Lack of Memory

It’s Tuesday. Chemotherapy yesterday so I’m not feeling wonderful. I am, however, feeling a hell of a lot better than I might be feeling, so I’m thankful.

I know I’ve written a bit about memories lately. Not a lot, but a bit. I’ve even mentioned that one of my side-effects from chemotherapy, a relatively recent one, is that my memory is nowhere near as encompassing as it was last month. And it’s nowhere good as, say, six months ago.

Online, I’ve read that loss of memory is a not unusual side-effect involved in several types of chemotherapy and, when I’ve mentioned it to my doc or to the nurses who shoot the chemicals into my blood system, they haven't been surprised in the least.

I’d like to say it’s really bothering me, and it is sometimes. A couple of times at fellowship meetings, when I’ve started to say something I consider really meaningful and important, I’ve gotten in mid-paragraph and my mind has gone completely blank. That embarrasses me but seems not particularly bothering to my listeners.

I’ve also run into serious problems working the New York Times crossword puzzle, a near-daily challenge I’ve given myself for almost 30 years. In the past, I never bothered working the Monday puzzle because that’s the easiest of the week. Infrequently, I’ve been stumped by a Thursday puzzle (usually the trickiest) and, a few times, by the big Sunday puzzle. That all changed about two months ago when I found myself unable to solve almost any Times puzzle. Even the Monday ones.

That’s disheartening. It is specially bothersome since my mother and I talk on the phone each evening, and, for years, one of the things we chatted about was that day’s crossword experience. No more. She is kind enough not even to bring it up.

And, of course, the lack of memory sometimes causes difficulties when I’m working on my memoir.

There is at least one benefit, though.

You see, I’ve discovered that my memory of books I’ve recently read is terrible. In fact, I can read a book…put it down for a couple of weeks and then pick it up and start reading it again. Oh, it may seem familiar but not very.

Saturday, Lynne and I went to our local Kroch’s to look around. I found a memoir written by a journalist-alcoholic, picked it up, looked at it and found it interesting. So I bought it.

I finished reading the book - Drunkard - yesterday. As I read it I had, again and again, the sense that it was not new to me. Three or four times, I got out of bed (my constant reading location these days), and searched my bookcases and stacks of books and books dumped in the corners of my room, figuring I’d find a copy of Drunkard I’d read a couple of months ago, finished, and not recognized in the book store.

I didn’t.

Until this morning. I could not find one of the shoes I needed to go outside. Finally, I knelt by my bed and lowered my head to search. I found the shoe. But I also found a copy of the book, a bit dusty, but the same book.

Of course, there’s a downside here. I spent money I didn’t need to spend. But, think about this for a moment. If I plan correctly I can take five or six books, or maybe 15 or 20 books I really enjoy and stack them on the floor next to my bed. I can work my way through the stack one book at a time, carefully arranging the books I’ve read in a new stack on the other side of my bed. The second stack, of course, would have to be arranged in reverse. It could be done though, couldn’t it?

I would save hundreds of dollars a year. And I would consistently be reading something I enjoy.

Right now, in fact, I’m reading one of Garrison Keillor’s books and loving it. I know I’ve read it before. There’s no doubt. In fact, I read it last month. As I turn the pages, I feel a slight sense that I’m revisiting prpse, but not a strong enough sense to diminish my pleasure.

I’m okay, then, with my memory loss. For now. I do hope it doesn’t get any worse. I’d hate to start forgetting names. If I do, and we meet, I hope you understand, whatever your name is.

Reading

This is the first Christmas I can remember without any gift-wrapped books under the tree with little stickers on them proclaiming they were for me. Instead, I got a couple of gift cards I can use to buy books at the local B&N.

There’s a reason for that. I don’t read the way I used to and the people most likely to buy me books are aware that my reading habits have changed. I used to read nothing but history and biography. I loved books about Elizabethan England, the reign of Henry Tudor, the settlement of pre-colonial America, Teddy or Franklin Roosevelt, and old ships or famous mariners.

With that range of interests it was always pretty easy to find me a book or two or three.

I don’t read history any more. Or biographies. So buying me a book is a bit more difficult.

When I first stopped reading history, I turned my attention to memoirs. I read Pete Hamill’s A Drinker’s Life; and Tweak, written by Nic Sheff, a methamphetamine addict.

I devoured books by Augusten Burroughs and David Sedaris and James Frey even though I was savvy enough not to believe Frey’s words because I’ve been where he claimed to be and I knew where he was talking about just ain’t the way he described it.

I read Smashed by Koren Zailckas and the beautifully-titled Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn.

These are tales written by the discarded, the addicted, the harmed, and those much less than perfect. Obviously, they each achieved some measure of stability, at least enough to put pen to paper. So each story is a success story in some way.

Each of these stories, and the others I’ve been reading, starts in pain and ends in hope. Each is the story of a mountain climbed or some difficult path walked to a better place. And that’s wonderful.

Lately, though, I’ve been reading Charles Bukowski’s books: Ham on Rye, and Women, and Hollywood, and Pulp, and others. Bukowski, for those who don’t know his work, is the writer whose story was told, at least in part, in the movie Barfly.

His books are different. They’re not about climbing some spiritual mountain or walking some difficult path to overcome an addiction or a dreadful childhood or bipolar illness or whatever. There’s no real salvation in Bukowski’s books. Instead, they tell how he embraced his need and his pain and his rage and somehow managed to co-exist with them and even to profit from the experience.

So why am I reading this stuff?

Thank God my experience has taught me the truth about myself. I know that if I tried to co-exist with my own long-acknowledged alcoholism the way Bukowski did, I’d be lost with the first drink. I’ve accepted that truth and don’t fight it any longer.

I envy Bukowski though, though he died a few years back, at the age of 74. I don’t envy his ability to drink and write and manage to eke out an existence but his ability to embrace his demons without flinching and turn that embrace into something positive.

Because not all demons can be overcome. Not all mountains can be climbed and not all difficult paths lead to happiness. In fact, many difficult paths lead only to more difficulties.

I’ve faced a truth other than the truth that I can’t drink in safety. I’ve faced the truth that I’m dying. What I want to do is embrace this damned cancer the way Bukowski embraced his drunkenness and then turn it into something positive.

At least that’s what I’m trying to do.