<p>Tears in the kitchen. Three bananas on the counter and a recipe I know by heart but cannot, for the life of me, turn into a sequence of actions. </p><p>Seven ingredients. Too many decisions. My brain could not do seven. So I broke it down. Dry ingredients in one bowl. Wet in the other. Three and four. Manageable. The bread was good. I ate it in bed and felt unreasonably proud of myself.</p><p>The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2110630118">locus coeruleus</a> is the brain’s attention control room. When <a target="_blank" href="https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/144/8/2243/6174120">norepinephrine</a> depletes, everything arrives at equal volume. A dog barking becomes as important as the eggs.</p><p>An old friend helps out in the kitchen. And the moment when I realised the <a target="_blank" href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10148620/">invisible labour</a> I’d been doing for decades had only become visible because I could no longer do it.</p><p><strong>Music:</strong> Jude Cosmo, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.musicbed.com/songs/queen-of-angeles-no-oohs-ahhs-instrumental/95100">Queen of Angeles</a>; Waveshaper, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.musicbed.com/songs/our-time-instrumental/59746">Our Time (Instrumental)</a></p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://brendadayne.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_1">brendadayne.substack.com</a>