At nature’s pace

Written 31st March 2024:

I measure my progress by nature’s timescales now.  When I first got sick I stayed in the realms of human time.   Will I be back at work tomorrow?  No?  Next week?  No?  End of the month? After Christmas?

From my bed I watched the beech tree slowly turn from green to yellow to orange and then reluctantly give up brown shrivelled leaves to the wind.  I saw a few stubborn leaves hang on into winter storms and wondered if I would still be in bed when the buds burst.

I heard the geese arrive, unseen.

Now, downstairs at last, through the window I see the buds on the apple tree that I can not yet reach. How far will I be able to walk when the apples ripen?  Will I have got to the end of the drive by then?

The chiffchaffs call incessantly, reminding me that they have been to Africa and back while I remained within these four walls.

The swifts were departing last summer when I fell ill. How will I be when they return?  And when they leave?  And next year, and the next?

I move at a slower pace now, life turning with the seasons, healing with forces that cannot be rushed.

Today’s update….on a good day I can now walk to the apple tree and the end of the drive. The swifts aren’t back yet (at least, I’ve not seen or heard any).

Rest peacefully

This painting is inspired by the quote ‘Rest peacefully, sweet mind. Rest peacefully sweet body’, from the book ‘How to be sick’ by Toni Bernhard.
The quote is from the chapter about compassion, about how to send messages of self compassion and kindness to ourselves.
May we all rest peacefully 😊

Rest peacefully, sweet mind. Rest peacefully, sweet body.

The house on the hill

A doodle from March, I really like the earthy colours (willow, baked earth, mustard, leaf green and charcoal).

It reminded me a bit of a patchwork of fields, some with bare ploughed earth, some planted with crops. I thought I could use this technique maybe in an abstract landscape.

The house on the hill

I drew this in April, by which time I was able to draw for longer than 10 minutes, though still having to be careful not to overdo it and to rest afterwards. It’s so easy to get absorbed in the work, do it for too long and then regret it afterwards!  I’m still learning to pace myself.

The light and the dark

Living with long covid is a journey of emotional ups and downs.  Here are two examples:

The Light

11th March 2024

This was the second doodle that I was able to do.  Playing with 3 bright, light colours, reflecting the fact that I was able to get up, go downstairs, sit on the sofa and draw. Finding joy in the process.  I set a timer for 10 mins to make sure I didn’t overdo it, then rested lying down before doing a bit more.  It’s only small, but because I could only work on it for 10 minutes at a time it took 3 days to finish.

The Dark

13th January 2024. 

Still pretty much bedbound.  I wrote in my diary

‘Just getting worse, not better.  This illness just takes and takes, life shrinks, joy is leached away’. 

Followed by:

Again and again
I hit rock bottom,
only to find
the ground gives way
and I
keep
falling.

Immediately after I wrote this I felt emotional, and then I felt a bit better. I realised it was only half the story, so I wrote another verse.

Again and again
I hit rock bottom,
only to find
the ground gives way
and I
keep
falling.

And yet
each time I fall,
something tenacious in me
reaches out,
takes my hand,
eases me gently
back
towards
the light.

Long covid

Things have been very quiet here on my blog recently.

A promotion at work a couple of years ago led to me being very busy and consequently not inspired to write or paint regularly.

And then, in August 2023 I caught covid and never really recovered. The initial infection was not too bad; a mild cough, fatigue that had me in bed for a few days, nausea and digestive discomfort, headache. Then I started to slowly get better. Or so I thought. One week after my symptoms started I worked from home and felt OK, had a walk around the block in the evening, felt fine.

The following day I was back in bed. I gradually improved again but two weeks in, a day after I tested negative, I ended up in A&E. I’d gone for a really short walk around the block for 10 minutes when my heart started racing and my breathing went weird. I had chest pains and dizzyness. We called an ambulance, the paramedics checked me out, and said all my vital signs were normal, but to go to A&E for further tests. Blood tests, chest xray, ECG – all normal.

Again, I gradually improved, although I had no energy, couldn’t work and couldn’t walk further than the garden.

Then at the end of September I ended up calling an ambulance again, this time the paramedics took my blood pressure and heart rate standing as well as lying down. My blood pressure dropped on standing, and my heart raced as if I was running uphill.

After that trip to A&E the symptoms got worse and I was pretty much bedbound for 3 months.

In January I started to slowly, slowly improve.

Now I can walk around the garden, I can make myself simple meals, I can read a bit and do some art. I need frequent rests, lying down several times a day, and my evenings are spent back in bed.

I’d like to get back to writing, to blogging, to document life as it is now, and hopefully record my recovery journey. And to share my art, as at the moment I find drawing and painting less tiring than writing.

I couldn’t paint for 5 months. In March I started doodling and colouring in. I had to limit art time to 10 minutes at a time initially, as I felt so tired afterwards. But it was worth it for the joy I felt doing it.  Here is that first piece, it started off as an abstract doodle and ended up looking a bit like a starfish. Pen and Inktense pencils.

Initial abstract doodle
Finished.  I really like the background.

Roses

Nose-deep in a rose,

inhalation tumbles me

back

in time.

–

Small hands greedily

pluck rose petals

cram them into

jam jars

add water

and wait.

Next day

we dab on perfume,

glorying in the

short lived

scent

of summer.

Crocuses

Crocuses growing in my lawn

Today felt like spring and I spent most of it in the garden, tidying up, transplanting seedlings and admiring the spring flowers.

No social distancing was necessary between me and nature, which is just as well, as the robins kept breaking the 2 metre rule, hopping around my feet in search of worms.

And now I feel so much better after a day outside!

What is the connection between Bridgerton and my tai chi practice?

Like many millions of people over the last couple of months I’ve been enjoying a bit of escapism and romance, getting away from the dreary winter lockdown and into the colourful world of the netflix series Bridgerton.

If you’ve seen it, you will remember that the women wear an ever changing array of colourful dresses, waists pinched in with corsets. There is one scene of a mother exhorting a servant to lace her debutant daughter’s corset ever tighter, trussing her up ready for the marriage market. No wonder they are prone to fainting in front of handsome princes, it’s not so much about the attractiveness of the man as the fact that they can barely breathe!

Anyway, you might be wondering, what on earth does this have to do with tai chi?

A huge part of tai chi practice is about learning to relax, to let go of bodily tension. To focus awareness on the body, become aware of any tension, let it go.

Recently I’ve been focussing on my breathing as I do the tai chi form. I have realized that, although my belly is relaxed, rising on the in breath and falling on the out breath, I have a tendancy to hold my ribs and the area around my breastbone so they don’t move as much when I breathe.

If I focus for long enough on that area I feel tension, and if I let that tension go my ribs actually expand outward, creating more space inside my chest.

When I am locked in worry or anxiety or too much thinking, it’s like there are tight bands around my ribs, chest locked in place as surely as if I was wearing a corset. When this tight corset is removed with awareness and attention, there is a feeling of release, of worries and thoughts receeding, of returning to a comfortable body.

And it got me wondering. We don’t wear actual whalebone corsets any more (thankfully, both for us and for the whales!), but how many of us live within corsets of our own making? Luckily, with a bit of awareness, we can assign those corsets to the history books too.

Winter sleep

New snow blankets a wall

which is the summer home

of one of the garden slow worms.

And right now, somewhere deep

in hidden parts of the garden

slow worms are curled up,

hibernating.

Do they switch off like a computer

one cool day in autumn

and switch back on in spring,

unaware of the passing of time?

Or do they slumber,

conscious of the seeping cold,

burrowing further below rocks,

pulling leaves over like a duvet

before sinking deeper into winter sleep?

And do they dream?