How is it that we use "register" for that machine that goes cha-ching! (or, nowadays, beep!) at the grocery store as it adds our grocery bill, but also for describing our feeling when we make an observation, or we suddenly find a new understanding?  When the world makes sense, do we feel rich?

Just wondering.  I had more of a point to that observation but forgot it by the time I turned my computer on from its sleep and started up Live Writer (the little software app I use to write in the blog).  Too bad, I think I was going to be clever and deep, or at least one of the two.  Or, so I thought.

I feel a little more fluffy-headed this evening because, even though I took two long naps today, I’m tired.  After sleeping through dinner and waking up at bedtime, I decided to lie in bed and read a book called In the Shadow of Memory by Floyd Skloot on the recommendation of a friend.  A case of encephalitis left him with a broken brain and a broken sense of self.  As he began to work through and around his new deficits, he did what he needed to do:  he wrote. 

Because I’m tired, and because my reading comprehension isn’t always as good as I’d like to pretend it is, I’m forgetting some details as I’m reading.  But I have found some bits that have registered and resonated, even though the nature of my brain injury is so much simpler and milder than Mr. Skloot’s.  In fact, that’s what’s so impressive:  by taking the time and making the extraordinary effort to speak for himself, he speaks for many more.  Like the art they are, I wish to post these book-bits up somewhere I can see them later.  I decided this was the best place. 

(Somewhere between decided to do that and actually doing that I thought of the register thing, which appeared, took form, and then floated away, like clouds that resemble objects and then blow away as soft smudges.)

On moving to the country four years after his injury in the essay "Wild in the Woods:  Confessions of a Demented Man":

I still equated the city with self-sufficiency.  But . . . I began to consider escaping the frenzy, fleeing the noise and energy and congestion.  It would always be difficult for me to think clearly, but being surrounded by urban commotion made it worse.  I felt scattered.  I had come to see that it was impossible to slow down in the city.  It was impossible to find harmony between my surroundings and my newly diminished self, reined in, slowed down, isolated from the worlds of work, running, and community that I had always lived in.  There was too much stimulation, too much outer life for a person in my situation.  I had nothing but time on my hands but was living where time seemed accelerated.  I needed an emptier place, I thought, pared down, humbler; a place where I could embrace as fitting my circumstances.

I’ve always wanted to be a country girl, driving tractors, riding horses, wearing jeans chatting at the feed store.  When I was Carmen’s age my favorite uniform was cowboy boots and overalls.  I had  a cowboy hat with a peacock feather in it.  My favorite visiting place in my childhood memory was Dr. Villafaña’s ranch somewhere around Poth, Texas, where the soil was sandy.  He had a ranch house with a windmill (that my grandfather helped repair), a pasture full of jackrabbits, and the whole sky to watch. 

In grad school I discovered backpacking, declaring public lands my own personal ranch, traveling for the luxury of tip-toeing over rocks in cold streams and spending hours listening to the wind pass over the landscape.  At home Matt and I rode our bikes over country roads, waving at the neighbors, watching the cotton and rice mature to harvest, feeling the coastal wind push against us. 

We moved here to be closer to the heart of the city.  Houston’s best museums, universities, libraries, and artists are an easy walk or drive away.  We figured if we were going to live in Houston, we would live in the center of it, not in a suburb where even a trip for groceries involved a car ride and traffic.  While, especially in the light of the AVM and my aversion to driving and long car trips, this was the best decision.  But I am often overwhelmed here.  I want to scratch away the sound of the traffic.  I hate to cross the street alone, because I don’t always feel like I can be alert and look as quickly as the cars which might in any instant have a green light, decide to make a rolling right, or speed through an illegal left.  At night as we walk I focus on moving forward, making quick glances to the left and right carefully, so I don’t lose my balance and stagger.  Roadsides feel cluttered and unkempt (not like a row of strip malls is pretty in any perspective); residential streets make little impression because while walking or riding in a car I can’t bear to look beyond the sidewalk and when I do, it’s too easy to forget what I’ve just seen.  I moved here because I wanted to be closer to people but sometimes I feel stifled by them, overwhelmed by them and their noises and smells and accents and comments that I smile and nod to even though I have no idea what I’ve just heard.  I am surrounded by friends, but sometimes don’t feel comfortable enough to act properly friendly, while other times I struggle to enjoy their company because we meet at a place where background activity competes for my attention.  It’s too busy, and I wish to get away, spend all my time someplace where the sky changes slowly, the vistas are open, and the only fast movements are those of the birds hopping and singing in a nearby tree. 

So when I read that after his brain injury Floyd Skloot left the city, where everything he needed was in walking distance, and familiar as a home of several years, I nodded, marked the page, and imagined myself somewhere else.  I continue to improve operating in those distracting, everyday places; a couple of weeks ago I actually caught a math error at the co-op while chitchatting with the cashier (a real achievement, nevermind I forgot to pay for the $18 box of vegetables in my arms).  When the sensory noise of my semi-urban environment bothers me less or finally feels as natural as the breeze, when I feel like I can drive further without being dizzy and exhausted, I wonder if I’ll feel the same way.

*

On verbal mistakes, in the same essay:

I am safe with them only when I am alone and writing, able to correct myself before anyone hears or sees the mistakes.

We all make verbal mistakes, or forget names, but it’s a little disconcerting when those mistakes happen several times a week, or day.  It’s also embarrassing because I don’t like to break my sense of cool.  Cool people make sense.  Mommies, especially.

A couple of weeks ago we were all in the car, off to run a quick errand.  Midway down the next block, we spotted our neighbors and their two dogs.  I waved enthusiastically, and to demonstrate to C&D proper friendly neighborliness, I cried out loud, "Look! Bye, Lisa!  Bye, Kirby!  Bye, horsies! Bye, horsies!"  As Matt prepared to make a right I wanted to sink into my seat.  "Bye, doggies, bye doggies."   I hoped Kirby and Lisa didn’t hear, and didn’t know how to read lips.  Carmen and David didn’t bother to say anything, either.  I think they’ve gotten used to it.

Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if more of my verbal centers had been compromised while repairing the AVM.  The possibilities leave me boggled, and grateful.

*

In "Living Memory," about managing to ride a bike in Ireland:

I didn’t know if I could still ride a bicycle.  When people say that it’s one of things you never forget how to do, they’re not taking brain damage into account. 

I still haven’t tried riding my bike.  I know I probably *can* ride it, I’m just not sure I’ll like it, nor am I sure I won’t break my head again.  I’m afraid of going so fast, and I’m not sure I know how to ride a bike slowly.  I’m also afraid of having to be so coordinated braking, turning, clipping in and out.  And I’m afraid that once I realize I can do these things, I’m going to collapse in bed silly and giddy, and need to sleep for the rest of the weekend. 

*

In "Living Memory," being hyper-aware after a brain injury:

I am often turned inward by the very nature of the damage to my brain, checking systems, working at remembering, thinking about where I walk, looking hard at the obstacles in my path so they will register and be avoided, reminding myself to breathe.  When I listen to people speak, I have to alert myself to block out competing stimuli–here on Achill the raucous call of a corncrake or cattle lowing on Krinnuck, rain against the windows, the movement of hedge or heather in wind.  Each slight peculiarity of sensation, however normal, raises an alarm for someone who is chronically ill.  Was that slight twinge in my gut something sinister?  Why is my right eye fluttering?  We become obsessed with the inner world.

Even though Floyd Skloot’s immune system is a bit off-kilter, and even though he’s living with a damaged brain, I don’t see him as chronically "ill," he’s just not typical.  Very much not typical.  Suddenly different myself–even if it’s only by a few IQ points and  some new quirks–I understand this.  As much as I’ve always enjoyed and craved company, sometimes I feel comfortable only within myself, and within myself I really only have one primary subject:  me.  Moving and thinking more deliberately, more singularly, I am constantly checking my gauges, metering my energy levels, my anxiety levels, my breathing and heart rate.  I listen so I know my engine is good for the next leg of the race, tonight at the playground, tomorrow at the appointment, next week at a gathering.  But then I watch my gauges and listen longer, harder, look for patterns, wary for the next time I might be similarly blindsided, next time not with a bleeding brain, but maybe something else.  I get out and seek a healthy distraction, but if I’m not careful my senses and thoughts rebound back in toward myself tired and on an emotional and cognitive edge.

Completed Mother’s Day, 2008.