Well / Unwell

 Again, long afternoons yawn before me. My body still holds me captive. I have a new kidney and one would imagine I would get my life back!

To a large extent, I no longer have the bindings confining my hours: I do not have to worry about dialysis, watch my water intake, and heave my unmanageable body around. Stairs give me pause but do not frighten me. Walking through the parking lot to my non-disabled parking spot no longer challenges me. I can eat spinach, drink as much water as I wish, eat more variety of foods, and move around with greater ease. I remain grateful for the precious gift afforded to me.

Yet my fear binds me. I am mortally afraid of catching COVID or any of its variants. I go cold at the thought of visiting the hospital or emergency rooms. And of late, I must fight and cajole my reluctant pancreas to keep my kidney safe from their pouting. They seem to have thrown in the towel, not that I blame them. 

Often, I am tempted. 

For a short while only. 

But tempted. 

Then I take up my sword and re-enter the fray with a sigh. 

I hear words swirling around me, offering assurance: my body has been much abused for far too long; I am much older than when I started; this condition is only normal and __% of post transplant patients have it; it is not my lifestyle, it is the meds; just take it in my stride; ___ has it much worse. 

Perhaps I am too hasty and my expectations of my body are unreal. I try to catch myself from complaining. I know that people are tired of me. So I don't talk of the latest saga in the battle.

My colleagues are thoughtful and patient. My family ought to be sainted. 

Perhaps I look for rewards in the wrong places. I have a job that comes with health insurance; I can hear the easy banter and laughter from students, staff, and colleagues; I enjoy longer sleep cycles; the cats have not abandoned  me.

Even Julien of Norwich and T. S. Eliot reach across oceans of time and space as they console me with "All manner of thing shall be well."

Ah the blessing and solace of the Word! How on earth are we to survive these boring earthly scrimmages with it? 

Let me go back to listening ghazals. I will find treasures in this fallow season. This broken time shall mend. All shall be well. All is well.

Well-Watered

There is a tree in the center of some of my stories. This tree stands near a well. All around these two swirl the many tales that need to be told, that once told, perch on a branch, like wish-threads, anchored, yet weaving in the passing breeze. Even though I have fastened a few, my basket of untold stories seems to be just as full as it was when I first began telling of the tree and the well.

Sometimes, this defeats me. I cannot imagine how I am to get words enough for these tales, if my life time, with its too, too many demands, will be long enough. Somehow that worries me more than availability of a receptive audience for the stories. The beings that live in, around, before and away from the tree nag me, haunt me, insist that I tell, though I don't know to what end. I don't think that these tales have any edifying value, or provide an insight about how one may improve oneself or enrich one's life. In fact, the stories are more dusky twilight than golden dawn. Worse, they offer no apologies for their dark hues.

I make a deliberate effort to help each story to stand on its own, a valid entity irrespective of the larger tapestry it helps weave. I explain to the tales that they all should be independent, as though they were my girl children and I, their concerned parent, were trying to impress upon them the importance of good grades that they may support themselves and their offspring instead of relying on their future wife-selves. However, they wish for nothing more than to gather near the well, sit cross legged beneath the spreading shade of their tree. No matter how far I have them wander, when I look behind, I find them clustered around their well, like Grimms' Twelve Months.

I hope to pass muster as I seek their guidance. I shall make an effort to be polite and offer them what poor nourishment my pockets hold. Most of all, I shall try to listen very closely to their riddles. After all, I could scarcely hope for a better map, no matter how dark or labyrinthine my wooded path!