My vocabulary was the first to go. Simple words would escape me and I would end up searching around for them like I do for my glasses in the dark. I would come back with inadequate replacements. I blamed zoom, I blamed stress. What I never really considered was that maybe I was searching for words when there were none. Next came the conversation. It dried up. I used to love winding endless discussions like a river with many tributaries, some mountain fed, some coming from deep within the forest. On really exciting days, the rain fell and made the river overflow. However, the river bed's water evaporated. I think about conversations now fondly like I do of childhood pastimes. I cannot seem to reach for anything more substantial than what I am eating. or seeing on the internet or of course the weather. I am boring myself. These past several months have felt a bit like musical chairs. The music stopped and I was without a c...