Roof Without Sky

 I have enforced confinements on my mind. No, patient Reader, I do not mean prisons. I just mean being limited to one's own habitat, the way a cat is confined to her cage or home "for her own good." We do not think twice before enforcing our beloved pets and snatching their skies from them. However, we have a serious problem when such a circumstance is visited upon us. 

One of the many lessons that COVID-19 has taught me has been my awareness of this confinement. On the one hand, I am grateful for the security my home affords me. I am essentially enclosed in a glass square, that is in turn surrounded by a netting, so no cooties may enter my air. Yes! Our advanced species has learned to own not just the earth but also the air. I am urged to regularly spray all surfaces with chemicals that make my cat sneeze but which keeps me safe. If I am forced out of my house to forage for fresh foods, I find myself wishing for my glass bubble, as no amount of masks and gloves make me feel protected. I smear no-rinse soap on my hands after touching anything in the store. Then, my foraging done, I again smear some more soap after ridding my fingers of gloves until I can reach my cage and wash my hands properly. 

As time goes by, I amaze myself as I come to rely on my confinement. It becomes my territory, my landscape. There have been days, even weeks when I have not left my home and I do not feel deprived. 

I wonder if our animals and birds begin to feel this way. Once used to their cage, will they ever feel safe enough to wander out under the open skies? 

However, I do know the answer to this, more is the pity. 

I have missed the betrothal that I could not have countenanced missing, ever. In no actual or alternate reality had I imagined missing this event, provided I was alive. I would not have missed my cage, had I been allowed to attend this celebration. 

I have also just begged off a Thanksgiving invitation from some of my favorite people, much to my intense disappointment and theirs. I have been sad about this but I cannot fight something I cannot even see, a virus. These days, I really hate the CDC and their recommendations. These recommendations are mandates for the immunity compromised, like me, who have had a transplant less than a year ago, I think it is strange that I feel so well, better than I have in a decade, and yet I have to treat myself as though I am still fragile. It is most distressing. Yes, we will Zoom. But I so wanted to go meet everyone in real life! I find that there is really no substitute. My cage, today, does not feel as safe as it feels like shackles.

It is also a known fact that once a cat is an outdoors cat, he can never be trained to be an indoors cat; however, the opposite is never true. An indoors cat, after a few days of apprehension, can easily get used to being an outdoors cat.

Everyone around me sighs and longs for things to go back to "normal." I do not doubt that we will, like our confined pets set free, take to the outdoors with more ferocity and enthusiasm than ever before. After all, we will have paid a steep price for these freedoms.

I doubt that we will ever again take the skies for granted again. 

The Return: A Beginning

 It is the year 2020, the best of times in the last decade for me, a bad time for humans in the new millennium.

I got a transplant, something that I have been waiting for, not so patiently and with increasing panic, trepidation, and urgency, for over a decade. I have been grateful for the support of my patient friends & family, my wonderful tutors, my thoughtful colleagues, and my accommodating supervisor for making it possible to return to my job after a just week off in the hospital. We all have been working remotely for many weeks already. 

Yes, this is the year that Corona Virus Disease of 2019 (or COVID-19 for short) went global, hitting all continents, all economies, and all populations. We have been confined to our homes, which has been a blessing for me, given my newly over-compromised immune system. I have been able to keep in touch and get tasks done while I recovered. 

While I am grateful for the peculiar circumstances that have allowed me to avoid a long recuperative leave, the very same circumstances have forced my child to travel 80 miles to pick me up and drop me off. I had to uproot myself from my comfort zone, kicking, screaming, under loud protests, and move in with my kind, patient family. I had already lost my night sleep, and missing my own bed made it impossible for me to stay asleep for longer than a few minutes. For weeks after I was returned home, I was convinced that the gods had abandoned me. More problematically, I was convinced that my body had abandoned me, leaving me frustrated, floundering, and flakey, unlike the person the people who love me remembered, changed into a being whom they did not recognize or have much patience with. 

Now, I am mostly healed from everything (almost). I do have to keep going for labs to ensure that things remain healed, but I feel better than I have in over a decade. I did not realize that kidneys can make such a huge difference in one's life. I am slowly returning to myself. 

In many ways, this process of returning to myself has been similar to returning to my burnt house once it was rebuilt.

I am finding out that there is a specific process involved in this returning to the self. First, the process started within: the constant pain and discomfort diminished slowly but increasingly, with a determination that I did not know my body possessed. Once the pain diminished, I began recognizing myself in the mirror and smiling in recognition of someone I had forgotten about. Once I recognized myself, I began the very long, painful process of forgiving my body. By now, I wear my scars with pride. There is ways to go yet before I can wear earrings and indulge in face packs. However, one more thing I have been working on is patience. I give myself a break: I start work early enough so that I can take brief  breaks for naps, snacks, even a quick face time with my family. 

I wonder how long this process will take. I long to quilt like I used to, write like I used to. This entry is the first step towards this completion. Just the fact that I look forward to a completion is proof of the thing with feathers that has woken up and fluttered its feathers, wonderingly looked around with disused, myopic eyes, not quite believing that such a world can exist..