Nov
9
Four miles and counting. I don’t mean to go quite this far but the lake has flooded the trail: I round a bend and what!—there’s a sudden and startling expanse of murky water, two ducks paddling on its surface. I double back and go the long way around, along a chain link fence, jumping over exposed tree roots, zigzagging past puddles, then in front of a line of storefront windows where I peer surreptitiously to the left to see my reflection flashing by. Running girl, taking confident strides in skintight black Nike pants. I hardly recognize her.
I’m used to gasping, these long steady breaths are new to me. I’m used to stopping, not pushing through.
We were sitting in a darkened movie theater when someone came stumbling down the aisle and collapsed in a chair at the end of our row with a barely controlled crash. An instant later I could smell it: a wave so strong I almost expected to see a visible swirling in the air. I wondered how often I smelled like that, thinking I was being so secretive. You can hide it from some people, I guess. Others know it like a song they could sing in their sleep. It’s exhaled, it surrounds you, it seeps from your pores. I spent years thinking it made brighter, sharper, funnier moments, when all along it was a fog. It clung to me and I hid inside of it. It coated every inch of me inside and out.
Music is thudding in my ears and my feet are hitting the pavement over and over. My nose runs, my fingers are cold, my legs burn, my eyes prick back tears in the chilly air, the world moves past me as I move through it and I can feel it all.
My children’s voices are so loud. They barrage me with requests and complaints and kisses. I make snacks, wipe noses, run baths, put away toys, provide midnight comfort. Oh, it is a joy and it is a grind. I run my palm over their soft heads, I try and take deep breaths. I’m laid bare. There is no stopping. There is no cushion, no fog to hide inside.
I come to a hill and lean into it, telling myself to go harder. Up, up, up, my chest burning. I run into the feeling of wanting to quit and pass it by, leave it in the dirt behind me. I push through. I speed up, because I’m heading back home.
Nov
6
Hey, thank you for the ideas, suggestions, and anecdotes with regards to ongoing childhood mystery ailments. Naturally, Riley seems perfectly fine today, excepting a brand NEW symptom: a husky, scratchy voice that sounds like the IT’S LINDSAY voiceover on The Soup.
I’m considering whether to visit the pediatrician today, or go on Monday when it’s theoretically possible they’ll have some flu vaccinations available, which they are not scheduling but if you happen to be there for unrelated reasons they might give your kid a shot.
*holds head, rocks back and forth in the corner, eats fistful of dog hair*
Speaking of the flu, JB’s brother called last night to tell JB he’d driven himself to the hospital with a 104 degree fever, got diagnosed with H1N1, and was sent home with Tamiflu.
There are a few things that seem notable to me about this, like how he actually got diagnosed and even got medication, despite being an otherwise perfectly healthy adult (I thought they were only giving out Tamiflu for high risk people?). I wonder just how much treatment fluctuation there is between different locations, like whether it’s easier to get care in a small city where Joe lives as opposed to our crowded Seattle-area population.
But I’m particularly struck by the fact that he actually got in the car and headed to the emergency room to have himself checked out. If it were me, I know exactly what I would have done: I would have laid on the couch boiling in my own juices, while pecking on my phone in order to complain on TWITTER about how I was probably dying and wasn’t that just my luck.
There’s a lesson here, I think, but it’s, like, really hard to stop moping about all my PROBLEMS long enough to ponder what it might be.
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