My Mind and Me

The mind is a funny thing. Sometimes it functions like an eight cylinder high performance car in a formula one race car.

The mind can recall the most miniscule detail of a happening long, long ago, like the pattern of the freckles on Polly Anderson's face, my sweetheart, though she was not aware of such, in the sixth grade. The mind can sometimes recall the name that goes with a face but not the place with which the name and face are connected. The mind can comprehend the complexities of a book but can forget where the eyeglasses need to read the book are located.

Could it be my imagination? Is my mind changing as I tip toe into old age. What makes my mind do the things it does.

I don't have a home phone, as in one of those old land line devices. My mind convinced me with reasoned logic that having a cell phone in my pocket and a conventional phone on the table was superfluous. I became a man of the twenty­first century. Imagine it, a senor citizen of my age with an iPhone. (You might ask how one my age and with my mind could master an iPhone. The answer: I study at the feet of my grandchildren.) And yet, after listening to the logic of my mind and getting rid of that antiquated phone two years ago, my mind still whispers to me every time I walk in the house, “Check for messages.”

Lynn passed away almost six months now. I'm not over it, but my mind and I have learned to compensate. My mind tells me frequently, “You need to vacuum,” or “Clothes don't wash themselves.” My mind has encouraged me to live as a widower and attend to all of the chores that before were shared. And my mind has tutored me into being an independent old man who lives alone. But still, so often I turned the corner to head toward the home and I see her car parked beside the house. My mind notifies my heart to increase its beating because, “Lynn's home.”

I don't have a television. My mind, being the dependable organ it is, convinced me that it was ridiculous to have a television when almost everything I want to watch can be viewed over the internet for free. I haven't seen a television program except via the computer for a long while. I'm grateful for the money my mind convinced me to save. Still whenever I sit on the sofa my mind encourages me to look for the remote control.

I conducted a funeral for a dear church member recently. Before heading to the funeral home to be with the family, I arranged everything on the pulpit at the church, my Book of Worship, my order of service, and my message notes. It was a prudent thing to do, so said my mind. When the service began I stepped to the pulpit to behold nothing, no program, no notes, no Book of Worship. Apparently, my mind reasoned, someone straightened up the church in preparation for the service, and in the doing removed my stuff. My mind then, with amazing precision, coached me through the whole service allowing me to appear confident and professional.

I found the notes after the service in a room at the back of the church. Did I put them there? My mind's not talking.