I’ve been sick, like severely ill, two times in the past week. This is an especially notable recurrence because I rarely get sick and enjoy so many healthy days that I forget the dull weight of being incapacitated. Last week I had norovirus a.k.a., stomach flu, and I was throwing up any solid or liquid within a 10 foot radius. This time I have a cold, but it’s so much worse than other colds I’ve had. I’m on day three and my bones ache, my head pounds, and my body is coated in a light veil of perspiration.
There’s no doing anything on these days. I simply lie around the house filling myself with concoctions of honey, lemon, & ginger and copious amounts of entertainment. I listen to Joni Mitchell’s Blue and take a nap and read a book and scroll on my phone and eat an apple and drink some water and it’s all so simple. The body needs rest and the dude abides. I feel powerfully gentle the way I tend to my body during these times, monitoring its needs and tracking its progress. The distinction between mind and body becomes obvious during times of sickness. Mind takes care of body, listening carefully for indications of hunger, overheating, nausea, dehydration. Body tussles and turns of its own accord, rejecting the demands of mind in favor of authentic expression and a wisdom only it knows.
During these times, I often reflect on life’s promise of aging and dying, a process of which we are all participating in from the moment we’re born. I imagine what it must feel like to experience chronic pain, to have your body not work how it used to coupled with the knowledge that it will never function that way again. I imagine what it must feel like to wake up after a full night’s sleep and not feel any better. I try to imagine one’s dance with death – denial, grief, acceptance – but come up short.
As I learn to quiet my mind, or at least to separate myself from its constant nonsensical jabber, I enter more deeply into conversation with the Universe. When I am sick, I imagine Her saying, “slow down and rest.” I accept this invitation instead of begrudging my sickness and wishing I could function at full capacity. I explore the quiet simplicity of a day spent in bed. I watch the play of light and shadows through the window as the day passes me by. I investigate altered sensations of breathing, feeling, and thinking. I cherish the perspective illness creates and the opportunity it brings, though I’m ready to enjoy healthy days and hopeful to prolong the period until my next bout.
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