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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. |
| Some days I sit down to write and discover that my brain has filed for a temporary leave of absence. The cursor blinks at me like it is judging my life choices, and I stare back at it as if I can intimidate it into giving me an idea. It never works. The cursor always wins. When I have absolutely nothing to write about, I usually start noticing strange details around me. The coffee mug with the chipped rim. The way the air conditioner makes a sound that might be normal, or might be a small creature living inside it. These tiny things start showing up in my writing because, apparently, my imagination takes whatever it can get during an idea drought. I used to panic on days like this. I thought a blank mind meant something was wrong with me as a writer. Now I realize it is just part of the rhythm. Creativity needs time to wander off into the woods and argue with itself. Eventually it returns, pretending it never left, carrying a half-baked idea that it expects me to be grateful for. So when I have nothing to say, I write about the nothing. I write about the silence, the strange thoughts, and the coffee that somehow tastes both weak and bitter at the same time. I write until the nothing starts to feel like something. And it always does. It just takes a moment of patience, a deep breath, and occasionally a cup of coffee strong enough to jolt the muse back from wherever it wandered off to. Some days the words flow. Some days they crawl. And on days like this, they stand around, shrugging. So I write about that too. |
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Sending prayers for continued improvement and recovery 
