In Search of the Lost Chord

I'd like to know where the words went. If you find them, please send them home with a nice note pinned to their lapel so that I might properly recognize them. I haven't seen them for so long that they've become strangers to me.

Part of my brain told me very early on that I was going to be a writer. That subversive element was encouraged by a handful of family members, gently molded and warped and coaxed into growth by those that believed in me. It was a thing that wanted to become so very real to me, and I've clutched desperately at clinging tendrils of coherent thought for as long as I can remember.

That part of my brain didn't listen to the other bits that decided to develop a debilitating neurological condition that is slowly eating away at not only my ability to think clearly, but to remember.

The words are nowhere to be found.

Yes, the words filling this post are words, but they aren't The Words, the elusive ones that remind me what it was that I wanted to do with my life. They aren't the words I've been searching for, you don't need to see our identification, move along.

I fear that my condition is growing worse, a stealthy intruder that only steals away the bits and pieces that you think you won't miss until one day you're looking for them, only to realize that they've simply vanished. Teri had a brief bout with my hysterics over it one afternoon when we were discussing the glories of her new DSL, and I suddenly discovered ... that I didn't know anything anymore.

I couldn't tell her what we were using, if it was a switch, or a router. I didn't KNOW anymore. I eventually had to ask DG, King of the Luddites, because I couldn't wrap my brain around simple concepts that I SHOULD have known.

I'm living a Jackie Chan movie, where everything new I attempt to learn and everything old that I struggle to remember is peppered with a loud chiding, "Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?"

No. I don't. And most of the time, I barely understand the words that are coming out of my own.

I'm not a particularly verbal person on an aural level. Conversation has never been particularly comfortable for me unless I'm surrounded by close friends. My stutter was beaten into submission years ago, but still chooses the worst possible times to reappear and torment me. The chemical reactions that link thought to word to speech don't connect properly, there's a short circuit in there that tangles even the clearest of thoughts until they come out jumbled and stammered. It isn't performance anxiety. I could make it through a script and belt out the lines without errors up on the stage. It's simple, normal, conversational speech that trips me up.

From thought to word to fingers, however, has generally remained constant. I type as swiftly as I can think up the words, my brain whipping along at violent speeds without my train of thought suddenly skipping over and taking Greyhound instead.

The words have left me. THE Words. In preparing a journal revue, I was horrified to discover so precious little of true substance to present. I could follow the slow seepage of coherent thought as I went through the years, seeing the words sliding away into some unknown place that I no longer seem to be able to access.

Where do the words go when they're cold? When they're lonely and scared, do they hide beneath the desk as I did when I was a child, with a blanket pinned down by books, reading in the near-dark by flashlight as I tried to ignore my parents screaming over the topic of the evening (usually "Where did we go wrong with that girl?" "It's all YOUR fault, you didn't ....")? Hiding in the sheets among the nest of pillows that only provide comfort and not protection from the harsh voices? Are they timid, like me?

Do they hunt for the sunshine like cats, languishing in puddles of light and waiting for someone to come along and stroke them? Are they out in the garden, drifting between the flowers and leaves and kissing the butterflies that pass them by? Have they sought the candlelight, dancing in the flames?

Where are the words? They're not in bottles of alcohol, or hiding under cigarette butts in the ashtray. They aren't littering the floorboards of the car, or hiding in the dirty dishes crowding the sink. I've looked there, I know.

Yes, these are words. But they are not THE Words.

I am searching for them, while my mind is still able to wrap around them, to caress and know them intimately, while I am still able to reach out and touch them and mold them into the shape that my thoughts desire.

If you find The Words, I beg you: Send them home.