WHY? A self analysis

Published September 28, 2022 by Nan Mykel

I read all of The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Stories of Personal Triumph From the Frontiers of Brain Science by Norman Doidge earlier, and I have a hypothesis about my own recent brain dysfunction:

My dysfunction is age related and involves current–and I mean current things. It appears I’ve almost totally lost any understanding of how to work cell phones and adapt to apple and Word Press updates and can’t find things, but appear to still have access to many of the things I learned in life, including my education and curiosity. I do remember my mother finding it impossible to work her tv, but then she was on her way to Alzheimer’s. At 87 I figure I’ve avoided Alzheimers, but surprise myself at my unequal limitations.

Yes, I guess I’ve always known that the brain tends to recede to earlier memories, but this seems extreme. This is what I’m wondering: (I do still claim ownership` of an unconscious)…

MAYBE my unconscious (let’s call her Ethel) refuses to let go of my “what if” tendencies out of loyalty to myself, and since they are more valued by “the real me,” I’ve traded cognitive space with everyday low-level functioning. Sounds like an excuse for brain slippage, doesn’t it? But it’s a real question, a real puzzler and a possible answer.

I’m still not willing to relinquish the real me for how to work a cell phone. Or maybe I’m just whistling in the wind….or the dark….

Friend Felix Speaks Again

Published July 19, 2022 by Nan Mykel

4th of JULY: GOOD GRIEF!

If you like pretty poems, please look away,

for here I lament decay, dying and death.

I’m not bemoaning my dying contemporaries,

who lately fall like old-growth trees in a forest.

Nor do I pre-grieve my own impending death.

My concern is for the fate of our democracy,

as it is doing a dangerous dance with doom.

Our precious political freedoms are eroding.

Our fractured center seems not to be holding.

Our democracy could be in its death throes.

Female bodily autonomy has been outlawed,

voting rights have been wantonly suppressed,

there is massive support for Trump’s Big Lie.

The Supreme Court defies the majority’s will.

Throughout our land gun fetishism flourishes.

Louder liars shout down the voices of veracity.

Violence grows, the environment degrades.

This Independence Day is a day of gloom.

Sadly I fly our tattered flag upside down.

Today I can’t sing Happy Birthday America!

In these dark days, I weep as I sing of thee.

Felix Gagliano, July 2022

HOW LONG IS LOONEY?

Published July 24, 2019 by Nan Mykel

If we live long enough

it’s gonna be rough.

Tell-tale signs of age

spoken off the cuff

betray us and oh

how long and how sad

will it get to be

before…until…we

write bad verse, yet don’t hesitate

to remember to meditate

on what’s gone before and what

lies ahead instead?

Hey nonny nonny,

honey, if it’s not funny

why do we laugh at

our forget-me-nots?

When will we touch base

and head for home?

Not funny, dammit,

unless you’re like me–

easier to laugh

than it is to pee.

Ha ha got you there.

You expected to “cry.”

I know poor taste

when e’er I try

and will until my

looney runs dry.

Ouch! Tell me I

didn’t write this…

Old Man Fred –flash fiction for d’Verse

Published June 15, 2019 by Nan Mykel

Although age and poverty had taken its toll, when far away an interrupted cry woke him from his sleep, he shuddered. He knew he lacked boundaries, was too easily empathic. That tendency had led him to panhandling in the evening of his life. It was getting more and more difficult to arise from his seated position on the sidewalk and retrieve his upturned hat from the pavement before him.

Someone at the Center had stolen his flute, so he had nothing left to offer passersby than the one song he could remember all the words to, Old Man River.

The children still stood round and begged their parent for a dime to drop into his hat. The children stared. The adults avoided his eyes. He thanked them all.

128 words