Of Fraktur Art, Fractured Lives, and Other Curiosities

Char didn’t know how to begin the first entry in her new gratitude journal. That she didn’t know startled, then dismayed her. For over three decades she had been paid to put words down on paper. She had written more press releases than she cared to count, and her advice column, “Let’s Practice Prudence,” was carried in the weekly newspaper that served four contiguous counties in the rural part of Virginia where she and Uri lived. For now, her column was carried, that is. Next fiscal year, the weekly was being reduced to monthly, and no one could predict what might follow. The glaring truth was that the weekly-turned-monthly would probably fold. Yes, print journalism would soon belong to the past, along with manual typewriters and black-and-white TVs. But the fact remained that, at this very minute, the future be damned, Char didn’t know how to begin. She had a case of writer’s block. She wouldn’t characterize it as severe, this being not a professional but a personal endeavor. Still, it bothered her that she couldn’t simply – start. Why? God forbid, could this be a sign of early onset dementia? That dreaded loss of intellectual functioning and, ultimately, dignity and life, already affected Uri, who was three years her junior. However, his old head injury made dementia predictable, if not a near certainty. His docs had prepared her for the worst long ago. Char had no reason that she could think of for writer’s block except looming old age. In her mid-, not even her early fifties, she had to admit she was getting up there in years. Still, this was ridiculous. She chewed on her upper lip and stared down at the gratitude journal on her desk. The first cream-colored page had wide pink lines running across it that just begged to be filled up. But how to start? “It’s absurd,” she muttered to herself.