Chameleon's Tongue

Tuesday 19th April

Day 363

I arrive at my father’s at 8.30 this morning. It is already hot. I am taking him for more blood tests. He hasn’t had any breakfast - he has to fast for these tests to check his iron and cortisol levels. We are just about to leave for Charmouth when I realise I have left all the information and the cheque to pay for them on the table by the phone at home. I try to call my husband but can’t remember our phone number. My father looks it up for me in his little black book under ‘family’.

It all works out in the end but afterwards I think about the effect of stress on memory. My reaction to my mistake seems extreme - a coiled chameleon tongue strikes up from the pit in my gut and snatches away all record of my telephone number - gone, devoured in an instant. A blank where there used to be a row of figures. Then my heart slows and the number is back where it always was.

I try and imagine what it must be like for my husband. Sometimes I say a name, a place and he has no picture to match it. He says it’s terrifying - like I am speaking a foreign language. But his resident chameleon’s tongue is never still, always flicking out and stealing his words - flies swallowed whole. Only fear left, clinging to the leaf.

A year ago tomorrow on 20th April 2010, I wrote Day 1 of this blog. So I have come full circle - even though I didn’t write every day, and the dates have got a bit muddled, I said I’d do it for 21 days which has turned into a year. Time to stop. Or not. I’ll see what happens tomorrow.