recuperation
by bam
i chart uncharted terrain here. the topography of bedsheets smoothed and covers heaped, pillows mounted here and there. holding up a head, a spine of book or self, it doesn’t matter.
of late, i have spent good chunks of days supine, creased at the middle, a human demonstration of the 100-degree angle, not quite upright as i lean against my cove of pillows, intent on waiting out the siege.
i have brought to bed a whole catalog of friends. the two annies, dillard and lamott, are to my left. barbara kingsolver is straight ahead. she is perched atop the pillow perched atop my knees. she is who i intend to immerse my healing in today.
the annies got me through the weekend. ms. lamott, as she is wont to do, made me laugh out loud. laughing, i am fairly certain, makes the shingles go away. or at least they’re looking not quite so leper-like.
besides splitting sides with peals of laughter, annie l. was prompting me to pull out my pen. i read with a pen. have done so, probably, since high school. when the pen was required by a bellowing english master, mr. crouch, who insisted we make sausage in the margins, push big ideas, our own, the author’s, through the grinder, add spice, squeeze into the casing of the half-inch blank along the edge of every page.
i still make margin sausage. i still scribble as i read. and underline for amplification. underline so that, like now, i can flip back through the whole 253 pages of “grace (eventually): thoughts on faith,” and pull out for you every line that had me cooing.
like this one: “grace arrived, like the big, loopy stitches with which a grandmotherly stranger might baste your hem temporarily.” (page 58)
or this: “God recessed the neck for a loving, caring reason. while the face is right out front, She set the neck back, out of direct light, in the shadows….it’s like the thighs of the head.” (page 75)
when at last i lumbered out of bed, tucked my pen back in its cap, so as not to leak all over my black-on-white-on-white-on-white book-in-bed terrain, i recuperated through that hole in the head known simply as the mouth.
i ate. i fed myself deeply and plentifully with the bounty of the earth and the chicken coop that my friend terra delivered to my door. still wearing the drops of rain that had fallen in the night, whole bags of greens, each one bursting with superpowers, i was certain, cascaded through the open door.
cartons of farm-fresh eggs, still warm from the underbellies of the hens, so help me, made for hefty launch pads for the greens.
i cracked each orb, the shells a study in subtle browns, plopped the yolk, the very definition of what a yolk should be, golden orange to sunset orange, upright, firm, not all slip-slidey, not an egg without a purpose. ah, no, the eggs i cracked meant business.
then i stirred and poured. i had me a perfect puffy yellow mattress for my vibrant sweating greens.
with each bite, i felt a wholeness that does not come from ordinary eating. this was eating to be well. this was eating with intent.
the recuperative powers of the spinach and the asian flat-leaved chives, the tarragon, the baby beets, were evident in every bite that tasted of the earth, the rain, the mighty sun that had coaxed them from the seed.
all weekend then, i spent inhaling one way or another: the farmer’s bounty, the literary feed. and great good doses of friendship.
besides terra with her house call of organic greens and eggs, there was julie who arrived with her dearest angel and a loaf of foil-wrapped banana bread, the chocolate chips, charmingly, plucked right from the top, as if a bird had been pecking down a row. blessed jane came bearing steak. red meat, they say, will make you strong. will make you shed the shingles.
i was fed, indeed. i was bathed as well. bathed in oatmeal, if you really need to know, but better yet, bathed in those i love.
as i said, this is rather new to me. this is strange. slowing down is not a thing i do so well. taking in goes against my grain.
but it seems i have no choice. my legs, my trunk, all are shouting to my head: slow down, you fool. take in.
to recuperate, the big book tells me, is to obtain again. it is a word with latin root, recuperare. i must obtain again the few necessities for going forward: strength and vigor, a leg that doesn’t limp.
as i crawl back under cover, i chew on this: it seems blessed holy work, to point your very self toward health, toward wholeness, the moth to light, the sunflower to the sun. to deeply understand, with your every pore, that your purpose is to mend, to stitch together. you are no good for no one if you limp and hobble. you do dishonor, don’t you, to the purpose of your very soul.
and so, i eat, i read, i bathe in friends. sounds like a doctor’s order, a divine one, i can live with.
oh, one last thing. back to my friend annie; lamott, again. page 252. she weighs in with this:
“the best way to change the world is to change your mind, which often requires feeding yourself. it makes for biochemical peace. it’s almost like a prayer: to be needy, to eat, to taste, to be filled, building up instead of tearing down. you find energy to do something you hadn’t expected to do. maybe even one of the holiest things: to go outside and stand under the stars…”
tonight, then, i take in the stars.
how do you recuperate? what are the things that fuel you, when you are feeling less than vigor? are you wiser than me? do you take time for recuperating in the course of the every day? or do you wait until you too break out in splotches?
Oh bam, I have been away from the table since the 19th and I came bounding back today, ready to catch up on the leftovers from recent days. I don’t know about you but when life gets craziest, I sometimes dream of a day with books dancing around me in my bed. It is usually just after this fleeting dream of decadent slothfullness that a sore throat, pain in the neck or fleeting illness knocks on the door. This doesn’t happen that often to me either. Each time this thought enters my head, I ask myself, how can I be kind to myself today, how can I be friend to the tired caregiver and love of life inside of me. As much as this is new for you to experience shingles, it sounds like you have received the care of so many who love you. It was at the midpoint of May when I was at my most tired moments that I wondered if my dyas of vacation would ever arrive. They did arrive and I have returned to say I have found refreshment in the north cascades. It is water and mountains that call me when I am tired and weary. As my partner and I pulled off of the chuckanuck scenic drive near the san juan islands, two bald eagles came from behind us and flew down alongside the cliff that led to the water. They were playing with one another and dancing in the air. This was day 2 of vacation and the lesson was play and dance to your heart’s content and that we did.I now hope to bring that refreshment back to work this week, back to life in Chicago. Lake Michigan is only a few blocks from my apartment, it’s waiting for me on all of the days that I have energy and the days that I am tired.peace to you as you are surrounded not only by barbara and the two annies, but by all the others who have stand with you in these final days of may.
Another cure-all-with-laughter writer is Florence King and her “Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady”.
Ha….click “read more”….and so glad you are having the opportunity to bathe and heal in words….another book? “An Elegant Gathering of White Snows” by Kris Radish (just love that name). Hope your recovery is moving along.
It would be hard to be sick enough to recover to Middlemarch…although that is my recuperation book. Whenever I am in need of recuperating, I just open it up anywhere and go, but that’s because I know the whole story. As a little girl, whenever I was sick I always required canned pineapple cut in rings–forget tidbits–chilled. Who knows. Healing is a strange and personal thing, much aided by the presence of loved ones both living and paperbound, and nowadays I prefer baked goods to pineapple rings.
Shingles… oh, dear. I hear they are painful as well and for this I say sorry. Sorry to hear you are unwell, but happy to hear you surrendered to the call for healing. Who else could see the bright side of shingles. Keep up the good (self-caring) work. I send love.