Everything Must GO
...a Dispatch from Bewilderness
For 56 years, I let things go to my head -- where some of it stayed, and was useful at times. Then, in an instant, the structure collapsed, the floor gave way, the contents got smashed. The good news is I survived. The bad news was brain damage.
A doctor might call this a 13% reduction in the frontal lobe, a 6% reduction in the parietal lobe, 9% in occipital lobe, and 4% reduction in some other lobe. That’s not how it feels.
Imagine a library. An archive of time and space. All that really matters to you, kept safe since you were born. The building implodes. Books careen off ledges. Shelves crash to the ground. Brain damage doesn’t take you a piece at a time. It’s an “Everything Must GO” event.
Nineteen years post-truck, I still think with a stutter and speak with a limp. Yet l plan to use every neuron I have left and every bit of courage to deal with airports to visit my daughter. She now lives in L.A.
It’s hard, rather impossible, for me to read monitors that say what’s leaving where and when it is leaving. It’s also hard to walk through crowds, make that just plain hard to walk. Especially with any kind of luggage. But I plan to carry on with a carry-on and do the best I can.
To my dear readers, thank you so much for wishing me a wonderful trip. In fact, I won't be going till the first week of October.
You, of all people will be able to Keep Calm with your Carry-On! And many of us will be sending you good thoughts xo