The Brain Describes Its Injury and Recovery

Carolyn Williams-Noren

(undated)

I type this with my eyes closed. 

I type this with the light of the screen turned down, and as I move my fingers I have my eyes closed and even beyond my eyelids black screen.Someone calls on the phone and asks for the head of the household and I say, Sorry, you have the wrong number. 

There is no head in this household. 

I type out a Facebook post to let people know why I’ve disappeared, and whenever I type brain the phone suggests a small pink wad of chewing gum instead. 

A wad of pink chewing gum. 

I am supposed to rest the brain.

What does this mean? Should I not think? 

I learned that the brain rests most with the eyes closed. That seeing takes more energy from the brain than thinking. 

Does writing with my eyes closed count as rest? It feels like less work than thinking without writing does. It’s as though I’m following one line, staying on one line. One string. Unscattered. 

(undated)

The brain has felt sodden, heavy, in front of my, above my, behind my eyes. 

Closing my eyes, staying in a dim room, I quiet all the senses. Under a blanket, not seeing, not hearing, not smelling anything, I use the inner senses. 

The inner senses sense a sound like silver. It’s as though everything were dipped in silver, or a strand of metal wire ran through the brain. 

I think of that George Saunders story where women hang from a wire. I imagine they heard this sound in the brain, in the ears, those women, the sound is in the eyes, too, really, pervades. All of the things are silvery. 

At this moment my head does not hurt. 

On Saturday it did, and some of Sunday. I was looking at everything through it, through the headache. A deep tunnel, transparent and also far. 

Today is Monday and it’s mostly the sound, and the superpower of being able to sleep. I slept until 11. Then I lay in bed meditating. Which is having the eyes closed, paying attention to one thing at a time. Which I have also defined as rest. 

Doing one thing at a time feels restful. Soaking the orchids in water, then draining them and setting them back in their pots. 

Having gotten out of bed, eaten a plate of chips with refried beans and cheese, and drank half a can of guava juice, I am tired again. 

The sound is like a squeaky swing set, just one slice of the arc, repeated, repeated, repeated. 

The inside senses are worry. The inside senses are fear and boredom. Those senses are harder to rest. 

(undated)

The doctor told me that walking is good for concussions, and even not having googled and read about why⎯not being supposed to, and not wanting to read, and not reading⎯I can believe it’s true. 

There is a way that walking integrates the whole body again. Both sides, both front and back, all parts, a rhythm of swinging, a rhythm of movement, the predictable way objects are first far away and then become close, closer, and then are moving away again, behind, if you turn your head, farther, farther, and then not seen. 

This repetition at this speed is manageable, feels like I can find my way through it, regain a kind of legato of thought, legato of movement, take in movement again in a way that is smooth, is continuous, is unfrightening. 

(undated) 

Falling asleep one night I dreamed of the impact⎯which, after all, was friendly, was Iris’s innocent elbow as she swung around having shut the fridge, was my innocent head moving quite fast as I leaned down to put a mug away in the cupboard at her feet. Was her innocent elbow and my innocent head becoming suddenly violent, suddenly their speed, suddenly their power. 

I dreamed in the almost-asleep about the impact, and my body moved in the way the body moves before sleep, a full-nerve, full-muscle jolt, electric and, in this dream, replicating in feeling and tone and moment of the impact. My memory of the impact is full. My brain’s memory of the impact is full. 

One day a long time ago, Iris said, “The brain named itself.” She must have been about five years old.

She said it in the way that she does, clearly having thought about it for a while and being ready to share. The same way when she was two she asked, “How did linguists think of their name?” 

(undated) 

Iris has apologized so many times for hitting me in the head, and so many times I have told her, Love, it was both of us running into each other. It was not your fault. If you ever clobber me on the head on purpose I expect a good apology but, love, we were just doing our thing. We ran into each other. It’s ok. and I will be ok. 

I am mostly ok, but I have the sound, and the headache, and the worry that they won’t end if I don’t rest properly. And the feeling⎯bone level, nerve level⎯of need for rest. 

The to do list is like this, in no order: Take a shower. Walk for a half hour. Try working on the grant proposal for an hour. Or less, if it causes a headache. 

If I could read now I would google “what causes tinnitus.” 

To do: Walk to the store and buy some chocolate. 

To rest I have to reconceive doing nothing as an accomplishment. As an activity that counts, that is not wasted. 

April 10

I type this with the screen light turned down again. Having mostly recovered, but having used my day’s allotment of screen time on getting back to work. Feeling slightly achy behind the eyes. Slightly metallic. Experiencing very slightly a metallic singing sound. But nothing like last week. 

Here are some things I’ve noticed. 

Everyone⎯the doctor, the PT, the ER doctor, the ER nurse⎯said, “We know so much more than we used to.”  But then nobody seems to know anything very useful. What we know is: Yep, concussions can mess you up. You can feel bad in a variety of ways for a long time. And it takes a long time to heal, and it’s important to rest, but rest means something different for each person, and you have to figure out what it is by seeing what helps and what hurts. 

Walking in the neighborhood slowly without earbuds, I noticed a pair of red-bellied woodpeckers on the corner of 46th Avenue and 33rd Street three days in a row, and I started to believe they were nesting there and check on them every day. They moved on after a couple of days, but in the meantime the mailman walking across the street the opposite way noticed me looking and took his earbuds out and asked what I was looking at. When I told him, he said, I’ll keep my eye on them. 

I also saw a two-inch dead bat lying on its back on the bike path one morning. Fuzzy-bodied. 

I noticed that when I don’t read, I crave people. Want to chat with whoever calls on the phone. Want to run into someone and say hi and see what’s new. 

I notice the warmness of people more.  

I noticed my compulsion to read. How hard it was to drink a cup of coffee and sit. Eat and sit. Even take a shower and not listen to a podcast or a book. I want the interesting, the new, the story, the voices, the input, the ideas, the things to think. I look for this in what is made: in art, in made stories, books, podcasts, even Facebook. When did I stop looking for it in people, where it exists more simply and more readily and more complexly? Did I ever look for it in people? 

The act of writing this with the screen turned down. 

The act of writing without rereading, not at all. 

I noticed that it is possible to just sit with people. I liked not expecting myself to be the quickest person in the room. Liked finding out I could just listen and respond slowly and be taken care of a little bit. Everything felt softened. 

At Easter we went to Liz’s and I sat at the table. Stood in the kitchen, slowly cutting something up. Or sat on the couch. Did not knit, did not read, did not try to get a word in. Watched the girls play outside in the snow. Watched out the window Pete and Anders splitting firewood. Retired to the downstairs bedroom for a three-hour nap. Ambled back up the stairs and poured myself and Liz glasses of sparkling water. Drank the water slowly, sitting still.

I’m waiting for Iris at dance class. A week ago it was spring break and there was no dance class and I was at home feeling ever so slightly better after a hard few days. Two weeks ago I was here waiting for Iris, headachy and trying to retype the questions of the grant proposal. And then I drove home feeling carsick, knowing I’d done too much that day. Three weeks ago Iris was working on homework and I was feeling unwell enough to let her skip dance class, because I didn’t feel like going anywhere either. Four weeks ago I hit my head.