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 Each day feels new, and my memory of the one before is faint. I’m learning to adapt. |
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In September 2019, a seizure revealed a lime-sized meningioma pressed against my hippocampus—the part of the brain that governs memory and language. The doctors said it was benign, but benign didn’t mean harmless. Surgery removed the tumor, and three days later I opened my eyes to a new reality. I could walk, I could talk, but when I looked at my wife, her name was gone. I called her Precious—the only word I could find. A failure of memory, yet perhaps the truest name of all. Recovery has been less cure than re-calibration. Memory gaps are frequent. Conversations vanish. I had to relearn how to write, letter by halting letter. My days are scaffold by alarms, notes, and calendars. When people ask how I am, I don’t list symptoms or struggles. I simply say, “Seven Degrees Left of Center.” It’s not an answer—it’s who I’ve become. |
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Thinking about writing doesn’t count as writing. This occurred to me sometime between the first cup of coffee and the moment I realized I was still staring at a blank screen. I was fully engaged in the process. Planning. Considering. Mentally revising a paragraph that did not yet exist. Very productive. Zero words written. Thinking feels like progress. It has posture. It sits there nodding seriously, pretending it’s on your side. Meanwhile, nothing moves. I told myself I was just warming up. Writers need to warm up, right? Stretch the brain. Loosen the ideas. Possibly check the news. Maybe refill the coffee. All very important steps. None of them involves typing. Then I ran into this sentence: Thinking about writing doesn’t count as writing. Rude. Accurate. Somewhere around the second reread of that line, my fingers hit the keyboard. Not confidently. Not elegantly. Just enough to break whatever spell had convinced me that thinking was the same thing as doing. So here’s today’s rule. If I catch myself thinking about writing instead of writing, I’m losing. The fix is embarrassingly simple. Type something. Anything. Bad sentences count. Complaints count. This paragraph definitely counts. Which means, despite my best efforts to avoid it, I appear to be writing after all. |
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Best wishes for 2026, and do please keep us in your loopy loop 
