Cow Thing Pants

A dispatch from bewilderness

You might wonder how it feels to wake up one day and not know who you are. I don’t know. I don’t remember. I lost short-term recall, long-term recall, words, space and time. That is called amnesia. And I lost the names of things. I couldn’t say “bed” or “bread” or “bird.” That is called aphasia.

Paint on paper bag by Judith Hannah Weiss

One moment, I was a single mom – making dinner and deadlines all over the world, perking up headlines while picking up kids – and the next, I was strapped on a board in an icy, airless room filled with words I didn’t know and air I couldn’t breathe. Words had been my job.

It felt like I had been thrown from a plane. Then it felt like trying to piece together any remnants of the person I was before I was thrown out of the plane. And then? It kept feeling that way.

In my first life, I freelanced for Martha Stewart, the Martha Stewart who bakes cake, and spreads mulch and builds empires. I was at home with the best-ever Christmas and best-ever weddings and I was at home with the best-ever range.

Then — in an instant — I was gone and someone new was in my place. Someone new who had my face. That person said strange things like “white stuff sky,” which meant snow, or “cow thing pants” which meant belt. “She” was “me” post truck.

I acquired the same diagnosis former representative Gabrielle Giffords received when she was shot in the head. In an instant, I had no words, no technique, no training, no connections, no network, no skills. I couldn’t read or write or hold a pen or place my hands on a keyboard.

A note to those, who, like a friend two nights ago, dispute the injury because they don’t “see” it. I have worked for eighteen years to speak as seamlessly as I can. “Normal” to me, though, is not the result you see, but the effort it takes to stay at least somewhat moored on this needle-jumping, train-derailing, wholly out-of-order ride.

One further note: It is not my intention to write about injury, but rather to write about wit and grit and love and grace. With a touch of humor, too.