Writing While Sick

The acrobatics of survival, escapism, and re-tethering

writing is a must (or, an attempt to stay tethered)

Coming to you from my living room couch next to an open window on a sunny, springy morning, the first of March already somehow. I have some serious sniffles and a headache. My abdomen is distended beyond belief, despite only having had a cup of coffee and some water this morning (it never goes away, though, so no surprises there). It’s funny that I’m so terrified of unwanted pregnancy—and doubt that I personally could adapt to the demands of motherhood as a disabled person—and yet my ballooning belly makes it look like I’m perpetually stuck in my second trimester. I suppose it isn’t actually funny, but I have to laugh the irony sometimes because just beneath my mask I’m so miserable about it and exhausted by it.

I just resumed the task of painstakingly crafting a grocery list. I did this while staring out the window reflecting on how many foods I have become suspicious of. Thoughts of how much I fear eating in general, and how awful it is to know that my brain is reinforcing these fears along my gut-brain axis, and simply recycling the painful symptoms I experience. It’s comical how difficult going to the grocery store is (and always has been) for me. And yet, I must eat. I thank the soil gods and goddesses, all the watersheds, animals, pollinators, fungi, human farmers and laborers, that food is available to me.

Writing soothes me, I must do it, and still it feels out of reach, less urgent than the monotony of my daily survival. Wake up, feed kitty, take shower, swallow medication, make coffee, listen to podcast, try to eat, sweep floors, clock in, sit down, respond to emails, check schedule for next week, update budget spreadsheet, update calendar, text friend about borrowing car, clock out, run errand, make food, clock in to other job, deal with horrific bloating, clock out, try to breathe, maybe stretch, usually crash, watch a movie, drift off, have fun processing subconscious sadness in dreamland all night long! Manage burnout. Manage symptoms. Attempt to stay tethered to earth, to self, to community. Somehow. Somehow…

There are many wonderful people who have written about writing while sick. Voices that come to mind include Audre Lorde, Virginia Woolf, Sophie Strand, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and most recently (for me), Johanna Hedva.

“I have found that battling despair does not mean closing my eyes to the enormity of the tasks of effecting change, nor ignoring the strength and the barbarity of the forces aligned against us.

It means teaching, surviving and fighting with the most important resource I have, myself, and taking joy in that battle.

It means, for me, recognizing the enemy outside and the enemy within, and knowing that my work is part of a continuum of women’s work, of reclaiming this earth and our power, and knowing that this work did not begin with my birth nor will it end with my death. And it means knowing that within this continuum, my life and my love and my work has particular power and meaning relative to others.”

—Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals

This morning I just want to write what comes out, instead of humoring the inner critic that says I need to flesh out the essay drafts that have been myceliating in the underworld of my Substack dashboard for months.

There is beauty in a well-researched essay, and beauty in a stream-of-consciousness dump. There is power in the practice itself. I can strive to become a published author, and I can admire the authors whose work lives now permanently in my body, and I can let go of preconceived standards and perfectionism as I write.

I’m sick and sometimes that’s all I can write about. Other more interesting kaleidoscopes of carefully synthesized ideas will have to wait.

passivity, receptivity, and escapism

As I cope with and try to learn from my undesired isolation, I find myself being pulled toward screens more and more. Naturally there are many side effects that come with this, including the seeking of instant dopamine hits. I’m in a mode of ravenously eating up the viewpoints and musings of others, and it’s all swirling around in my mind like a vegetable stew. I’m here this fine morning because I need to dish some out.

I have been watching more stand-up comedy lately in the hopes of not feeling so much of the weight of my own seriousness. I have drawn firm lines with my attention when it comes to social media and news, and yet I’ve also allowed myself to fall down the rabbit holes of daydreaming about the speculative power and thematic social commentary of my favorite televisual dramas, namely Severance and Yellowjackets. This involves eagerly ritualizing the release of new episodes on Thursdays, and rewatching them before the next one comes out the following week—not to mention badgering my friends to catch up, and/or talk about the storylines and characters and production elements with me. Severance is becoming one of the best things I have ever seen and I constantly have ideas swirling around in my mind as a result of participating in the lively, widespread discussion of it the past six weeks. I am so grateful for well-crafted science fiction.

Working from home is really good for me, it turns out, allowing me to lie down or just sit with my cat, and my current job has a lovely amount of passivity in which I am often just waiting for tech support requests that require my involvement. The burnout I’ve been experiencing, however, means that my multitasking involves dissociating as much as possible, in order to find some semblance of ease as my time is thwarted by quotidian necessities. There will always be laundry and dishes and Teams notifications and the scooping of the litter box, and I find myself listening to silly shit all the while. Sometimes audiobooks enter in (I loved The Word for World is Forest by Ursula Le Guin, it had been on my list for ages and it was only 4 hours long), but typically it’s podcasts theorizing about those shows I love, or ones that poke fun at the horrific propaganda machine we’re all living in.

Guess what, hahaha, no big reveal, I’m just autistic, y’all!! Right now I need stimulation of this kind, other people’s voices to keep me company while I wander my apartment all day. Sometimes I just gotta let my inner managerial parts take the reins, tend to the bills and the work schedules and the adulting. And then I crawl into bed exhausted shortly after sundown, accepting of my fate that it’s just me and my cat in this world—by which I mean the world of my microclimate, this apartment, this city corner, this current material reality of mine.

If another pandemic comes along I will be absolutely devastated and afraid, but I will also have my homebound life carved out like a well-worn path in the woods. I’m here, I’m sick, I’m disabled, I’m in pain, I’m scraping by, I’m actually fairly content somehow these days, I’m eagerly awaiting spring, I’m opening the windows wide on warm days, I’m basking in the sun that comes through my living room windows, I’ve got headphones in, I’m using screens to connect with the world, I’m in therapy, I’m doing my best, I’m training my cat to go outside for an hour at a time, I’m training myself to go outside for an hour at a time, I’m learning to be more neutral about discomfort. I’m eating rice and chicken and apples and clementines and putting the citrus peels in a hot pot on the stove with cinnamon for a comforting aroma. I’m watering plants and sitting in my recliner and playing a color sorting game on my phone. I’m here.

needy needy touchy feely

I’m embracing that I have needs and I always will; I’m learning to let my body’s needs structure my life, to try to meet them somehow. Getting through each day is its own performance art piece. Walking gingerly on my injured ankle. Lying on the floor and putting my legs in the air. Carving out the perfect place for Enoki to nap in my left arm while I watch a movie. Taking the quickest path through the grocery store. The acrobatics of survival.

Shout out to my dear friend Nora for getting it, for being responsive to texts and calls, for bringing me groceries, for sitting and chatting, for inviting me to sit in a hot tub, for being honest with me, for letting me be however I am. I love you so much dude.

My body is goin’ through a lot and I want to write about all of it! I do truly have some fun(gal) essays coming up. In the meantime, thank you for reading this portrait, I am so glad you’re here, please comment and share and reach out.

reading and watching and listening to the following for brain tickles

Severance poster art by JJ Lendl: jjlendl.com