Mom & Me Four Archive

    Since I was a child I've had a knack for juggling so many mental toys at once that early in my life I devised a method for tracking the next activity I'd planned, in case I should lose sight of it. I noticed that planned activity always correlates with something in my environment: One of my parents telling me to do something; being reminded of a task by seeing an item that I wanted to manipulate during the task; noticing one of my sisters doing something that I decided I also wanted to do; being in a room wherein I realized there was a task I intended to perform in that room (not necessarily, in fact, not usually, cleaning part or all of the room); having looked upon something that gave me an idea for doing something else with a seemingly unrelated item. So, when I lost track, I'd back track to where I was "last" until something in an environment sparkled with the glitter of my most recently desired task.
    Last night I caught myself in the frequent act of trying to remember, among the many items on my mind, what I had intended to "do next". My backtracking involved only one area, the laundry closet, at which I realized the task I'd next set for myself was rinsing the gunk out of the softener receptacle. As I sponged it out over the sink, I had a vision of my future backtracing self "when I get older, losing my [mind]" [thank you Paul McCartney]. I realized that instead of finding remembrance of the next task I'd set for myself, I'd probably notice memory glitter all over everything I encountered as I backtracked. My demented mind would successively focus on all suggested tasks, regardless of status. It would lead me through a series of areas, both inside and outside my home, as I wandered through what I no longer delineated as imminent, finished or discarded tasks, in the meantime continually reminding me of more tasks, until I'd be wandering in what I failed to recognize as unfamiliar territory, noticing other people's glitter, interpreting it as my own... Within hours, someone would notice me, loose on a street, unconcerned with who or where I am in their reality. Upon being approached I'd attempt, unsuccessfully, to explain the trail of mental glitter that had led to this point. I'd ask the concerned stranger for help in locating yet the next task reminder. My request would be, from the stranger's perspective, gibberish. The police would be called. I would be gathered into a comfortable holding cell reserved for mislaid children and dolts. My picture would appear on the evening news. It would be labeled that of a "A Probable Alzheimer's Sufferer". A plea would be broadcast: "Does anyone know this person? Will anyone claim this person?" Being, as I have my entire life, a determined loner, and being, as well, disheveled from the requirements of my quest, no one would recognize or claim me. I'd be transferred to the mental ward in a charity hospital. I would know I was in the wrong place. I would know I yet had a task to which to apply myself. I would spend the rest of my days wandering the ward looking for (and possibly identifying) familiar, glitter bedecked objects which would provoke from me strange, mimed behaviors, would spend my nights struggling against restraints, placed on me for the nurses' convenience, then be let loose during the day to continue my determined quest for my many holy grails.
    This scenario so delighted me that I couldn't help continuing to riff on the possibilities.
    Maybe I would be identified and returned to my home within a community of residents now cautious for my (and their) safety and comfort. To what other aberrant adventures might my unraveling, yet determined mind lead me?

• I've always had a penchant for playing pieces of music (sometimes just sections of a piece), either recorded or on musical instruments, over and over and over, pursuing the simple delight of leading myself through the ever metamorphic country of notes and sounds. My demented self, I imagined, will probably become so entranced by one particular piece (I can't imagine what it will be) that I will spend years obsessed with playing one section of one piece. Those who stumble across me when I am so enchanted will, first, try to put me off the piece, switching it to another. I will notice the switch and do what I must, amidst the interlopers, to return to the preferred section. People will wonder what significance this piece has in my life, imagining a variety of emotionally charged scenarios which my demented perspective on my past life will be able to neither confirm nor deny. Curious gossip will circulate the neighborhood about who I "probably was" versus who I now appear to be. People will shake their heads in pity for me and shudder with fear for their future selves. And, yet, I will be lost in the simple appreciation of an oboe here, a french horn there, the intrigue of a suggestive piano, the stopwatch intrusion of a tympani, or, if playing an instrument, the mystery of evocation in an amalgamation of notes... I will be labeled The Old Woman Tragically Lost in Her Past, when, in fact, I will be not be indulging in nostalgia but in-the-moment aural adventure, an activity perfectly appropriate to my undivulged personal history.
• Another habit of mine is underlining words in books and writing notes in the margins to myself about my reactions as I read...thus, I keep most of the books I've bought. It's not uncommon for me, now, undemented, to be reminded by an incident in life of just such a highlighted passage in a book that evoked similar reactions and search for the book and the passage. I am usually successful. When I am demented my success will take a different route. I will periodically be found on the floor (I expect my habit of preferring the floor to chairs will continue, since it's been a life-long behavior) surrounded by books, methodically turning obviously unread pages, looking for notes and highlights. Upon discovering one, my dementia will prompt me to look for another and another... The person who discovers me will notice that I have been "there" so long that I am beginning to dehydrate, have wet and perhaps soiled myself, appear to be malnourished. He/she will gently "help me up" and begin the process of cleaning, hydrating and feeding me, while making a mental note to look through scattered papers close to my phone in order to find a relative or friend who they feel should be notified about my personal neglect. In the meantime, not yet satisfied in my search through past book notations, I will be driven to continually try to turn back to what I was doing. The person who has elected him/her-self my personal savior will interpret this behavior as demented combativeness and will finally, reluctantly, call the "Dangerous Demented People Catchers" to secure me until a responsible party can be located. Although never prone to agitation, I will, having been thus secured, focus on trying to return to my interrupted quest, inventing the books from which I've been separated, unwittingly ensuring that I will never be allowed to return, in reality, to my home and my quest.
• Undemented, my mind prefers an off-the-cuff organization that typically turns my immediate environment into carefully noted stacks of this and that, through which curious but personally appropriate paths are laid. Since, when I live alone, I generally don't own much except papers and books, cooking/eating utensils (which are usually well stowed), bedding, linen and clothes (also usually well stowed), when I am old and still only lightly demented, perhaps considered marginally self-sufficient, these paths will be significantly narrower and the stacks of books and papers will appear personally threatening to visitors. Eventually, someone will call the local fire department. My environment will be pronounced a fire hazard. Concerned relatives will be called in to clean-up the "mess". I will be thrown into an inconsolable grief at losing the markers of my immediate environment and my life. As well, I will no longer recognize my immediate environment as mine. Within days of the clean-up, someone will notice the parameters of my grief and pronounce that my dementia has "inexplicably" progressed, beyond the point of reasonable self-care. I will be divested of the dregs of what used to be a familiar environment, the liquidity of which will support my move to an even more unfamiliar environment, loaded with people whose presence I will be unable to appreciate because of their unfamiliarity and because my preference for being alone has continued, even into my dementia. I will be considered an uncooperative, sometimes combative resident and will spend most of the last of my days under restriction and restraint, both physical and chemical. This will, of course, be for my own good.
• Although not what would be considered an obsessive masturbator, I have always, since childhood, recognized the peculiar pleasures of masturbation, distinct from the pleasures of social sex, and indulge in both whenever I please without super-egotistical restriction. When I am old and demented, partners for social sex will doubtless be so few and so far between as to effectively be absent. Thus, when I am visited by those concerned about my welfare, who, as those concerned with the welfare of the demented old living alone often do, will find ways to let themselves in unannounced or force their way in if I refuse to answer the door, assuming that my refusal to answer is demented, there will be a fifty/fifty chance that I will be caught in the act of masturbation. After a few of these discoveries, I will be pronounced obsessively concerned with masturbation. My welfare providers will further posit that if I am not stopped I might so lose myself in masturbation that I will no longer notice whether I am in public or in private. Institutionalization and sedation will be necessary to save me from a possible morals charge and to save society from my depravity.

    Ah, Idaho. My past and future home.