Emerging

This is day 8 of lying in bed most of the time. I think (one dare not presume) rock bottom has been hit and it’s all the way up from here. Illness is an odd thing, it does things to one’s mind, turns out Virginia Woolf wrote about this too; unfortunately by the time I get my grubby hands on her essay, I’ll be well again. And the well mind has trouble understanding or even remembering the ill mind, so I’ll have to wait until the next flu (next year, the year after that, or who knows, maybe never, hope, hope, oh bird of many wings) to let her insights and images do their healing formulating work.

Before Isabelle, I only ever thought of illness as an inconvenience, a train running late, a souflé collapsing on the way from the oven to the table, a cat who persists in wiping her butt on the long-hair, whiter than white, 100% wool living-room carpet, etc.

But watching my daughter, I noticed that her illnesses coincide with growth spurts, physical, social, mental, emotional (often all four). And Virginia Woolf moved into new phases of thinking and writing as a result of a bout of illness. So nowadays, when ill, I observe myself. Is this constant itch under my nose a sign that I’m growing a second proboscus? Does the fact that my head is spinning each time I get up indicate that the theory of Relativity is finally settling down in my brain?

Seriously, I do believe that in the weird, disconnected dream state of illness, much can be found to answer the question: ‘whence from here?’.

So here, in its original random disorder, is the harvest of this flu:

On frienships, old and new.

On midwifery.

On babies, and how many I want.

On NaNoWriMo, just around the corner.

On silence.

On music.

On colour.

On how to get the musty smell out of our towels (Vinegar, Vinegar, Vinegar!!!!!).