The Gifts of the Flu
I am emerging from a season of, well, darkness sounds dramatic, but that’s sort of what it feels like! After feeling so good and positive, I sank into an anxiety spiral, the likes of which I have never experienced before. Once I began to move beyond that, the flu hit. Or something like a flu, who knows what - an aggressive virus that took me down! While I could very easily go on and on about the snot, the cough, the exhaustion - the exhaustion! - I will spare you most of the grisly details. Suffice it to say, I spent a few days in bed, and then every moment I possibly could on the couch with netflix for a couple of weeks.
So why on earth am I writing about this? In part because I am so relieved to not be feeling that way. The weather this week has been absolutely beautiful, flowers blooming, birds singing, sun shining. Spring! And my body and mood are matching this jubilant explosion, after what seems like a long time.
The other, perhaps more profound, reason, is that I learned something beautiful from this bug, that I hope to remember…
The exhaustion was profound. Surprisingly so. Still, Seymour had to be walked and run and his understanding of/empathy for feeling sick is surprisingly low. The forest was off the table - no way could I handle a long hike with even the mildest of hills. So the river it was. Lots of swimming for him, slightly less walking for me (although that sand - walking in sand is hard!), and beauty, lots of beauty. Here’s the thing; being so bloody tired required me to pause often and sit on driftwood logs along the way. Usually, it’s all the way down to the end, and all the way back, then home. Lately, however, it’s been a slow dawdle to the end, with lots of resting in between. Then a slow meander back. Seymour is swimming all along the way, thrilled. I am soaking in the sights, the sounds of the river, the birds, the sun.
The other day, despite this gentle pace, we came to the grassy field at the very end of our walk, and I was spent. Couldn’t take another step. So I found one of the picnic tables and laid down on the bench. Couldn’t even stay upright. I lay there, Seymour in the grass beside me (his favourite), my eyes closed, the breeze blowing, the sun shining down, the birds singing. It was a perfect moment. One that, in the normal course of events, I would have missed. As much as I love my walks with Seymour - and I really do, they are one of the best parts of my life - I do not often relish just being outside. There is a part of my brain that is getting the walk “done” and then moving on to the next thing. I will have moments of exquisite awe, pause, breathe, and feel amazed, but still. I don’t often linger.
I’m not very good at doing nothing, at lingering, and I’d like to be. I think there is something to it that might, in fact, be essential. I was recently introduced to this lovely phrase: meet yourself coming down the road. I am realizing that having space for nothing creates the opportunity to see yourself coming down the road, to hear yourself, to see yourself. And so, this is my latest practice: doing nothing. Setting a timer and then, doing nothing. No meditating, no focusing on breath, no reading, no music, no sipping tea. Just nothing. I’m curious to see what arises out of nothing. Maybe nothing? Maybe something.
