view from my sick-bed

the bumble-bee summer caught up with us in the end. instead of going to Paris, i went to bed with the flu, and stayed there not quite a week, gorging on bits of blue from the sky, fluttering curtain breezes and 18th-century women's biographies (this and this). as i moved in and out of uncertain and confusing dreams ('consider all dharmas as a dream'), i slowly lost my usual demarcation lines and imagined myself ill with a flu in an 18th century cottage or mansion (depending on the ever varying quality of marc's bedside service...). i am in awe of the way illness can, in just a day or two, completely loosen all those silk-thin spiderweb strings that i mistakenly think of as 'my solid life'. in the space that arises, terrifying and unchartered as it is, i can feel my way into a multitude of alternative lives.

so i hovered, and dozed, and floating somewhere between 18th and 21st century cultural paradigms, i came up with the definitive conclusions on marriage, friendship and womanhood. unfortunately, like most drug-induced insights, they left with the fever. and now, well, it all seems like a dream, really... ('consider all dharmas as a dream')

(... i did some knitting too. it's a jumper. it's for me. it's pink and soft and lovely. almost done. could be another year or so, though...)