If you had a penny for my thoughts...

...You would have a lot of pennies.

I heard a story on NPR a few years ago about ADD/ADHD. There is a strong heritable link with this particular neuro-type, so there was a particular segment about the experience of the many adults who realize they have been dealing with it their whole lives, because their children have just been diagnosed. One lady recounted how she received a diagnosis, then went to the pharmacy and filled her prescription for Ritalin. She was supposed to take the first pill the following morning, but  couldn't endure the wait, and she took it right there at a drinking fountain in the store.  

I was driving off the island after just dropping the kids off at school and it was sunny (you always remember the sunny days when you live in Seattle.) And I was forgetting to breathe as I waited for her to get on with her story. And then she said what I was afraid she'd say. 

She said it was quiet.

I knew it. I felt slightly sick. She said that the realization snuck up on her. She was driving just as I was, and suddenly realized that she was just concentrating on driving and on the car in front of her. Usually there would be an incessant stream of thoughts, ideas, and to-do lists as her constant internal companion. But it was so quiet. She cried because she had never experienced anything like it. I cried because I never have.

Every day so many words fill my head. Not voices, mind you. We aren't talking about psychosis. And we aren't referring to the normal, mental notes to "go buy milk and bread at the grocery store before you pick up the dry-cleaning, and the kids have flute and soccer today."  

The words filling my brain weave a net of connectivity and possibility around me. They sometimes make me a creative and funny, quick-witted person that I like. And sometimes they immobilize me such that I might drown. I clear them out every night through meditation as I fall toward sleep. They leave willingly enough, usually. But they are waiting for me to return to consciousness in the morning just as eagerly as my dogs wait for my return home.

It seems a bit unfair that the time it takes me to write this post existed as a nano-second in my brain. This is one reason why I like writing, it converts a micro-thought into a fuller form. This post exists only because last week that I began several different posts on dogs, education, rage, advocacy, empathy... And I couldn't finish any of them ...for reasons that will enrich future posts.

When I first heard Girl Talk (thanks to KEXP DJ Michele Myers, one Saturday afternoon) I was gobsmacked. This energetic, chaotic, and beautifully blended album of mash-ups - 363 songs in one long mix - sounds like what ADD feels like. Creating a video from all the songs involved is just icing on the cake. This is part one - "Oh no."