November 11: On Illness

I am sick. I am slogging through an ongoing illness that began with a trip to the emergency room and led from my doctor's office to a CT scan through two rounds of antibiotics and has me fasting at the moment, drinking a ton of water and returning to the doctor tomorrow morning.

For most of my life, I have equated being sick with weakness. This has a lot to do with my family of origin.  At times, it was not safe to stay home sick from school. I learned early to throw back some ibuprofen and get through the day.

As a grad student and more recently as a mom, I mastered the art of powering through almost anything, nothing short of high fever or active vomiting keeps me down and even then I am down at most for an afternoon.

But recently, my body has betrayed me. (This must surely be one of the double-edged gifts of growing older.) My body has put her foot down and stubbornly refused to power through. Trying to power through has taken me to relapse and pain and staring down the barrel of yet another round of antibiotics. My body demands that I stop EVERYTHING and pay attention. I am resting. I am lying down - with a blanket - in the middle of the day. I am fasting, drinking loads and loads of water and consuming very little else.

Not because I wised up and decided to take better care of myself and not because my doctor fussed at me, but because my body demanded it and I have no choice but to listen. I am finding I am quite fond of the old girl.

November 5

I had to do something hard today, Hard because it was new and way out of my comfort zone. Hard because it involved rush hour traffic and rain. Hard because it was just hard. Hard because I gave away my umbrella and had to walk a long way in the rain so that when I got to the place to do the hard thing I was soaking wet - my map a ridiculous wad of ruined paper in my hand. Hard because it was just showing up when showing up is all you have to offer. Hard because sometimes the only thing we can do is to be there and bear witness.

November 4

There is something kind of liberating about having missed a couple of days already, you know?

So, Galway Kinnell died. He was a poet hero of mine. I loved his work and had the pleasure of meeting him and hearing him read a handful of times. He was such a lion, such a majestic voice. He was my Walt Whitman.

The world feels a little darker without him.

Here is one of my very favorite of his poems - and one I could most certainly recite from memory for much of my adult life.

Wait

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven't they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.
Don't go too early.
You're tired. But everyone's tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

***

November 1

I try to be intentional about how I begin a new month. I coordinate calendars and spend some time thinking about the things we are doing in the next four weeks. I try to focus on the possibilities and opportunities as much as I can.

I did not manage this very well in the September/October transition, I barreled into October half-dressed with one hand tied behind my back and then floundered through the whole month.

I have high hopes for November and I appreciate the do-over aspect of the first day. One more opportunity to get more things right, make better choices or make a mess of things in an entirely new way...

Fair Warning

I am going to be doing something here every day for the month of November. Consider yourself warned...

Happy Halloween!