Sundowning - March 24 2026

 

Sundowning

March 24 2026

The word escapes me.

As if it had reason

to burrow down into the dark cortical depths

where listless neurons

with few connections left

haven’t been messaged in years.

Down a set of steep rickety stairs

to that dank cellar,

a sepulchral place

with a dirt floor and low ceiling,

festooned with spider webs

and pungent with mould.

Is this a game it’s playing?

Should I look away, distract myself,

feign uninterest

until it gets bored?

I catch a glimpse,

sense its first consonant.

But it flirts with me,

slipping into the shadows

then retreating a step

when I’m oh-so-close to seizing it.

The memory is there,

the problem is retrieval.

And what’s the use of memory

without recall?

Is this how dementia feels;

gripping the handrail unsteadily 

as I descend step-by-step

into a deepening murk

confused and lost?

The ancient coal furnace

from when I first learned to walk

is rattling angrily away

in a dark forbidding corner,

a black monstrosity

with a redly glowing maw

spewing acrid smoke.

Along with all the memories I forgot

spilling from boxes

and scattered about.

I bend down

and peer over the edge of the stairs,

still as frightened of that furnace

as the long ago child.

I can vaguely recall my dad 

hands covered in soot

swearing sideways at the thing;

a mild man

who watched his language

but had no knack for machinery.

Surely the word is somewhere down there,

teasing me

in a game of hide-and-seek

it once would have tired of.

But I’m no longer it,

andI scurry back into the light

overwhelmed.

Only to find

that a terrible darkness has shrouded the world

in some eternal night,

and I’m too bewildered and upset

to settle in my chair

or be put to bed.

I can’t come up with “periwinkle” and “orexin”, but a grainy snapshot of that ancient furnace and scary cellar comes easily to mind. Even though a temporary anomic aphasia is not a portent of dementia, the availability of old memories combined with the inaccessibility of recent ones is a hallmark of it. 

And when I do experience this frustrating murk, I get an intimation of how dementia must feel: a frightening sense of being lost, unmoored in a heavy darkness that feels like wading through water with nothing to hang on to and no way out. 

Alternatively, there’s the triumph of a word revealing itself, my ability to drag it up from the depths and into the light: that is, the reassuring relief that my brain still hasn’t lost it. At least not yet! Although more than dragging, distraction is indeed the key. Stop pushing, let your mind wander, and the word will suddenly appear. Not right away, but at least in the fullness of time.

“Sundowning” is common in dementia:  an agitated state of confusion when the sun goes down.