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I Lost Something Automatically

Ever stopped and looked at your automatic movements that you do naturally, day after day, without thinking about it?

Nope. Me neither.

Not until I developed Parkinson’s disease and people started pointing them out to me. “Stop looking at me that way!” is a common complaint I get. “What way?” I ask. “That weird way you’re staring at me!” To which I shake my head: “What on earth are you talking about?”

It’s one of those peculiar things about Parkinson’s you just can’t seem to put your finger on until it either bothers someone or a doctor points it out. With me, it’s either lack of arm swing when I walk, usually in my left arm but sometimes diminished in both, and other times it’s the “Robert Powell” stare that he did when he played the lead in Jesus of Nazareth. Watch it next time you get a chance. The director told him not to blink when he read his lines. Unless you are aware of this when you watch him perform you notice an otherworldliness about Jesus that you just can’t put your finger on that makes Robert Powell’s performance stand out.

It’s just that he’s not blinking. Tiny detail, but it makes a striking difference revealing a very intellectual director’s understanding of how automatic movements when lost take something away from the usual humanity of people.

This isn’t meant to imply that we Parkies are less human because some of our automatic movements disappear with the disease. But it should demonstrate how a little thing can bring about a big change in someone you love. Loss of automatic response and movements can affect your smile, the reaction people are used to you having in response to a certain experience, and it can even cause some to lose the animated way they used to “talk with their hands.”

Of course, in my experience with this symptom I’ve often been accused of giving a cat-like stare to people. You know what kind of stare I’m talking about, too. The kind that Robert Powell cannot beat even on his best “look-at-me-everybody-I’m-Jesus” days. The Bad Kitty stare is champion, always, second to none.

Again, this is just another Bad Kitty trait.

Bad Kitty always stares and rarely, if ever, talks with his hands.