I moved the birdfeeder without much thought. The squirrels kept scaling up and taking the food. So, I put it in the middle of the backyard about 10 feet in front of my lounge chair. This gave me a front row seat to the simple beauty of the birds each morning as they tweeted and pecked and fluttered around it, eating their breakfast while I drank mine: Beet juice, green powder, ginger, water, lemon, ice. Mix well. Down it.
I’ve been nursing a crash since mid-May. I watch the world pass by in the familiar, treacherous haze. It has consumed me a handful of times before. Being unable to rest is part of it. The dysautonomia is a “tired but wired” feeling, except throw in other things, too. Weighed down with fatigue as if I’m carrying lead on each limb. Body throbbing. Head, pressurized, full, thick, hot, and bobbing with vertigo. The ground waving, unstable. Difficulty communicating. Ears ringing. Insomnia. A low-grade fever. An electric tugging.
TILT, my debut collection of poetry was released last month. Thank you to those who purchased a copy. If you’re so inclined, please leave a review on Amazon. I have a million and one things I’d like to do with the book but need to get myself well enough first.
Those with chronic illness understand sitting (or probably more accurately, laying) with it all. Part of the insidiousness of our ailment is two-pronged: the symptoms themselves and not knowing when they’ll end.
It’s called a “flare” by the medical community. Yet most I know who have been down here call it something else, a “pit,” a “cave,” or “hell.”
Our world shrinks to see only what it takes to get well, to get our life back. While we’re down we don’t know if our baseline has shifted, how much damage is being done to our bodies, or how we’ll manage our lives.
We think about what we’re losing. We think about what we’ve lost.
We worry about our families, our finances, our jobs.
It’s as if we’re in a cave with a headlamp that’s running low. There is an urgency to find our way out. We’ve been down here before. Our light softly beams a measly five feet in front. The cave has crevasses. It sharply pokes out in places above our heads. It’s freezing and damp. If you move too fast, you might fall into a deeper pit. So, with our hands out, we slowly feel our way forward, remembering the path from before.
You cannot know it, but in 100 feet, you’ll start to climb out. In 1000 feet, you’ll be at the shore. But now we’re here, in it. We must be with it, completely, in the dark because there is no other option. And those with Long Covid and other chronic illnesses have learned to sit in the dark in a way that others just don’t know how to. I wouldn’t know had I not been forced to learn.
This skill of sitting with our pain is our superpower.
When I watch the birds, I cannot do much else. Any sudden movements would send them flying away in a goodbye chorus. I can’t get up and pitter around my little garden, distracting myself. I can’t pick up my phone off the table to look at Twitter, distracting myself. I can’t pick up my drink, distracting myself. I have to sit, hands in lap, sun on my face, and watch.
When I am the stillest is when the most beauty comes to me.
Soon, there are half a dozen birds in front of me: a red Cardinal, a Blue Jay, a Wren, an orange bellied Robin, a Mourning Dove. Soon, a few squirrels show up too and this time I don’t mind them. They’re actually kind of cute the way they fold their bodies and lift their little arms to their mouths and munch away.
And like losing yourself amidst an unruly body, I must sit through it, still, quiet, hellish but unafraid to be with it. With time, I get better, I remind myself. In the meantime, we are allowed to cry, “Not again.” We’re allowed to grieve.
I also remind myself, this is where my most authentic writing has come from. Its well of sitting still, looking suffering in the face, understanding it, sparring with it, even hating it, knowing that I’ve been here before and, like an alchemist, I have turned it into gold.
See you on the shore.
Your writing through your pain is also your super power. I’ve learned to have so much empathy for others including those in my family with chronic pain because of your writings and poetry. You have an amazing gift as a writer. Don't ever stop and we WILL see you at the shore!!! God bless!❤️🙏🏻
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