Experiencing it again for the first time

It starts with the movies, dwells on a paradox of dementia — that it can allow someone to experience something again for the first time — and picks up another paradox — that it’s possible for someone to forget everything and still successfully follow enormously complex routines. I will illustrate the first from my guy (my husband-equivalent) Jacques Transue in the early stages of his life-ending dementia and the second from myself under the sway of a powerful steroid drug. This will be a lot less grim than it sounds. Then some professorial reflections on what it’s all about. I’m sorry; the professor comes along with the story-teller, it’s a package deal. Movie time. First the lists. From my 5/25/25 posting “Movies”: There are three lists, all ordered chronologically. The main list is Arnold’s Favorites: movies that have given me pleasure, that I have watched repeatedly (five or more times), and that I recommend enthusiastically to others. This is a personal thing, as idiosyncratic as…