Martha Weinman Lear

INTRODUCTION

“…We gather in a room to watch, say, the Academy Awards – several of us insisting, as we do each year, that we watch only to see the gowns – and then somebody says, ‘That actress with the big lips, what’s her name? I always forget her name’, and somebody else says, ‘You’re asking me?’ and a third says, ‘I can’t remember a thing anymore’, and a fourth says, ‘Get in line’, and we all laugh merrily. Much too merrily.

“Because what unnerves us all, of course, is the specter of Alzheimer’s disease. ‘My God, I must be getting Alzheimer’s,’ we say to one another. With that same edgy little ha-ha, just to show that we are joking. More or less.

“A year before I began to write this book, I found myself joking less. I had a bad case of what is not just a common phrase but a term actually used by memory researchers: tip of the tongue (TOT) syndrome.

“It was not simply the obvious, such as people’s names and To Do lists, that were becoming increasingly elusive but the thought process itself, sequences of thought, and as a non-fiction writer whose central task is to take a mass of research and organize it in a fluid way, moving with logic and hopefully a bit of grace from points A to B to C, I was not thrilled with this development. I would be working on a magazine article, and the perfect way to segue from one paragraph to the next would flash suddenly into my consciousness like a thousand-watt bulb, and then, pouf, out, gone, good-bye, and it was driving me batty...

“And so, with a pocketful of angst, I went to see the director of a memory-aid program in New York City. Many big-city hospitals now have such programs. They treat primarily people with pathology, but they also get plenty of calls from people like me – those who just don’t know what their memory blanks mean, and they get anxious, and they seek reassurance.

“And I got it. The director put me through a battery of tests, told me that I showed no sign whatever of developing abnormal memory loss, and sent me on my way. I floated home. The old forgetfulness still drives me batty but, given the assurance that it’s normal, I no longer lose any sleep over it. Which seems, in fact, to improve my memory.

“Would that we could all relax. There is always the possibility of being hit by dementia. Or by a truck. But the sweet­ probability is that ours is the kind of ordinary memory loss that comes with the years. It is one of the various prices of admission to longevity, and when you consider other prices that one might pay, it’s the best buy in town. It even has advantages, as you will see.

“Not that I am about to tout The Upside of Aging. This memory thing that we are going to explore is sometimes called benign forgetfulness. Please. Spare me the euphemisms. Less ­forgetfulness would be more benign. But let’s recognize that, although it may drive us wild, it is totally normal – normal: lovable word – and move on from there.”