I Forget

 A few days ago I was going to do a post about forgetting.

But I forgot ... until now.

In recent months, I find that my memory is about as retentive as a sieve. I'm continually asking Joyce to help me with the title of a book or movie or TV show, with a person we both know (and, in some cases, have known for a long time), and so on.

Now, sure, this is a feature of aging, as we all know, and I am definitely aging. I'm 76. But in my case it seems to have accelerated a little too quickly to suit my humour (as Shakespeare would have put it--he and I are so much alike!).

In recent months I've had a couple of brain MRIs (for other reasons), and things are beginning to look a little ... spotty ... up there. In a virtual meeting with my neurologist yesterday, I asked him if those spots related to anything affecting my memory.

He replied that they are not in the "memory" sector of the brain--but he also cautioned that not all of the brain is visible in the scan. So ... who knows?

I used to be very quick--excelled at memory games (like Trivial Pursuit). Now ... I'd be the team member no one wants in such games. (Oh, sure, a few hours later I might come up with the name of the detective in that old TV show 77 Sunset Strip. But not right now ... can we pause the game? For a few hours?)

I do play some memory games online: a daily vocab quiz on Merriam-Webster's site, the Mini Crossword each day in the New York Times (online). And (brag, brag) just last night I completed it in under a minute, my Personal Best. But there are other days when I turn my phone off in rage because I can't think of the simplest damn word.

And, okay, occasionally I cheat (look up the answer on the Web), but I always/sometimes confess my pathetic, devious move when I tell my score to Joyce, who also plays the puzzle. (No competition, no, none at all.)

As followers of this blog know, I also have memorized a lot of poems and literary passages--about 240--and I rehearse them regularly. And, so far, I seem to have hung onto them pretty well--but not perfectly.

Anyway, I don't think I can look forward to much but increasing deterioration. The future--what I have left of it--does not often look sunny.

But let's end on an amusing note. Just the other day I read that the celebrated writer Ta-Nehisi Coates has recently been writing the stories for The Black Panther comics--and has just accepted a position for writing the screenplay for another superhero film.

I was telling Joyce about this, and here's my key sentence: "Anyway, Coates is now writing the screenplay for the next Shakespeare ... uh, Superman movie."

I felt like a dolt until Joyce reminded me: "Aren't they kind of the same?"

Indeed.