I wonder if one particular aspect of what we share, of the movement you and I share, is an aspect of this phenomenon? asked Old Friend One. Namely that for long periods of time I literally lose the language -- for weeks, months, I stammer, I mumble, become absent from my own speech. Do you know what I mean? I cannot write even a simple letter to a friend, find a simple response to the dumbest question difficult to articulate. I growl all the time at my dog, my cat, my lovely daughter. Growl at my poor wife for asking the most innocent questions: Why are you saving this empty shoe box in your closet? And I bark at her: Don’t touch it! I need it for something, though I have forgotten what that something was. Shout at her when she suggests, oh so gently, trying to drag me out of the house: How about a movie this afternoon? And me I grumble: Bah, what’s the point, there’s nothing good playing, it’s all crap these days! If I do manage a few miserable words they are apt to be received language: What time is it? What’s for dinner? What’s on TV? Months go by before I begin to feel the return of words. Very strange. I wonder if it is at all familiar to you too, this phenomenon? I suspect it is.
Damn right it is, Old Friend two replied.