the PDF of her book - National Aphasia Association

72 Ruth Codier Resch Without Utterance:
to streamline my life as Dr. Sarno taught me in the beginning. Choosing
mindfully is essential even now, ten years after the stroke. Overwrought
fatigue is still a hazard, and there are days lost to it.
I make remodels to this house, tear plaster to studs. The bathroom
is deep brown marble. I try to imagine it as a mossy cave, a stone bathing
grotto, but the old stains invade my sensibility. Instead I make a white tile
bathroom with white linen shower curtains, and very much want to ask my
friends to tea there.
The kitchen has two closely adjacent doorways. One used to be an
entrance from the back porch and now opens to the short hallway to my
studio added to the back of the house. The other is from the kitchen into
the dining space. The doorways, side by side, are archaic; the caprice of the
layout undermines any small order I so lately have in a kitchen. I consult a
New York colleague who lives her spare time in her kitchen.
“Tell me how to think about designing a kitchen! I can’t believe the
glitz of the mags.”
She draws out three activity maps for me, showing me how they work
functionally. I choose one that fits my disordered mind and the actual space I
have. Tearing plaster to studs again, I put in track lighting, white counters, a
new stove, open shelves for dishes and cookware I can see, a standing cabinet
for hiding groceries. I put down oak flooring in the kitchen and into the dining
area to match the living room. I still have appalling trouble following a recipe
and sequencing the whole plan from shopping to making, but my body is
at ease in this new kitchen. I can see things I need around me. This kitchen
helps me move from one activity to another more smoothly. It frees my mind
from its struggle for organization.
I delight in discovering the archeology of this house as I make changes. I
find an old front doorsill in an odd place, across the house. There are paneled
walls beneath the plaster of the bathroom, next to the old doorsill. I guess that
the paneled walls were the original entryway, maybe a mudroom. I find a long
boarded-up window in the kitchen. I imagine the original face of the house
when it looked from the side in a different direction across fields. The back