Mind? What mind?

My friend Swanknitter has an entry posted for today that perfectly describes how I feel sometimes. You know by now that I'm an avid knitter and that I knit lots of socks. Somewhere, somehow over the past year the knowledge of how to finish the toes with Kitchener stitch fled, and no amount of looking at diagrams and reading directions has so far helped resurrect that knowledge. That's sort of okay - knitting is pretty forgiving, and I like the way that star toes look, so I am not sending people out with great holes at the ends of their socks. But what happens when the morsel of memory has no alternative? Like, how to drive a stick shift? If you don't know how, you can't do it. So far I've been able to drive any vehicle put in front of me, including our vintage Ferguson TEA-20 tractor, but might that magic elude me too, without warning?

When I got home after my most recent hospital stay in March, I called my sister and brother to let them know that I'd been sprung. I probably didn't talk with them more than a few minutes each; I was tired, but wanted to reassure them that things were back to pre-admittance normal. Rather than reassure my brother, he called my buddy C2 to see if I might have had a stroke - I spoke slowly, seemed to be confused, and at a loss for words. I have it on my mother's authority that I could talk before I could walk, so that's a pretty serious aberration.

I remember that it took a couple of weeks to feel more like myself, and that I was pretty frustrated by it. Coming up with a substitute that only makes sense at the very margins of sanity didn't seem to bother me - think "Lasix/bathroom" substitution posted a while back. Losing someone's name/face, or a common word or phrase in everyday conversation, makes me worry. I feel helpless and angry, and worry that I could slide into becoming a burden on everyone without even knowing it myself.

Our heatwave has broken for the nonce. I'm being entertained by barn swallows, a dozen or more at a time, sweeping the skies for mosquitoes and other pests in the airspace off the east side of the house. I know they're gathering up for their migration and I'll be sorry to see them go, but at least I get the pleasure of watching them in the meantime. Saint H and I refer to them as "the P-51s of the bird world" - one of my favorite birds.