It always happens this way. When you have the most to do, time is of the essence and it seems as your entire future is dependent on what you're doing ... you get sick.
With all of the travel that I've done over the past few months, I've remained on-half step in front of the sickness that has been chasing me. My friend Jodee and I were having a conversation about this the other day and spending time on airplanes exacerbate the body's proneness to illness. Breathing recycled air means I'm breathing a little bit of everything that everybody else has in them. I figure I've got a little bit of everything.
I'm tired of phlegm being my most constant companion.
So yesterday it all came crashing down. I did alright through the morning then friends took me to lunch, but this ended up being at the expense of a lunch promise that I'd made with someone else. Then it happened ... with a long list of things to do and a kitchen that looks like a mail truck hit it, I fell into the bed and slept.
All day ...
All night ...
I woke at some point and called my promise. Then I wrapped myself in a blanket and slept again. Too tired to dream, lying there with some notion that someone was hovering over me, I sweated in my sleep.
This morning I woke because I have to get on a plane. My kitchen looks like a second mail truck slammed into it. Goddess is giving me her "pissed off" look because she knows I'm leaving her again. On the beloved back deck, the green blanket around my shoulders complements Fran's thousand shades of green. The sun smiles through Fran's shades. Fran seems bothered.
When I was little, my brother David and I were hyper-competitive with one another. He is eleven months younger than I am (I got my understanding of birth control naturally from my parents) so he thinks he's better than I am. Obviously I know this is not true. So we grew up competing ... over everything!
He can throw a football better than me but I play guitar cords and he can't carry a tune. He's mastered procrastination while I'm phobic about being ready for everything in advance. He embraces tradition and celebrates what was while I thumb my nose at conventionality and celebrate what will be. He's cool with clutter while I know everything has a place.
We've always been that way.
This morning, I thinking of him because of the way that I feel. "Remember all those movies that we'd go and see, trying to act like the hero's we thought we had to be," sang the minor prophet Bruce Springsteen.
I feel like the Knight whose been knocked off his horse but has gotten up ... dirty and bloody but I've grabbed my sword and am waiting on the next pass by the other Knight who still has a horse. My knees are wobbly but the swords pointed in the right direction. The horse's knees seem to be working just fine as it gallops towards me. The Knight on the horse is polished and ready and laughing as he knows who has the upper hand.
"Bring it on you SOB," I mutter.
Then I think about David. At the end of every competition, we would throw our arms around each other and walk back into the house. Peace would descend upon our nights while we prepared for battles the next day.
In my sweating sleep, with the notion that people who love me are hovering around ... I throw my sword to the ground so that I can pick up a promise that I'd left ... and I look at the Knight on the horse racing towards me ... with a sword straight and true.
"Bring in on," I say as I turn and walk away.
