Time to rest

On a morning ramble through the vegetable garden this week, I winced. Bindweed and dandelion carpet every inch of the path, rampant and on the move. A few good frosts have struck the squash particularly hard, their fruit now adrift on a brittle bed of decay. Hydrangeas bear little resemblance to their pouffy August blooms; tomatoes hang sullenly from blackened vines. Only Winter Thyme and Kale remain green, valiant hardiness in a time of wilt. We’ve largely neglected things out here since I first became sick and the evidence is mounting. I tell my husband to turn away as we walk past the plot on an afternoon walk with the dogs. Next year, we say, as our hound sounds off with his echoing yodel and our mutt races circles around our slow moving feet.

‘Next year’ has become mantra for believing that all things will shift and I’ll once again be back at the physical things I love- running miles of dirt road on any given morning, broad forking the early Spring soil to loosen it up for new life, swimming across Blueberry Lake in the early morning with my pal, A, who makes me giggle so much I almost always sputter and choke. But the truth of it is that I have no idea who I’ll be in six months time, nine, twelve even. Autumn drives this home for me as the pandemonium of color grows muted and descends, a collection of line drawings shaped like branches and trees who may or may not return to all of their former glory.

While this is true for all of us, really, for those in recovery from a protracted illness our relationship with the unknowing plays a significant part in how we heal. Pushing timelines and comparisons across like patients is ultimately futile despite our insatiable desire for that very line of sight. Even how we define recovery can wield huge impact in the way we spend today and how we take to readying ourselves for whichever way the wind blows. If recovery is a carbon copy of who I was during the week before I contracted Covid 19, then I’m missing out on the one thing this arduous time can gift- discovery. Letting our definition of recovery stay loose and blousy opens it all up and challenges the common trope that this will only make us stronger. What about gentler, especially with ourselves, or less ambitious (scandalous!) or slower (absolutely not allowed!) or even less willing to engage in the charades. (exiled!)

I listened to a beautiful book this week by Dr. Gavin Francis on the this very dilemma and it soothed the part of me that still thinks I’ll ‘beat’ this thing by month six. Unlikely. Though I also no longer believe that it will beat me as I’m learning to live with it and all of its episodic flair. The book centers on the ‘lost art of convalescence’ as remedy for any number of illnesses, both physical and mental. I remember saying to an ER physician on my fourth or fifth time showing up in a panic, short of breath and with searing chest pain, “Can’t you just check me into the hospital so someone can take care of me?” He snickered as he released us back into the wild. What I was really wanting was a place to rest, a place that would allow me to ride out the waves of symptoms that neither my husband nor I could understand, a place with skilled hands to ensure I was safe so I could shut my eyes and actually truly rest.

Proper rest is a hot topic amongst the Long Covid and ME/CFS community as part of an overall approach to pacing and making the best use of our limited energy. Countless debates ensue over whether listening to podcasts while horizontal constitutes true rest or must we simply close our eyes and be in the quiet. For how long do we rest and how often? I chuckle as I read these thinking how very outer space this would read to my colleagues and most of my friends. Rest is hardly ever taken in our modern world, much less indoctrinated as part of daily life. This is most stark in my return to work where I limit my meeting times and take to the couch between work periods throughout the day. It feels both luscious and absurd against the backdrop of a frenetic start up where 60 hour work weeks are a given. But it’s neither, really, it’s just necessary, vital for sustaining the glacial pace of recovery wherever it may land me.

My in-laws arrive today with their RV in tow for a long weekend visit. We haven’t seen them since the Spring and we are all restless for a visit. They’re the kind of people who like projects, enjoy being of use, and are eager to help us tackle a number of overlooked projects on our farm. We’ve decided that we’ll put them on the veggie plot, ripping out overgrowth, weeding what they can and properly putting the garden to rest. I’ll synchronize with this work, taking my cue, once again, from the land that sustains us, turning inward for our long winter nap.