I have a ritual when I prepare to write. I get a warm cup of coffee, open my computer, generally try to read another writers work, most often my favourite David Sedaris and just begin to type. If I’m lucky it’s like watching water flow over a waterfall, the words tumbling out of my brain and onto the screen in front of me. It It is I know an indulgence but as I get older it has become one of my great pleasures.

My mornings are ritualistic always beginning with a review of CNN, the Daily Beast, NY Post, the Daily Mail, Reuters and The Guardian. In that order, satisfied as I am they represent a sufficiently balanced breakfast of left, right, woke and idealogical misinformation. Plus a game of Wordle, my brain starter. By then it is usually around 7:30am and I’m ready to write. This morning was no different.

I went to pour a cup of coffee which by this time required forty seconds or so in the microwave. Painfully aware that Time is more precious to me than ever before, a non renewable resource if ever there was one, I decided to go the fridge to get out the cream to put in my coffee after the forty second warming. I put it on the counter between the fridge and microwave.

The universal beep of the microwave alerted me to the now warmed coffee so I removed it and placed the cup on the counter between the microwave and the fridge. Then I went to the fridge to get the cream to put in my freshly warmed coffee.

See the problem?

Me too. I’m at that ‘if it wasn’t screwed on I’d lose my head’ stage of my life and I have to say it’s a wee bit disappointing. My brain has always been my moneymaker, the place I live, the place where everything I care about is stored; memories, emotion, language, cognition, intellect, humour, my ability to write this and doggone it if my brain isn’t getting weaker.

My ‘where’s the cream’ moment this morning was not by itself a particularly big moment. I need to cut myself some slack here. On the other hand this morning my daughter Sophie is returning a stack of credit cards which I had left at her house before I went to Mexico in January. I had left them intentionally, thinking Sophie’s guest bedroom was a safe place for them. Upon our return I couldn’t for the life of me remember where I’d left them. Turned our own home upside down and then meekly gave up, resigned to another example of forgetfulness.

You get the point. If I leave this file open for a week I’ll have one of these a day to report. I can’t say it’s not worrying. It actually really is, particularly with all the talk of dementia and Alzheimers these days. But I think not. My brain is not unlike my knees. It is sore and not as strong as it used to be but complaints aside still competently serving its basic purpose. I don’t know what the brain equivalent of arthritis is but I suspect that is what I am dealing with.

And that is fine.

I have used the darn thing my whole life and I’ve worked it hard. It still allows me to laugh everyday, worry, think, love, feel, move and pee on demand (several times a night as it turns out). So it’s a bit ‘arthritic’.

Whatever!