This is a picture of Errol at around ten months. His eyes seem blank. He is staring into nothing. It's hard to imagine what he's thinking (or not). In zen mediation, you are supposed to clear your mind to reach enlightenment. (I've praciticed it for years; it's hard. I'm not enlightened-- surprise, surprise). Perhaps Errol, with his blank slate, has achieved that rare state of transcendence, or perhaps he is just thinking about dogs, or milk, or nothing at all.
RTS kids have tremendous difficulty with long term memory (which makes it really difficult for them to learn), and we're not sure if Errol can remember much more than his immediate family, his school, and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. Everything is new to him. Sometimes it feels like Errol is the world's youngest Alzheimer's sufferer. (These maladies share many neurological similarities). It's hard to imagine a life without memory (all the surprises), without the three dimensionality of past, present, future. I would miss the texture of life if everything existed in the here and now, but Errol doesn't seem to mind his mind (not that he knows the difference). I think that as Errol ages he will grow both forward and backward, as his past pushes into his brain. As for now, he just keeps smiling at everything, and it's hard to want to change that.
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