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 Each day feels new, and my memory of the one before is faint. I’m learning to adapt. |
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In September 2019, a seizure revealed a lime-sized meningioma pressed against my hippocampus—the part of the brain that governs memory and language. The doctors said it was benign, but benign didn’t mean harmless. Surgery removed the tumor, and three days later I opened my eyes to a new reality. I could walk, I could talk, but when I looked at my wife, her name was gone. I called her Precious—the only word I could find. A failure of memory, yet perhaps the truest name of all. Recovery has been less cure than re-calibration. Memory gaps are frequent. Conversations vanish. I had to relearn how to write, letter by halting letter. My days are scaffold by alarms, notes, and calendars. When people ask how I am, I don’t list symptoms or struggles. I simply say, “Seven Degrees Left of Center.” It’s not an answer—it’s who I’ve become. Note ▼ |
| My writing wrestles with complexity vs. simplicity: Simplicity has power. A clean sentence, one striking image, or a single line of dialogue can carry more punch than a page of ornate detail. Simplicity makes the work breathable and memorable. Hemingway leaned on this. Complexity has depth. Layered structure, subtext, interwoven perspectives, or shifting timelines create richness that sticks with a reader long after. Think Toni Morrison or David Mitchell. The trick isn’t to pick one—it’s to orchestrate the tension between them. - A story that’s all simplicity risks feeling thin. - A story that’s all complexity risks collapsing under its own weight. But if you pair them—clean prose delivering layered ideas, or a complex structure handled with deceptively simple language—you get writing that feels both accessible and profound. A better phrase: Simplicity is how you deliver. Complexity is what you deliver. |
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