straight quiet lines of existence

Long COVID, Flooded Basements, and Motley Crue to make you cry

Well, it’s been interesting.

For those of you who are new here, Welcome! And sincere apologies, I’m not usually this…well…absent (I have a nagging feeling I’ve said this before, in a different post…but we will pretend it’s the first time for pity’s sake).

Somewhere around the first of November, a whole month ago! Our whole household came down with an odd flu-like experience where we couldn’t move without wincing and were only physically and mentally capable of watching The Great British Bake Off: Juniors show on repeat - all. day. long.

This went on for a week. And then suspiciously kept going for even longer, and longer, and…longer.

A few days later after the election in fact, as I stood in my kitchen unable to taste, smell, or think thoughts that didn’t feel like wisps of fog swirling by - I started to slowly put it together - we’d finally gotten COVID!¹

I don’t know if you remember that YouTube video from years ago, of that kid who just came from the dentist slurring “Is this real life?” but that was what was playing in my head. I just stood there staring out at my backyard - no other thoughts were available to me - just something along the lines of, Is this the real world?

When you can’t smell, taste, or think - you start to get a little weird. You don’t really feel human anymore and you realize how much of the joy in life comes from smelling things, tasting them, and then having an opinion about it. At first, I thought this might be what enlightenment is like - no opinions, just blank, airy, nothingness - no bothersome smell wafting from the kitchen drain, or the litter box, or the attic where the cat finds whatever article of clothing I’ve left behind on the floor…and uses it as a litterbox. No disappointment because dinner was a bit blah or the coffee was not strong enough.

Just a straight quiet line of existence. Maybe it would be peaceful?

However, I struggle with this little thing called attachment. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. And even though those aforementioned bothersome things were absent I chose to lay around, miss them, and be upset about it.

I was angry I couldn’t taste my coffee and downright depressed that I couldn’t smell ANYTHING. Now and again there would be a “bubble” of smell that would float by, as if my nose had healed for a second but just in one tiny spot inside my nostril. And it was grasping for a scent pocket that existed possibly somewhere in front of me - the faint whiff of my daughter’s unbrushed hair mixed with snowy boots piled by the door - but then it would vanish - Pop! Just disappear and I would want to cry.

If you are currently able to smell your kid's shoes by the door - I order you to go and take a deep breath right now…appreciate the little things my friend.

After about two weeks of this, I was starting to become dramatic and annoying…to myself.

My ability to string thoughts together was coming back and it leaned as usual toward the bleak. I’m still practicing this thing called resting. Resting always feels like stopping. And stopping feels like giving up…or possibly dying. I practice it hard (the opposite of the spirit of the thing) but it never feels good - I always want to leap away from it. There was a part of me that honestly thought this was never going to get better. My partner was in LA, it had been weeks, and I just wanted my humanity and my nose back - please and thank you.

It was on this day when I was feeling the most sorry for myself, that I walked downstairs, to discover that our basement had flooded, from what I would later learn was a break in our main sewer line.

The best part was at first I thought it was the water heater. So I went and got towels and got on my hands and knees (as did my five-year-old) and tried to sort of…sop it up?! I am not really sure what I was doing (like I said I was just barely beginning to be able to think thoughts again) but I quickly realized, not from smell of course, but by the largeness of the area of wetness (also known as flooding) that this was A. not a practical solution and B. a much larger problem. I backed up the stairs, took myself and my young child, who I had just exposed to E coli, and we went directly to disinfect and make some phone calls.

And so it goes. I made calls, put on some Christmas music, and sat on the floor playing, ironically the board game Life, with my kid because what else are you going to do as handfuls of strange men come and go carrying out carpet and drywall, leaving behind fans and footprints and yellow slips of paper with their estimates. You play Life and you hum The Christmas Waltz.

The good news is I’m pretty sure I made a stellar core memory. Can you still make those at 46 years old? Our AAA home insurance rep had come over to inspect the damage a few days after the unfortunate event as we’re calling it. I sat, while Lorelei bounced and jumped on our basement couch, and he measured and took notes. We got to talking and I found out he used to be a musician; a drummer in LA. We swapped stories about California, his grandkids, and living in quieter places. As I was walking him to the door, he stopped at our Piano. First, he asked Lorelei to play for him, which she did banging away on the keys proudly. And then he asked if he could play us a song. He sat down and played Home Sweet Home by Motley Crue. Just sat right down and played me a song, that made me cry, like it was no big deal. It was everything.

If it’s ever happened to you; that someone has played you a song out of the blue, then you know how lucky and alive and oddly floaty it makes you feel. I wondered if we were all somehow levitating, gravity having left the room, and we were going to touch the ceiling or fly right out the door. If it hasn’t (yet) let me tell ya - it’s a gift. And I would consider having a piano in your house just to invite the moment into reality. I hugged him so hard on the way out I may have heard his back crack a little.

I think it was all worth it. Just to have that man play me that song at the end of that week. I’ll never forget that.

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As we’re all looking around for our humanity these days (ahem, election results - sheesh), I’ll offer you a few things below that make it all worth it.

• A SUBSTACK:

  • Keep Calm & Cook On - Julia Turshen is a gift. I loved her list at the end of this post. But start anywhere - any post is a good post by Turshen.

• A BOOK:

  • The Crying Book - it’s not what you think - this book is a thing of beauty and I love every glorious page. Here are a few snippets below. Plus the cover is gorgeous.

    

Once I was unexpectedly dumped in public. A campus parking lot one afternoon. I put all my crying into my mouth, felt it shake while I stalked to the car, inside which I let the crying move north to my eyes and south to my heaving gut. The car is a private crying area. If you see a person crying near a car, you may need to offer help. If you see a person crying inside a car, you know they are already held.

- The Crying Book, Heather Christle

I do not allow roadkill to make me cry anymore.

- The Crying Book, Heather Christle

• A RECIPE:

  • On the day we sat waiting for our Insurance Rep to arrive, Lorelei and I made this Vermont Whole Wheat Honey Bread - it made things better as Bread usually does.

    

    …and yes, this is Lorelei making bread the bread from the recipe. And yes, she really is this cute in real life.

• A POEM (or two):

  • Drowning Creek by Ada Limón

  • The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry

• A PIECE OF ART:

  • We were invited to a newly befriended family’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. After walking around the house and looking at some of their art I found out her Grandmother was the woodcut artist Aline Feldman. After dinner, they unrolled several pieces of her work for us to see. Seeing them in person made my stomach feel like it was peaking on the top of a roller coaster. And yes, you know me so well, I cried in my new friend’s house, but my god they were beautiful and there was something about them in person! So much color and all on this delicate thin soft paper - being in the same room with the prints made you feel like gasping.

• AN UPDATE (or two):

  • Tears of Eden published the essay My Father Died The Day Before Thanksgiving, which I wrote last year. They are a wonderful organization that seeks to empower survivors to connect with their own agency and pursue the healing process from Spiritual Abuse. I’m honored to be a part of their work. If you know someone who could use this community or who would benefit from this story, please feel free to share it.

  • We just wrapped up 14 weeks of The Artist Way workshop! The experience was beyond my imagination wonderful and I will be offering the workshop again in January! More details coming soon, as the website should be finished in the next week!

• A SONG (THE song):

  • I’ll just leave it here again. Home Sweet Home by Motley Crüe. It’s the instrumental version. I dare you, I double dog dare you, not to feel a prickle in your tear duct when you listen to it.

Thank you for being here, for subscribing, and for reading.

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We have never had a positive test! Although I did have a curious inexplicable cough and whole body shaking fever which took me to the ER three months before COVID was announced - hmmmm.