The Next Campsite

"It's always best  to set up camp while there is still natural light outside. That way one can find the way to the toilet and locate some Large-Leaved Aster leaves to use as toilet paper. Next, assemble the tent, get a good hot supper cooking and have time to enjoy the stars before settling into a comfortable sleeping bag and getting a good night's sleep.

"Throughout most of my life, I'd avoided learning to play piano. I'd played violin for about fifteen years, dabbled in recorder and bowed psaltery, but avoided piano because it was too 'ordinary'. Plus, it required using one's hands and fingers in a 'mirrored' sort of way, which I found difficult. I'd avoided learning to knit for the same reason, though I knew how to crochet and cross-stitch.

"I now had a new brain. The old pressure on my ventricles was gone, the pressure I'd quietly lived with for forty-five years, unknowingly. So, my curiosity overwhelmed me: would this change me in any way? Would I become a different person? Would I suddenly have new abilities previously unknown?

"The answers to these questions were 1.) yes. I now didn't have to live with the symptoms of hydrocephalus, 2.) no. I would still have the same basic personality, and 3.) maybe. The doctors said it was unlikely, but I held out hope to discover new abilities. With this in mind, I taught myself to knit! And I took piano lessons. I experienced something I had never experienced before, a connection between my right and left hands, in my brain. I could actually feel the connection, and the more I knitted and tickled the ivory keys, the more coordinated I felt. Coincidentally, typing on the computer keyboard became a similar experience. I think these activities actually help my brain to function faster."

​ --from pp. 71-72 in The Lakes In My Head, Paddling An Unexplored Wilderness