I’ve begun reading Gerda Saunders’ book about her early-onset dementia. What a pleasure it is to read a well-written account like that. She shares her life-story generously. I’m currently reading her foray into making sense of short term memory and think about my own. It is sad that it is so fleeting. I think about my first steps outside in the early morning and all those senses enlivened and awakened by the experience – the smell of the air, the feel of it on my skin, the sound of rain, the rushing of wind, the creaking of the beech tree – and how soon they are gone from me. And yesterday walking with him, in particular when I walked over the bridge as the steam train was trolling along under it giving me that snatch of a stink of cold, wet metal and the acid, acrid dry aroma of coal smoke. So much life and so soon to disappear.
