldn’t pull that memory into language. I could not remember what I had dreamt. It was incredibly strange – so familiar, so close, but irretrievable.

And I wonder if this is how she feels.

Does she hear conversations around her with a sense that she knows what is being said but is unable to extract meaning? Does she see the faces of her lovers and know that she knows them yet can’t quite place them? Does she have a sense that there is something that she should know but is unable to pin it down? Does she imagine the world to be different from how she is seeing it?

Perhaps it is that each day more and more of the pieces that build her sense of the world are simply removed and built into other places, out of her reach, just behind it all.

And I am constantly reminded.

By people and people do not purposely remind me.

Her appearance is normal. My appearance is normal. My speech – normal. My thought processes are normal.

It is easy for others to not understand. It is easy for me not to remember. It is easy for me not to remember my own remembering. I am forever remembering and not remembering. I am forever having to say that I remember or I do not remember. To remember or not to remember.

I mean, I always say its relational, I mean relative. We can trace a thing back or forwards or around in a certain direction covering the ground very closely if we want bit by bit, but no, I’m sure there is no hope that we can ever see the whole thing. It is just bits, parts, or parts of bits. Everything related to a point relating to another, relating to the next one. Next. Next.

It is important, I think, to follow your instinct a bit about what thing is important in relation to another thing. You know, to prioritize.

It is a strain. To remember. And also not to.


I recently attended a mammogram appointment. A young woman – around 21, must have never had a mammogram herself, she was the one who was doing my mammogram. And this is what I am talking about. I mean, you’ve got laugh. She probably asked the same questions she asks everyone, like where about’s I live, do I have any children, what I was doing with the rest of my day. You know, small talk. Talk whose purpose is to soften the situation. And I did try, to be soft. But with each question I felt slightly more removed than the one before, or the one before that. With each question I realized that the fraction of not remembering was increasing and that I simply did not know because remembering was all this situation could ever sum itself up towards. seeing as my body was here now in this room with her. Not anywhere else. Just here. With these questions, these answers, with these light green curtains, with this dull light. I don’t know what I did, perhaps it was my expression, but she laughed and I was embarrassed.

And it struck me, that this is actually intensely embarrassing. The fact of this. The fact of my body, sagging on top of my bones like this. My very actual softness actually. And the gradual imminent decay that is occurring. The fact that I might not survive, this time. I mean, as if any of us will. A funny idea, saving lives that’s a joke.

The doctor, the girl she was uncomfortable she stopped laughing, flushed. I tried very hard too, to maintain composure, to act normal. And I do look normal – I do act normally.

Sometime over the last few days, I caught myself talking to myself in the fruit and vegetable aisle. That might not have bothered me so much, but I noticed several different people looking. I was actually trying to remember what I needed. I had a list to refer to and did frequently have to check it. I kept forgetting the Doritos and it was useful to talk myself through.

I found myself talking to myself elsewhere in the store, also actually. I have to tell you that.

My mind has been wrapping around the word competent lately. It is an especially important word. Having enough ability to do what is needed; capable.

Capable. Now thats a word. Capable.

What makes one capable?

Capable: able to achieve efficiently whatever one has to do; competent.

And we have a nice palindromic system here, one breeding the other, breeding the other. A nice loop. – competent – capable – capable – competent.

Which came first? I wonder.

Legally, I am not a good candidate for either.