S

I awakened around four A.M. this morning. As I lay in the dark, a curious thought and problem arose. I was trying to remember the name of the ancient Indo-European language and all that I could recall was the first letter S. I kept substituting vowels for the second letter and after about fifteen minutes it came to me, Sanskrit. It puzzles me how a term that I have known for so many years could remain buried. Then a line from antiquity came to me, something that I have not thought of in at least fifty years.
I first thought of the line when I saw my Father, a man whose vocabulary was immense, struggle to remember a term. It is a line from Virgil. "The years take all, one's wits included.".
What is going on in my "little grey cells"? How can a word that I have probably encountered a hundred times in the past year escape me and then one that I have not thought of in fifty years come back?
I have one explanation that I recently embraced. I think of my mind as a fine Sheraton secretary and my memories stored in the drawers, written on fine rag paper by a gold tipped fountain pen, but sometimes when I go to retrieve one of the memories, the drawer is locked!
Perhaps I should purchase a book of crossword puzzles to give my memory a workout. Reading doesn't seem to be helping. The television will remain off except for Thursday nights at eight P.M. and Sunday nights for Masterpiece theatre.