Performance Art

A couple of nights after my last scary neurological experience, I was talking to Nick. And then the words stopped. I couldn't find my words. Now, with the progression of my disease, I've had other word-finding problems, but they have normally been isolated, like forgetting the word for "blender."

But this time, I lost almost all of my words. In a totally academic meta move, I forgot the word for "word." I could see each letter spelled out in my head. W. O. R. D. But I couldn't string the letters together to form the word "word."

And then I realized that I could still speak in French.

"Les mots!!!" I exclaimed. (Words!) And I proceeded to rattle off in broken French.

Nick, I should note, does not speak French. He knows about five words and one complete sentence, the translation of which is "I have a very fierce ferret, so you'd better do what I tell you to."

At the time, this was a teensy bit scary, but also absolutely hilarious. I mean, forgetting the word for "word"? It's too perfect. I'm sure some gloomy, cigarette-smoking European theorist is soiling his pants with excitement as I type this.

Little by little, I got my words back. Nick said, "You know, I'd tell you to rest and get to bed, but I can tell you're having a good time with this."

And, oh, it was true. It was just really interesting to the peanut gallery in the back of my brain to watch the rest of my brain try to make my mouth cooperate with what it wanted.

"My disease," I said, "and my life...it's all just performance art! And you are my captive audience."