the old-school guestbook archives
my amazon wish list... my favorite astrologer... my favorite artist... yerba mate revolution! erowid: a travel guide for interior journeys... no more war: MoveOn.org United for Peace and Justice True Majority seek the truth: Common Dreams Unamerican Activities The Nation people I adore, diaries I read: rev.raikes ariana cubiclegirl epiphany glitter333 laurakay wammo the music: the asylum street spankers backyard tire fire blue highway bill camplin wendy colonna freedom tribe joules graves guy forsyth band hamsa lila hanuman libby kirkpatrick leftover salmon pamela means medeski martin & wood the motet the nice outfit nickel creek open road rose polenzani railroad earth south austin jug band string cheese incident taarka tha musemeant the devil makes three tim o'brien band trolley wild sage keller williams yonder mountain string band |
sick day ~ March 22, 2002 - 11:18 p.m. I'm feeling sick today... I've actually been feeling it coming on for a couple of days, although it's hard to really qualify it as "sick", because it doesn't really fit into any of the recognizable categories. it's funny what a weighted proposition "sickness" is in our culture. because being "sick" means missing work, missing school, ditching out on all of our many responsibilities, and I think most of us feel a certain amount of guilt whenever we feel bad enough to designate ourselves "sick". I know I do, anyway. probably because I was sick a lot when I was growing up. which probably goes back to this time I remember when I was really little, maybe in kindergarten. when I got up in the morning for school, I threw up. and for some reason, I was afraid I was going to be in trouble. and then my mom came into my room, and she was so nice to me, so gentle and tender, rubbing my forehead. she said poor little girl... and I was so sick, but it just felt so good. and I stayed home all day, eating soup and watching tv and generally being fevered. and then as childhood progressed into adolescence, I got sick more and more. and sometimes, it's true, I was probably more or less "playing" sick because I just didn't feel like I could face school that day. because, did I tell you? I hated school. with a passion. aquarian girls don't do well in institutions designed to put them into little boxes. and I was just a little too sensitive and aware to be growing up in wisconsin. by the time I was in high school, I was rarely believed when I was sick. every instance of sickness became a fight with my parents to be allowed to stay home and rest. after a while, I resorted to other tactics. I'd pretend to leave, and instead hide in my closet until my parents had both gone to work. I'd leave the house, and go to the university library down the street, where they were used to the sight of a student passed out at a study cubicle. I'd nap and read books all day. there was even a smoking section. and you could tell it was in the days before "smoking section" was anything like a meaningful classification, because it was a hallway lined with study cubicles that led from one part of the library to another. you couldn't get to that particular part of the library without walking through the smoking section. ah, the eighties were a great time to grow up as a smoking teenager. they still had cigarette machines back then, even. that's where I bought my first pack, the cigarette machine in the lobby of the IHOP. salems, because I didn't know anything about brands, and didn't even know that salems were menthol or that menthol cigarettes sucked. anyway... it's been a long time since I was a smoker, and I digress... the thing about being sick in high school, is that whether or not I had a fever or clogged sinuses, I truly felt awful. truly felt that I could not function. and it's not surprising, considering how unhealthy I was. I still ate meat, when I ate at all. I flirted with anorexia for a year or so, until I settled into bulemia as my disordered eating behavior of choice. if you can call it that. and that's probably a subject for another entry down the road. it's something I don't talk about much, especially since it's been something like 11 years since I've had any kind of issues with food or body image. I know I'm lucky that way, as compared to a lot of women I know. but I feel like it's important to talk about, and one of these days I will get around to writing about it. because bulemia involves vomiting, and not only that but self-induced vomiting, no one wants to talk about it. but the fact is that we're still raising girls to hate themselves and right now, somewhere, some teenage girl is vomiting in the bathroom and feeling like she's all alone in the world. and I want her to know that she's not, and that you can get out of that hellish place. oh yes, it's a night for digressions... so ANYWAY, in high school, I was a meat-eater, insomniac, bulemic, a heavy smoker, heavy drinker, heavy pot smoker, didn't exercise, didn't get much fresh air at all. and I was growing up in milwaukee. so yeah, I was sick a lot. and felt awful a lot. and since I was never believed, I always had a lot of guilt wrapped up in it. and I guess I still feel that way, especially when my malaise is something not easy to qualify, missing the easily pegged symptoms of fever or sinus trouble or hacking cough. even now, in my adult life, even when I don't have a job or school to call in sick to. even after all these years, when hindsight perspective makes it easy to see that what I really wanted in high school was for my mom to rub my forehead and say poor little girl... but yes, I've been feeling lousy the last couple of days, just run-down and exhausted, my glands swollen. and today I feel like I've been hit by a truck. I woke up exhausted. my whole body is sore, which I know is probably partly because of dancing to hamsa lila last night, which by the way was incredible. but this particular soreness is just out of hand, and usually I'm not real sore until the second day after a show. and my neck has been killing me for a week, which I think is emotional. I think a lot of this is emotional. I think I'm letting go of a lot of deep, heavy stuff right now, and my body is feeling it. and so today, I took a day off to be "sick", however you qualify it. I spent most of the day on the couch. I listened to this american life on npr at 4. I went grocery shopping and then rented movies to watch while I spend the rest of the night on the couch. "almost famous", again, because I love that movie, "unbreakable", which I haven't seen but remember wanting to when it was in the theatres, and "easy rider", because it's time for me to see it again (now that I've got my license), and ozone can't remember if he's ever seen it. so this entry has somehow gotten much longer than I intended, and I think I'm running out of steam, so I'll try to remember to tell you about the show-- hamsa lila and the motet-- tomorrow. I will try to remember, because I do love the motet, but hamsa lila really, really, filled my heart with light. joy in the act of creation, and the making of music as a creation of sacred space. oh yes.
(((rings))) |