Goines On: Mind behind

Poster by David Lance Goines
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The day before Goines visited Memorial Grove with Mrs. Goines, he had maybe his sharpest feeling yet that he was losing his mind. He had been to the Volvo dealership, although he didn’t remember now why their little station wagon needed servicing – it no longer had Ziggy to ride in the back – but the headrest cushion he had taken to use in the waiting room wasn’t in the car when he got home. He discovered its absence when he reached into the back seat to collect his things.
    And on the way home he had gotten off the freeway at the wrong exit. And when he reached the Sheetz turn-off by an alternate route, he decided to do a quick workout at the gym before proceeding home. (It was almost a year before the Covid-19 pandemic, so he hadn’t stopped going to the gym yet.)

    But at the gym, after storing his cane and light-weight jacket in a locker, he put his lock on a nearby locker instead.
    At least the mistake prompted the joke he made to the first person he saw, “You know, they really ought to consider providing escorts for their elderly members.” 

    Being able to joke about being elderly at least reassured Goines he still had some mind left.
    But then, after lunch, back at the Volvo dealership to collect the headrest cushion, he was told that he had also left his lumbar cushion in the waiting room.

    On his second drive home, he wondered whether leaving his mind behind was not far off after all?

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