Daily Practice Disruption

*achoo* *cough* *cough* *snnnnzzzzzzz*

We interrupt our regularly scheduled post about how to bring a little bit of creativity to our everyday for some real talk and a wee bit of vulnerability.

For the first time in two years, I have a cold.

Nope, it’s not Covid, I tested. But this cold is kicking my ass and making up for all of the snotty sniffles and sneezes I’ve kept at bay by masking and avoiding public places. 

Hubby got it first. We’d planned on doing some mid-week camping on Jekyll Island, GA, when he erupted into a big ball of boogery misery. I launched into prevention overdrive: ingesting all manner of vitamin, mineral, herbal supplement; natural, supernatural, chemical; liquid, powder, effervescent, oil, elixir. I liked the trend that started in January where he got Covid and I did not, despite sharing a bed, house, life, etc. I was determined to keep this crud at bay. I thought bright, healthy, sunshiney thoughts while transforming myself into a whirlwind of energy getting us ready to go.

I asked if he wanted to back out of our field trip. He said he could be sick at the beach just as easily as at home. I stocked up on all the cold medicines, almost as a reverse-psychology insurance policy--if I have them I won’t need them.  But by the time we’d pulled off of our exit I knew the dreaded lurgy had got me too. First it felt as though I was trying to swallow a cheese grater, while feeling any and all vitality drain from my brain and body. Then I was hit with the full force of what hubby calls “Swiss cheese brain.” Not just because the brain is full of holes, but because it melts into a gooey, greasy puddle very easily, and also because it’s insipid and lackluster. 

Still, I tried to fight it, practically freebasing Vitamin C/zinc drink powder while visualizing a perfectly healthy me. 

I thought back on all of my previous selves in this scenario who would drag her feverish body to work an 18-hour day on her feet while shrugging it off as her duty. 

Screw that, I thought, reflecting back on how we spent the month of December talking about rest and how important it is to pause. Fuck the hustle, honor thy body. 

I looked back on what I researched and wrote in January about loving the self and looking after our own #1. The best way for me to love myself is to give and allow myself to be sick. So, I stopped fighting and dove head-first into a head-cold.

Here we are days later, and still, I’m a big ball of sneezy, snotty, cheese-grater-throat-y mess. 

Everything is out of whack, even my response to an elixir that’s supposed to make me fall asleep--instead I’m up until 4, which means waking up exhausted or confused by how high the sun is in the sky. I can’t stand up for more than 10 minutes before needing to have a brief rest. I can’t tilt my head down even slightly for fear of my nose running straight down my face (I destroyed some drawings last night). I really, really want noodles and after selecting a new recipe and gathering all of the ingredients, I have zero energy to devote to the production. I know this is temporary.

I’m lucky for a million reasons and I know it. My precious daily life hasn’t been disrupted by war or death or disaster, just a crummy cold while we camped in our cozy teeny-tiny trailer. That sentence alone is approximately 718,423 reasons to be grateful (October). Husband and I are generally healthy people--his brush with Covid presented as mild flu 6-weeks ago. Mine happened so long ago that I have my sense of smell back after a ten-month hiatus.  

Our camping trips usually include daily hikes between 8-10 miles. This time, we sat and read. It’s such an indulgent delight (November) to while away an afternoon reading. Except I need to focus more on the delight and less on thinking of indulgence as negative and more as necessary. 

All of this is coming on the throes of my own existential crisis ushered in by a birthday, an intense full moon, and, well, life. I can usually shake this stuff off, but this self-imposed drama is sticky. We’re two years into pandemic and now heading into a heartbreaking and unnecessary war, with yet unfathomable repercussions. 

And sometimes I have to throw out a big “welp, what’s the point? What’s it all about?”

As expected, I receive no answer in return. 

This isn’t merely cold-medicine induced rambling. In lounging on the couch, coughing, counting my blessings and brazenly staring down a campfire-scented laundry pile that steadfastly refuses to wash itself, I have a tiny insight. 

Annie Dillard says “How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and that one is what we are doing.”

These times we set aside/carve out/claw desperately for our daily practices are compounding. The five minute patches of meditation have formed themselves into a weighted blanket of calm. The daily readings on joy, delight, creativity, rest etc provide my operating system with more science and philosophy than one thousand hours of Instagram or TikTok can ever download into my brain.  Evening reflections on gratitude glisten and shine like a disco ball of compassion. 

Performing these exercises once or twice a week doesn’t cut it. It has to be every. damn. day.

I know I won’t be a disgusting puddle of fever sweat and snot forever. 

It’s just a cold, ferchrissakes. Albeit a bad one, as confirmed by those who’ve slogged through its paces. I’ll feel better tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that. 

And it’s up to me to be the architect of what I do with the minutes and the hours of those days.

---

---

I want to offer a welcome to a whole heap of new subscribers who have come on board recently via The Art of Noticing. I know you’d have received a welcome letter, but I want to bring you up to speed. The Iridescent Ordinary is about making our daily routine shine. We explore what’s working, what isn’t, what we can tweak. But your daily practice shouldn’t be a grind or a drag. It should enliven and energize you. Every month we tackle a different theme, February has been a brief foray into creativity. 

I’m looking forward to your joining this journey of how we can create pockets of meaning and mindfulness every single day.