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Sat, Nov 1, 2025

3:48pm EDT

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Seven Degrees Left of Center

by Dale Ricky

Rated: 13+ · Book · Personal · #2276168

Each day feels new, and my memory of the one before is faint. I’m learning to adapt.

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.

Show Recent Comments

10 Most Recent Blog Comments:

JACE

Oct 30, 2025 at 10:44am
In response to "Finding North Again"

I can only imagine what you're going through with your surgery and that road to recovery. It sounds like recovery is more like a path through heavily forested woods, the path strewn with fallen limbs and leaves, and roots reaching up to trip you.

My own surgery (for kidney cancer) as traumatic enough, but while it preyed on my mind, it didn't 'play' with it. And I don't mean play in its kindest note.

Keep on writing. It may be all any of us really have. Best of luck with your recovery.

1 Like

GrueSum1

Oct 20, 2025 at 9:50am
In response to "Lost in the Story I Already Wrote"

First, I love your Handle/Pen Name! Seven Degrees Left Of Center... Seeing your name just kind of made my day.

I think what you're going through is one of my biggest fears. Forgetting everything. I know, and hope you're doing better today than previous days, and that your memory is returning more and more each day. Losing your memory has to be a nightmare for you.

I can see you writing something that seems familiar, only to realize you've written this, or something very similar. I don't think I have a major memory loss, but I know I've started writing something only to learn I had already written, or something similar. Fortunately, it's usually something from long ago. Let's hope it doesn't get any worse for both of us, as we age.

Amethyst Autumn Angel

Oct 9, 2025 at 11:12am
In response to "Letting It Soak"

I believe all ideas should be scribbled down as soon as one feels they're worthwhile. Even if it never gets past the rough idea, at least you'll have a record of it for future reference.

Amethyst Autumn Angel

Oct 3, 2025 at 8:35am
In response to "Learning Curves: Then and Now"

Wow, that's news to be excited about

Sending prayers for continued improvement and recovery

Scary_Soldier_Mike

Sep 27, 2025 at 10:16am
In response to "Instant Coffee: Freeze-Dried Disappointment"

I completely understand the recalcitrant coffee pot situation and I, too, have swilled my share of hotel-based caffeine. That being said, don't let {suser:lilli_in_fl} catch you drinking it.

Amethyst Autumn Angel

Sep 25, 2025 at 10:51am
In response to "Rewired"

I have the same type of problem, Dale. My mind abounds with beautiful, emotional, action packed scenes, but I have no idea how to shape them together into a coherent story. It's like having bits of five different movies all chopped up and scrambled and missing the in-between parts. Just keep doing it

1 Like

Amethyst Autumn Angel

Sep 9, 2025 at 8:13am
In response to "Up too early"

I used to love waking up early in the morning when I was a kid... I'd sit up and greet the sunrise with the robins and recite poetry I'd memorized... Ahh, those were some peaceful times.

All the best!

1 Like

AmyJo-Zombie hours

Aug 31, 2025 at 1:33pm
In response to "At some point, you call it done"

I enjoyed reading both versions. I did like the limited version more, and now I am hooked! So many questions now...

Maid of the Mist Most Macabre

Aug 30, 2025 at 11:21am
In response to "A good story gone wrong"

Writing is a process, isn't it? I believe the starts and stops happen for a reason. I hope those words reappear and behave this time.

Max Griffin 🏳️‍🌈

Aug 28, 2025 at 9:11am
In response to "Yesterday is gone"

Point of view, kind of like Rome, isn't learned in a day. It takes even longer for it to become second nature as you transcribe the internal movie that's playing your head to the page. I still catch myself sticking in little summary bits instead of staying in the character's head.

To answer Amethyst Autumn Angel

's question, modern novels do indeed more often than not have more than one point-of-view character. Romance novels will often alternate between the romantic leads, for example. SciFi, thriller, and mysteries often use multiple points-of-view--Lucifer's Hammer by Niven and Pournelle comes to mind. Mystery novels sometimes focus on just the detective, but other times use multiple characters. My own novel, Seeking Hyde, uses at least four POV characters. It even switches from 3rd person limited in one chracter's head to first person in a different character's head. Hemingway does something similar in To Have and Have Not.

Readers are delicate critters, and easy to confuse. Too many points of view, or poorly executed transitions from one point of view to the next, can be confusing. If you use more than one point of view--in a story or a novel--it's important that you use other tools to be sure that your reader doesn't get lost in the dust.

The most common "rules" are, first, one point of view per scene; and, second, only one point of view per short story. But...I have a little rock I keep on my desk with the word "nothing" engraved on it to remind me that "nothing is engraved in stone." Everything depends on context. The second rule, for example, depends on the story. "A Rose for Emily," by Faulkner, uses more than one point of view.

Point of view is a tool--a big tool, to be sure--but it's just a tool. It's one of the most powerful tools you can deploy in bringing your fictional world to life in the readers' imaginations. In doing that, it keeps your reader enmeshed in the here-and-now of your story. It also takes time and practice to deploy consistently and effectively.

Ok, I'll shut up now.

1 Like

October 30, 2025 at 10:23am

#1100454

Finding North Again

There was a time when my compass spun wild. No matter which way I turned, the arrow trembled, refusing to point anywhere solid. That’s what life felt like after everything changed—after the surgery, the gaps, the days when memory slipped through my fingers like water. I wasn’t sure who I was anymore, or how to find my way back.

So I started to write.

At first, it wasn’t healing. It was survival. The words were my breadcrumbs, scattered across the forest floor of confusion. Some days they led nowhere. Other days, they pointed—just faintly—toward something that felt like north.

Writing became my way of listening to the silence inside me, of mapping the terrain I could no longer trust my mind to remember. Each sentence was a small calibration, a gentle nudge of the compass needle. Slowly, it began to settle. Not perfectly, but enough.

Healing, I’ve learned, isn’t about returning to where you were. It’s about accepting where you are and learning how to navigate from there. My compass still drifts sometimes—it points seven degrees left of center more often than not—but that’s okay. That’s where I live now. That’s where I write from.

Each word I put down is a direction, a choice, a moment of clarity in the fog. I may never find true north again, but maybe the point isn’t to. Maybe it’s to keep walking anyway, pen in hand, trusting that even a crooked compass can still lead you home.

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