When I started writing this post it was snowing. I was waiting for this! I sat at my desk watching the flakes fall outside, the sky a solid grey. Birds were at the feeder on one side, squirrel tails hung down from the other. Wind was blowing what was left of crinkled leaves still clinging to tree branches. It finally felt like winter — yay!
On that same day, though, I came down with covid symptoms, and I’ve been home since. It knocked me out with a fever and nausea the first day and a smaller fever the next day, but after that it was just a stuffy head and aching eyeballs. John and I have been quarantining— I started and am just about to finish my very first knitting project that isn’t a scarf, and we’ve been binge-watching seasons of Blue Bloods.
When I was a kid, being the kind of sick that kept me home from school meant Mom putting a sheet, pillows, and my favorite afghan on the couch in the living room so I could watch tv all day. She’d bring tea and soup and saltines, and ginger ale in the tall blue plastic glass with a bendy straw. These were the days before cable and remote controls, and while most of my favorite shows — a collection of cartoons and reruns — were on the same network, Mom was kind enough to change the channel for me if I needed to switch things up. I was a lucky kid.
While it wasn’t necessarily fun being sick, there was something I always liked about it. You didn’t have to worry about homework or studying; your only assignment was to get better. As an adult I’m not sick that often, but when I am it kind of feels like a magic reset button. It’s time off that your body forces you to take, with all your to-do lists reduced to one essential: get well. What you choose to add back in after that is up to you. A fresh start!
