I’ve not felt well this week, so I’ve not swum, or gone to the studio, or bought fresh flowers, or walked into the woods, or sung a song, or talked with strangers. I haven’t done much at all, actually, outside of writing and watching television and drinking ginger tea. I really do believe that sickness is the body (and mind’s) way of forcing us to slow down and take stock. It started last Thursday with a horrible neck pain that by morning had travelled into my back. “I had to make you uncomfortable otherwise you never would’ve moved.” Forced to break with our routines, shift gears, we are left to examine the reasons we got ill in the first place. So yes, while sickness demands a physical reprieve, it does ask something of the psyche. Which is the whole point. Address the list from the comfort of your sofa. By Monday afternoon, a chest infection had come on that stayed with me all week. Five days horizontal. Anyone who knows me knows that doing nothing is not my forte. “If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run.” So, I wrote two-dozen Christmas cards and watched the Joan Didion documentary. Next week, I’ll be back to health, and swimming laps and making bowls and racing from one end of the city to the other with three kids and an armful of teacher’s gifts in tow. And what will I have gained from this break in regular programming? How will I have been moved? Sideways? Forward?
