A DOSE OF THE ARTS

At the end of the day we just sat there and said:

"Well, that was a wonderful, wonderful day"

"Yes, wasn't it?"

We didn't need anything, but Mum wanted to go shopping nonetheless, and while we had all the staples I wasn't excited about lunch,  so I made a special event of getting pizza. Todays list was: PIZZA. Mum came back with two pizzas and we had American-style for lunch and Italian for dinner, and we both agreed they were great, we had half each, her appetite has gone through the roof.

Mum very much likes the man from Crossroads, who organise home-visits. He comes for four hours every week, much longer than Mum often wants to spend with one person.

When he arrived today me and Mum were having a Jam, she was playing the black-notes on the piano, and I had tuned the guitar life this:

D# - A# - D# - D#  - A# - D#

This is useful, because anything you play will be in tune, provided the keyboard player only plays the back keys, the guitar player can play just open strings, but to get something more melodic they can fret any of the strings on the 3rd and 5th frets. This is a minor pentatonic scale in D#, so it useful to know that D# is the root note. This was an idea I had when I was working in education with adults with learning difficulties, I'm sure loads of people use this and similar techniques. If I've lost you you can just skip the next few paragraphs as its a bit of technical manual for making playing tonal music as easy and accessible as possible.

In the following, anything the musicians do will be in tune - provided the keyboard player only uses the white keys and the guitar player plays only open strings (for a drone) and frets only the 2nd, 3rd or 5th frets on any string  (to introduce more melody).

D - A - D - D - A - D

I tend to think of that one as being in Am, but the proponderence of 4th notes, Ds, on the guitar means it is gives it a very different sound to a tuning of

A - D  - A - A - D - A,

a less typical tuning, but makes for a more ordinary Am key.

If you want play in a major key tune the guitar

C - G - C - C -G - C,
 the keyboard player uses only the white notes, and the guitar player can play open strings or fret any of the strings on the 3rd or 5th frets, the sixth too.  

Before I move on I'll just mention that the best way to introduce this to an inexperienced or an individual with mental or motor impairments to start with the guitar player experimenting without fretting any of the strings - they can strum them, picks them, drum on them, drop a bouncing ball on them, everything will be in tune. The majority of the expression in guitar playing comes from how the strings are struck.

He said he played some guitar, but would prefer to do some drawing. I recently bought a lightbox (a box with four bulbs underneath, which enables you to trace an image using ordinary paper). I'm sure I will use it myself, but I really bought it for Mum, as she wasn't enjoying unguided art as much as she used to - there is so much to think about - whereas she is very proud of her duck montages in the kitchen, she often shows them to visitors. She got me to admire them many times myself early on, they are an ingenious blend of watercolour and bits of duck wallpaper.

These are the images they traced using the lightbox, Mum is going to add colour to hers (the teddy bears).

I meant to have a rest while they were out shopping. I was hung over, and barely slept two nights ago, partly because I mucked up the central heating and didn't realise 'til too late, & partly because the neighbours have got their washing machine on the other side of the wall from me. They wash their clothes at night, apparently because the electricity is cheaper then. I offered to pay them the money and they looked at me as if I was mad. Is sleep not valuable? The kind lady upstairs asked us not to use our washing machine at night, I thought it a perfectly reasonable request, even if she is A BIT DEAF.

As I am about to slightly digress at this point, I would like to make it clear that Alzheimer's is, in essence, a progressive learning difficulty, namely 'unlearning EVERTHING made easy'. I spent hundreds of hours working with people with people with a broad range of abilites, including one or two who with dementia in one form or another. I took the brunt of the responsibility for their training in the inner-city open access IT Training centre I used to work in, at a further education college in South London, because I'm patient and analytical - I don't get frustrated when someone can't get it, I'm interested to get inside their mind and see if there is a way they can get it. And if there isn't one I am interested in how to make their experience in the centre as enjoyable, life-enhancing and confidence building as possible.

At the time my ex-partner, Sarah, was tutoring Performance Arts at Lewisham College, and co-tutoring a music class at Morley College, also for adults with leaning difficulties. I became involved in helping her develop the course content, and came in at the end of her courses to organise an end-of-term DVD, so that all the student's could take away a nicely produced record of what they had developed in class.

Art IS great therapy, everyone should do it. There were arguments blowing around about how worthwhile mine and Sarah's endeavours really were. The IT drop-in centre was largely funded and rated on turnover and results, so the students I championed were an economic burden on the centre, though they did demonstrate inclusivity to the inspectors. We really didn't have appropriate courseware for the most severely affected students.

Whether Sarah's more severely disabled students could absorb much information wasn't the point, the courses were vocationally oriented, and the students not only enjoyed her courses but they developed their confidence, self-esteem and social skills. Sarah's favourite success story from these times was teaching a deaf girl to sing, mine was a girl who had said she had always thought she was stupid and would never be able to learn any maths before she met me.

I had been planning on using some of these skills with Mum, but she seems more open to suggestions at the moment, she seems to be significantly more social, and less satisfied with doing the same things all the time, she is expressing a far greater desire for variety, this could well be related to the anti-depressant. And, as I spend most of my own time in creative pursuits, it is amazing luck that the weekly visitor from Crossroads enjoys art and is far better at drawing than I am.

After he left Mum began finding useless things about the house and throwing them away, which was a gratifying sight, as they were the very same useless things she had picked out of bins days before, utterly enchanted with them.

Unfortunately it is clearly hard to separate the positive effect of these artistic pursuits from the Mirtazapine anti-depressant.

I didn't get time to do an entry yesterday. She had a nice time at the shops with a friend who visits, but was soon restless and hankering for something different to do. She came up with the idea of visiting some local friends herself. Its very rare for her to come up with ideas outside of her usual routine, so this was also gratifying - unfortunately the friends weren't in, but she went for along walk anyway. Again it is hard to tell whether the extreme restlessness and unusual strong desire for novel experiences were due to her being unable to garden or the Mirtazapine, I suspect it was a combination of the two.

Mum was over the moon when a bird-house hot water bottle arrived in the post for her today (she has four or five bird-houses/feeders, bats etc, and is a big fan of hot water bottles). Shes not using it now though, she said it was more for daytime use as it was a little small - so I might go and fill it up and christen it myself.

Goodnight, wasn't it a wonderful day?

Why? What happened?

I forget

what baffled me


ADD END UM

"Christina the Astonishing", Wikipedia (not always 100% reliable, but truly democratising the organisation of the sum total of our assembled knowledge)

Born a peasant, Christina was orphaned at 15. When she was 21 (22 according to some sources), she is said to have suffered a massive seizure. According to the story, her condition was so severe that witnesses assumed she had died. A funeral was held, but during the service, she "arose full of vigor, stupefying with amazement the whole city of St. Trond, which had witnessed this wonder." Then, "The astonishment increased when they learned from her own mouth what had happened to her after her death."

She related that she had witnessed heaven, hell, and purgatory. It is written that she said "As soon as my soul was separated from my body and was received by angels who conducted it to a very gloomy place, entirely filled with souls" where the torments there that they endured "appeared so excessive" that it was "impossible to give an idea of their rigor."

She continued,"I saw among them many of my acquaintances" and touched deeply by their sad condition asked if this was Hell, but was told that it was Purgatory. Her angel guides brought her to Hell where again she recognized those she had formerly known. Next she was transported to Heaven, "even to the Throne of Divine Majesty" where she was "regarded with a favorable eye" and she experienced extreme joy and these words were spoken to her, " Assuredly, My dear daughter, you will one day be with Me. Now, however, I allow you to choose, either to remain with Me henceforth from this time, or to return again to earth to accomplish a mission of charity and suffering. In order to deliver from the flames of Purgatory those souls which have inspired you with so much compassion, you shall suffer for them upon earth: you shall endure great torments, without however dying from their effects. And not only will you relieve the departed, but the example which you will give to the living, and your continual suffering, will lead sinners to be converted and to expiate their crimes. After having ended this new life, you shall return here laden with merits."

What a noble, inspiring tale of a Bodhisattva! By appending this tale I have defintely diverged too far from my non-existent brief. I know this, but nobody reads this do they?

Haha

THIRTY EGGS

8am
Mum was particularly disoriented this morning, for the second day in a row. She didn't have a clue about what she needed to go shopping. Could just be a low crest on the bumpy road to nowhere, but paired with the additional engagement she is displaying later in the day - it seems likely that the Mirtazapine anti-depressants might be responsible for these higher highs and lower lows.

"No, we don't need eggs, we have 1.. 2.. 3..  thirty eggs. We don't need tea. Bread, get some bread, the bread bin's nearly empty"

Once she's gone I realise that Mum has just moved the bread somewhere else. I wonder what she'll come back with?

10.20am
My Mother came back from the supermarket with... Local-sister. There must have had an orange sticker on her forehead. She's washing Mum's hair in the shower.

The missing money reappeared this morning. I guess The Gremlin had a pang of conscience.

4.10pm
Mum is eating more today. For lunch she had a whole can of vegetable soup and two slices of toast.

A BIRD IN A GILDED CAGE

7pm

After a shaky start, with the whole missing money incident, today was a good day.

I finished the last entry five minutes after Mum returned from the shops, and went into the kitchen to check she'd got everything in the right place (its not uncommon to find sweltering bacon in the cupboard, string and ice-cream in the fridge, a bottle of milk in the oven).

All the correct shopping was lined up in a neat row, on the side in the kitchen - but Mum was nowhere to be seen. She hadn't even stopped to make a cup of tea, making me think she had gone back to the supermarket, believing she had forgotten some vital item, or left something behind at the till. 

It turns out she had gone to Local-sister's house. They spent the afternoon cooking, and Mum had a wonderful time. I won't know, until I speak to her, if Local-sister necessarily had such a great time. It can be fun having Mum helping, but you have to maintain a bright, relaxed tone - which takes Zen-like concentration, when you're always potentially one second away from a minor disaster (sugar in your boiled eggs, salt in your tea) or something more serious (the trigger that caused me to finally make this my base was when Mum melted the electric plastic kettle on the hob).

When Mum came back we cooked a meal and the apple pie that she'd prepared with Local-sister.

We switched on the TV, and had a chat which comes up regularly -

"I think its about time I had one of those things."

"Which things, Mum".

"You know. One of those doing things. Doing things with earnings"

"Mum, you're seventy and retired, its your time to relax, to enjoy nature, you don't need a job"

"Some seventy-year olds have jobs"

"But you've got so much to do with the garden, the allotment, and helping me and Local-sister"

"Hmmm"

What she always says she wants is 'to be useful', feeling useless is why she says she wants to die. Its tough for her, she's finding it harder and harder to do things, but has a large appetite for active than passive activities, though she does watch more TV than she used to.

The apple pie was delicious. We watched The News (people killing each other) & David Attenborough narrating 'Life' (reptiles killing each other). We had a lively conversation throughout, but it did inevitably involve life and death subjects and at one point Mum slipped 'I want to go to heaven' into conversation. It is one thing being told by someone who is upset that that they want to die, being told it repeatedly when the person is at what appears to be their most cogent and happy, this is another. I can blame the drugs for making it possible, but I do believe it is true. That's definitely one thing I can't help you with, my love.

When we lived in Ealing you used to let the dog and guinea pig roam freely around the London streets. It wasn't long before the dozy, fat guinea pig got squashed by a car. You said at least it was free when it was alive. You still let your precious dog roam the streets, despite the nightmare that you dreamt of one night, that the angry neighbours who posted your precious dog's precious shit through the letter box severed her precious head one day, with a spade, as she stuck it through the precious hole in the gate, the hole that you wouldn't mend, despite all this you still let your precious dog roam the streets. 

I have some notion that the SPECL organisation feel the News isn't really suitable for Alzheimer's sufferers, part of an overall strategy of keeping them in a bubble of unadulterated happiness. I can see that might be the only way in the end, and the time of the end might be closer than we dare to think, but I currently value the time she spends on Earth, & fear that too much padding at this stage might push her into space prematurely, or that her brain might try and restore its preferred level of happiness and possibly induce a pendulum swing. She is midway along a spectrum, at the other end she may have no need to confront or vent any negative emotions, at our end of this spectrum this is not the case, repressed feelings have a tendency to fester inside. I need to read their book if I'm really going to pass judgement on them.

Mum was shocked by the violence in the news, so was I, it was shocking. "The men, they're killing each other. It's terrible how people do that to each other".  She was saddened rather than shocked by the violence in 'Life', looking away as two Kimono dragons brawled and saying how sad it was when one creature ate another - but she softened after a while, seeing it from the other creatures point of view and remarking on the miracle of the food chain and creation. At the end of the show they returned to the kimono dragons who were fighting at the beginning. It was impossible not to find their behaviour distasteful, lurking around their victim, a bison, ten times their size, for several weeks while it sickened from their venom. Men, too, they are just beasts, they know no better.

Mum didn't present any negative side-effects from taking the Mirtazapine, unless the 'suicidal ideation' is being accentuated or modified in some way by the drug. Her appetite has returned to normal, and there was no further nausea, so I have given her another half tonight, and we'll see how she goes.

We made hot water bottles and went to bed at seven. Mum said it was wonderful having someone to live with you who you can talk to and I kissed her goodnight. Correction: Mum went to bed at seven, I am still sitting here. writing this, and somehow its 10pm.

I forget

the time

THE GREMLIN

1:00pm
When I got up this morning Mum was getting ready to go shopping.

Like we do every day - we crossed off Tea from the list. We have accrued a whole cupboard full of tea-bags. When the lady from Crossroads (who provide in-home visitors) came for an assessment, a few months back, she called this 'repeat buying', she nodded sagely, 'very common'. (You calling my Mum common? Ha ha. ha.) I had to copy out the list today, Mum's had become indecipherable.

While we were doing all this I became a little concerned - we keep a couple of twenties hidden in a bag for her, 'cause she can't use a bank machine any more - this bag was on the kitchen counter, clearly empty. There was no point confusing matters, bringing this up before we finished the list - so we ploughed on with the task at hand.

Once that was out of the way the search for the wallet began. It was not to be found in any of the usual locations, & nor was the chequebook or twenties, that should have been in the empty bag on the kitchen counter.

Its quite tricky, sometimes, this business of 'looking for things with Mum', because she can't usually hold it in her head what she's looking for - unless its scissors or string. Really I'm doing most of the looking.

Today Mum doesn't seem to recognise she has a memory problem, or if she does, that this might be responsible for the things that keep vanishing. This kind of affair is much easier when she can blame the very real Gremlin; The Gremlin we call 'Alzheimer's' to each other, 'a memory problem' when talking to her.

She is saying that someone else has moved it, blaming me and Local-sister. It turns out there is a grain of truth in this - later on it turns out Local-sister had removed the unused chequebook & it was only the money we were looking for - which may or may not have confused matters.

After a few minutes I abandon the search - this has happened before. When she doesn't remember about the Gremlin? She won't stop talking about who moved it until I stop looking for it.

"Times getting on, I'll lend you some money so you can go shopping. Your wallet will turn up when you get back - it always does"

I get Mum a twenty and go to the kitchen. At some point during the search her wallet has reappeared, it is now in full view on the counter - with one twenty in it. It doesn't matter whether she forgot to tell me she had found it, or had forgotten it was what we were looking for - it has been found.

I wish I'd seen where she found it, though - the other money is probably somewhere near there.

So there's still something we are looking for.

What are we looking for?

I forget
what baffled me

DIAL 'M' FOR MIRTAZAPINE

11:45pm
Mum is vomitting in the toilet. She's been there a while.

According to the online 'Encyclopaedia of Mental Disorders'

"The most common side effects that cause people to stop taking mirtazapine are sleepiness and nausea." www.minddisorders.com

In the last post I mentioned that Mum doesn't care much for sell-by dates - but the green pork we threw out this morning was the only suspect food-stuff, & thats still in the bin (yes, I have checked, I would not put it beyond her to fish it out and eat it raw in an act of defiant independence). Besides, she's never thrown up before, 'least not since I've been living here. She's coming out of the toilet now - while I'm gone you can read the rest of the side-effects listed at minddisorders.com -

"Other common side effects are dizziness, increased appetite and weight gain. Less common adverse effects include weakness and muscle aches, flu-like symptoms, low blood-cell counts, high cholesterol, back pain, chest pain, rapid heartbeats, dry mouth, constipation, water retention, difficulty sleeping, nightmares, abnormal thoughts, vision disturbances, ringing in the ears, abnormal taste in the mouth, tremor, confusion, upset stomach, and increased urination." www.minddisorders.com

12:45am
I made Mum a hot water bottle and a glass of water & she went back to bed, but she's at it again now, I can hear her retching fruitlessly.
I am concerned by the earlier quote, the inference being that nausea is not one of the short-term side effects, but that it endures with extended use.

Remember, folks - unless your doctor is particularly young - they didn't learn about modern anti-depressants at Medical College. They probably just got a presentation from the drugs manufacturer, or attended a conference - was that conference funded wholly or in part by a pharmaceuticals company? I'm sure they'd offer to do it for nothing, being social-minded and all.

Take heed! - for some reason official sources seem to play down the side-effects - so your doctor isn't necessarily any better informed than you. You know this for a fact - if anyone who is anyone goes questioning that party line (the conclusions of inadequate and often biassed medical trials) then they is gonna get their panty-liners sued to hell and back.

I confess, as a practising Anarchist, I am biassed against international capitalist organisations, & the above represents my personal opinion, & not that of Mankind, whom I represent.

I learned three things the hard way - as a former heavy recreational drug-user - these three golden rules make me suspicious of the efficacy of long-term anti-depressant use-

1/ What goes up must come down.

2/ Your mind wants to be the way it is, and will eventually compensate 100% for virtually anything you put into it regularly.

3/ Anything even mildly pleasant can be highly addictive, for psychological addiction is very, very real, & not just for pansies who can't bothered to get addicted to a real drug, like morphine or diazepam.

Having said all that - I'm still up for giving these magic pills a go, provided the vomitting stops, though my instincts are turning against it. If it buys a little time, before the ground on which she thinks finally crumbles, & she falls into the void - or if it restores her will to live - then it will be worth adjusting to.

That reminds me of a dream I dreampt when I was three, vividly recalled here in 2008 -

My family are out for a walk, it is a fine Summer's day & I am riding upon a toboggan, with no visible means of locomotion. We are on ‘The Railway Cutting’ in Muswell Hill, a green and pleasant path, a viaduct, where rails once rumbled, now a narrow park,  it shares a similar giddying view of London to that which you can see from Alexandra Palace, raised as it is above the roads and rows of serried houses.

We are happy, untroubled - but all at once a single brick falls from under our feet, leaving a hole in the ground, a hole that leads to nothingness. The pathway that appeared to be solid does not now seem so stable. Though nothing more occurs & we pretend nothing has changed here - we continue our walk with a sense of rising danger. That which we thought was solid was insubstantial, at any moment the ground could crumble beneath us & we would tumble head-first into that emptiness & kiss the abyss below.

I recall trying to record this dream - frustratedly questing in pictures, just scribbles, to capture it. I stuck the resulting scrawls on the wall of my bedroom, beneath the painted sun.

Now, what was I saying?

I forget
what baffled me

GREEN EGGS AND MIRTAZAPINE

9:15am

A quarter of an hour ago I was lying in bed, contemplating my dreams, when the doorbell rung. I assumed it was Mum, who having got to the shops had become flustered, & forgotten that her key was round her neck, or how to open the front door.

Instead it was a good friend of hers, who lives locally & often calls by - I made them some coffee and  have left them alone to chat, while I came into the bedroom to start this blog.

Last week the doctor prescribed Mum an anti-depressant, Mirtazapine. We weren't warned about the side-effects, and quickly withdrew the treatment when Mum reported seeing smoke coming out of a doorstop, and 'red spots that are definitely there' [she gestured to the corner of the room]. She also heard ringing music/sounds, and a voice calling her in the night.

There was a fragility of mood, a 'come-down', on the drug's withdrawal (she only took one 15mg pill, the lowest dose commonly prescribed) and some restlessness and agitation during its active period (it has a half-life of 20-40 hours, meaning its effect halves every 20-40 hours).

On the flip-side there appeared to be a clear improvement in her enjoyment of social engagement and in her memory, though the general variability in her recall makes this less easy to judge than the black-and-white matter of the visual and auditory hallucinations (London-sister's partner said it was documented that visual and auditory distortions were a common side-effect, but not hallucinations. There was no music, no smoke, no spots - these may be quite abstract things, but they are things, and they were not there at all. When one when sees a thing that is not there at all? That is an hallucination in my book. 'Distortion' sounds like a euphemism to me.)

Last night, after consulting with Local-sister, who had spoken to the doctor, I resumed the treatment - but administering a reduced dosage of 7.5mg - I need to keep an eye on her.

I can hear Mum's friend leaving now.


10:15am

It is perhaps of note that my mother rarely engages in any task that is not daily routine. She wants to do the laundry every day (is this to keep it in this boundary?) even if there are only a couple of dirty towels in the machine. While the lawn & garden gets attention outside of this loop - based on observation of need (we do spend a long time looking at it) - the house rarely does, at least not without prompting. However, this morning she shook out the rugs & mopped the kitchen floor - first thing after her friend left.

She also took down one of the blinds in the kitchen because it rattled. Much to her delight I located a rogue strip of plastic, only 2mm long, which I chopped off with nail scissors and this fixed it. Apparently the rattling blind had been annoying her for a long time, & I had succeeded where myriad others had failed. What this probably means in reality? Perhaps she got Local-sister or London-sister to look at it once - but she made me feel like I'd pulled the Sword from the Stone, or found the Princess who lost her glass slipper.

When we made her shopping list & looked through the food in the fridge she became extremely agitated that I wanted to throw away the green, week-out-of-date pork-chops, & eat the fresh pink ones. She hates to waste things, for this I call her 'the patron saint of saving string'. She keeps & cares for useless objects, pilfered from bins or found in the street, & she will always eat the bacon, no matter how long ago it was labelled as 'best-before'. I am not that different, not that different at all. I win the argument over the green meat and Mum announces, brightly, the irritation gone from her voice -

"Well, the difference between you and me is that I want to die". Its always a tough call - what to say to when one's Mother says she wants to die.

"Maybe I want to die too, perhaps I just don't want to get violently sick", I venture. On previous occassions that she expressed a deathwish she was crying - I hugged her, said 'I love you', and everything was alright - this wasn't possible or appropriate when she was smiling and animated. She responded, with a characteristic cheekiness of tone -

"You mean you don't want to die slowly? You want it to be quick? I'll creep up behind you and hit you on the head with a hammer!"

"Maybe I'm working towards a time in the future when I want to live."

There was no concomittant upset, we carried on merrily preparing the shopping list together. I asked her if she wanted me to come, and she said no, she liked to do it alone - she wasn't just going shopping, she wanted to speak to all the people on the way. I felt, as she explained this to me, that she knew full well -today at least - that there would come a day, not too far off, when she was not capable of even this vestige of independence. I checked she had money, a key, her list, her bag, & she strode out bravely into a world of nameless things, at once familiar and strange.


11:15am

Mum returned, flustered, I was at the computer typing this blog. She was rambling - something along the lines of she hadn't any money and couldn't get 'the things on the paper'. She was having trouble finding the words now, they were missing, misplaced, a stark contrast to the casual erudition with which she had earlier expressed the wish to die.

The things on the list were MILK and SALAD CREAM.

"There's something in your bag, it looks heavy - ah, milk and creme freche. Milk is important." If you're trying some 'SPECL' techniques, but can't lie for toffee - just accentuate the positive.

You've got to accentuate the positive
To eliminate the negative
And latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mister In-Between

You've got to spread joy up to the maximum
Bring gloom down to the minimum
Have faith or pandemonium's
Liable to walk upon the scene Johnny Mercer

She left the room. I followed a minute later - there was no milk and no Mum. I went back into my room and sent an email. Fifteen minutes later I came out, to find Mum cooking eggs and bacon (not the fresh pork chops on the counter). I leave her to it, shes doing well. I come back in time to nuke some beans and put some toast on.

She chooses the biggest bit of everything and has it on the only big plate, mine is stacked like something from a cartoon.

Mum's really hungry. I cook us both a third egg, a third slice of bacon and I make some fried bread. She wants more beans too, but says its too much bother. I tell her I can do a little pot in one minute in the new microwave - she has extra beans too - I am stuffed and she has already out-eaten me.

Despite her constant protestations that she doesn't eat much - she eats like a horse. But today she is eating for a pregnant elephant. I feel too bloated for dessert, Mum has a sliced apple.

Looking at lists of side-effects it is probable that the ravenous appetite, the strange conversation and the non-routine housework are all behaviours reflecting the change in chemical balance in her brain from the anti-depressant, but she has not yet reported anything black and white that can without doubt be attributed to the drug - which is good news, the apparition of smoke coming from the doorstop was unsettling for her. The music and red-spots weren't disorienting - she doesn't remember them.

I forget
what baffled me

WHAT BAFFLED ME

WHAT BAFFLED ME

I took pills for my memory
but I could not stop it
from erasing

I had a family once
They could walk on water
There was a one-way chain
That held me to a woman's body
She didn't know she jerked me
every-which-way

But who was she?
And who were they?
In the midst of
someone's explanation
I forget
what baffled me

Leonard Cohen, The Book of Longing