#paltrywords

I love this holiday. It feels like both a chance to remember to be principled people, but also a time to reflect on loss and be a little melancholy. I always take this time of year to both reflect on our internal strength and the ability to do the thing right in front of us, and to think about the reality of Alzheimer's and everything that it takes away from us.

It's been about a year since my dad was accepted into a larger group care facility and it seems to suit him better. It's also been interesting to see all the different ways that Alzheimer's affects different people. Some (like my dad) lose their ability to speak in recognizable sentences, some lose sense of where they are and what's going on around them, and some suffer in anxiety where they can't quite place why something feels wrong. It's a devastating disease and so unpredictable at that...

I'm glad I don't know the details of what Sir Terry Pratchett went through with his diagnosis. It's extremely personal and none of my business. But the thought of what might have happened to this wonderful author, this wordsmith of the highest degree hurts my heart.

If anyone wants, please feel free to use this Glorious 25th to donate to the Alzheimer's Association, or any other Alzheimer's charity.

One small excerpt of the book has been stuck in my head for a while now, and it doesn't seem to want to let go.

When the mysteries are just starting to be revealed, it is uncovered that Dr. Jekyll is searching ferociously for some drug through letters to chemists. It's the last line of the letter that Utterson reads that refuses to leave my brain:

"Its contents ran thus: 'Dr. Jekyll presents his compliments to Messrs. Maw. He assures them that their last sample is impure and quite useless for his present purpose. In the year 18‐‐, Dr. J. purchased a somewhat large quantity from Messrs. M. He now begs them to search with most sedulous care, and should any of the same quality be left, forward it to him at once. Expense is no consideration. The importance of this to Dr. J. can hardly be exaggerated.' So far, the letter had run composedly enough, but here with a sudden splutter of the pen, the writer's emotion had broken loose. 'For God's sake,' he added, 'find me some of the old.'"

That raw desperation with that slip into first person...! It's harrowing, given the restrained tone of the rest of the letter, and of the story up until this point. The audiobook does such a good job of highlighting the fear and distress of Jekyll in this letter. And, as we see as the story continues, there is no more drug, there is no more potion, and thus, he can't go back to his life as Dr. Jekyll.

-        I dream often, but quite a bit I’m not myself and there’s some persona for me to take on instead. This can either be me with a completely different life scenario (to a degree that it affects my personality), be me gender or age shifted, or just be someone completely different.

-        Do people dream in color? Or is that even a concept that works with dreams? I know I get impressions of color when it feels important for me to note, but I’m not sure if the rest of the dreams actually have color in them.

-        Same thing goes with sound. Do we actually “hear” stuff in our dreams, like in real time, or are we just told all at once, this is what you heard (if that makes any sense at all).

-        I’ve died in dreams before. After dream death, there’s around a 25% chance to wake up, a 25% to repeat from earlier on in the dream (a la Groundhog Day), and 50% chance to cut to black and move on to a different dream.

-        Apparently, you can’t dream of people or places you haven’t seen, but that seems very tricky to prove. I think brains are very good at giving us impressions of things without necessarily needing to “show” them entirely (like “new human”, “spooky alleyway”, “generic beach” etc.)

-        Nightmares are strange. More often than not, there’s less that is actually scary about the dream and more just the brain triggering a sense of dread or fear of unsettlement. For me, the thing that really makes them suck is that the feeling doesn’t go away when you wake up.

Void!!! 

It is impossible for me to encapsulate with paltry words the wonder that is Keshet Arts and the High Mesas that surround it. Instead, I offer you this iPhone video, as I feel it the best representation of this ARTIST FIRST space and community.