The disappearing ink of my memory started fading some time ago. My pre-ostomy time is almost entirely gone. I was 21 when they did the surgery; I am 77 now. What it was like to be a person without this thing attached to my belly, I cannot recall. It is as lost as a spare coin. When you go back fifty years in your mind, rivers become tributaries, tributaries become trickles. That hard-working hippocampus, whose job it is to send out memories to the appropriate part of the cerebral hemisphere for long-term storage and then to retrieve them when necessary, has carelessly let his union card lapse. That is when that mischievous scamp imagination enters the picture. He will mess with your mind; he will cause you to wonder where that wavering, phantasmagoric line is between reality and fantasy. That bully ego begins to hang around too, bolstering, embroidering, exaggerating. Memory, after a long, long ride through time, develops carbuncles. Do you want to know what wonder is? Wonder is that startling, unsettling notion that occurs to you, long afterwards: Did I really do that?
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Thank you for your kind comment. I see from your bio that your hub is a retired high school English literature teacher. I had no idea that subject (my major in college) was taught at the high school level. I only wish that I had started reading earlier than I did. When I graduated from high school, in 1960, "English" class was still diagramming sentences and working at getting the working class students to distinguish there, their, and they're. Stay well.
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Hello HenryM.
Whilst I too enjoy your writing, I'm not sure about being reminded of this particular subject matter. Never mind! I probably would have forgotten all about by the morniing.
Best wishes
Bill
The bookshelf in your brain can only hold so many books; when you put a new one on, an old one falls off.
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LOL Life would be unlivable without a sense of humor (that's humour to you, I guess). Glad to see that your's is intact. Stay well.
You write so well, Henry! I always enjoy your posts and can relate well to this one. Keep it up, my friend. You add some color and spark to what might be a dull day for some.
Terry
I'm not familiar with what is taught down there, but up here, they're encouraging students to open their literature books in grade 9 at the latest. (Used all 3 in a sentence! Did I pass?) Henry, your writing style would make your college teachers proud. Keep it up.
Laurie
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