I’m a writer. I pride myself in the precision of word choice and the way I phrase things to represent my voice. Basically, words matter.
I’m also a sixty-year-old. I pride myself in looking younger and fitter than the average guy my age. Still, I get called “sir” more than I’d like, age spots are popping up on my body and there are plenty of other indignities.
One of the indignities intersects with my identity as a writer. In recent months, I’ve sometimes struggled with word choice. I sit in front of my laptop, cursor blinking, waiting, waiting…
It’s not that I’m searching my brain for a five-syllable word for nice or a metaphor to represent the lingering ache in my legs after a once run-of-the-mill hike. Instead, I’m grasping for something ordinary, a basic term I’ve known since I was four. The word hovers but fails to land. It’s there, tip of the tongue, back of my mind, perhaps slumbering somewhere in my pinky finger. It refuses to appear in a useful part of my brain so I can type it and quiet that dang blinking cursor for a moment or two.
While at Evan’s Colorado cabin, I’d gone to a café to write and he texted to see if I could buy some garden pruners, itself a challenging task in a place that was a village at most. I stopped into the convenience store, hoping pruners might share a shelf with bean dip, Doritos and Super Soakers.
No luck. (No surprise.)
I asked if there was a…a…a…something or other nearby. The term escaped me.
“Is there a…?
“A…”
My face reddened. My armpits activated. What was the name for a store that carries lots of varied items for gardens and home improvement? They sell mirrors, rope, kitchen tiles, peat moss and, yes, pruners.
My brain failed to cough up anything. It was on sleep mode. It’s not fun when my thinking organ decides to play a practical joke on myself.
I finally came up with a vague description instead of the term. “Is there a lumber place with tools nearby?”
It worked well enough. The owner gave me directions to a shopping center ten minutes away that included a Home Depot and a Walmart. Yes! I was on my way. Home Depot would definitely have pruners.
But, as I drove off, I continued to search my brain for what one might call a lumber place with tools. I knew I’d overemphasized the “lumber” element.
Three minutes into my drive, I abruptly pulled into a parking lot for a garden store. Perfect! I’d support an independent business. Pruners purchased.
Still, my brain was not forthcoming with what I’d meant when I asked about a lumber place with tools. I fretted about my aging mind. I went dark. Was this the beginning of early-onset dementia?
Too often, a forgetful moment now leads to dementia panic.
Halfway back to the cabin, the term came to mind at last. Hardware store! In the empty car, I articulated the question as I’d wanted it to be: “Is there a hardware store nearby?” The dashboard was not impressed. In fact, it was nonresponsive. I was relieved nonetheless.
The other day, I had another episode of the mind going blank. An incorrect phrase popped in my head as I wrote a passage—“a fiction of one’s imagination.” This was clearly wrong. Fiction and imagination had too much overlap. There was a redundancy. Fiction was not the right word. Still, the more I tried to recall the correct expression, the more my brain doubled down.
A fiction of one’s imagination.
A fiction of one’s imagination.
A fiction of one’s imagination.
Stop it, brain. Let me think.
Fiction. Fiction. Fiction.
This time, the wait wasn’t as long, but I was plenty frustrated with myself. “A figment of my imagination.” Yes! I was so flustered though, I chose not to use the phrase at all. I didn’t want a reminder of my faulty brain in the passage.
Again, I worried. Early-onset dementia?
This would be detrimental—no, devastating—to me as a writer. This cannot be happening.
There are other instances of word recall malfunctions in the past two weeks. I happen to forget them now. Is that itself a problem?!
In a calmer state while writing this blog post and having everything enter my brain and transfer to my Word document in a timely fashion, I am telling myself I have nothing to worry about. It’s normal to sometimes struggle to find the right words. The occasional delay or all-out failure to recall something is not a sign of dementia. When I was thirty, I am sure I stumbled with my words from time to time as well. Why should I descend into dark thinking now that I am sixty?
The answer is obvious. Because I am sixty. I’m older. Age spots don’t lie. I must monitor my body and brain. The fact that words, sentences and paragraphs easily spewed from my mind this morning is reassuring. I can put aside doomsday thinking about dementia.
Until the next time my brain fails me.
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