B"H

Nobody :0)

I've recently been noticing that my behavior betrays that my brain is aging. I used to be able to put my mind on "automatic pilot" doing routine and banal tasks without thinking, while I considered and ruminated. Lately I find that while my thoughts are as cogent as ever, some of the wires in the "automatic pilot" control have definitely burned out. As someone once said: The synapses aren't quite as snappy as they once were.

First there was the time that, after getting out of the shower, I intended to clean my ear with a cotton swab and instead stuck it in my right nostril. I almost fell off the bed rolling in hysterical laughter upon doing it, realizing immediately what I had done; yet I had done it nonetheless.

Then there was last June when I asked my husband to take down the fan telling him we'll need it as it gets very hot in Israel in July, August and February.

I am now only 10 years younger than my grandmother, of blessed memory,
was when she passed away. She died at the very young age of 56.

I remember the standing joke of the family was that she would call to
one of us but she didn't necessarily use the right name. She'd call
any of us by any of the other relative's names she was closest to. By
the tone of her voice we all knew who she wanted even when she called
the wrong name out by mistake. I've started doing the same thing just
lately. Actually, I've even gone so far as to call our guinea pigs by my son's name.

The fact that the wiggle in my walk and giggle in my talk of yesteryear have morphed into a waddle in my walk and a twaddle in my talk actually lends me a a certain charm. I'm thoroughly enjoying becoming a wooley, zany (and feisty) old lady. The good townsfolk of Tzfat think I'm droll as can be.

But it goes beyond that: Had someone asked me when I was young who I would be if I lost my cognitive abilities, I would have answered: "Nobody" and a shudder of fear would have gone through me as I pushed my 'denial - it'll never happen to me' button. Today if someone were to ask me who I would be if I lost my cognitive abilities I would answer: "Nobody" and laugh. Now I don't know if that is because I've acquired a measure of wisdom, humility and acceptance over the years or because I've already become a blathering idiot or whether wisdom and idiocy are one and the same - and I don't give a damn.

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Yesterday (27/4/04, I think) I hit the all-time record: I called my husband Doreen. ROFL.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat