The limitations of a writer circumvented

EXPERIENCES ARE STILL POSSIBLE

This one I picked to bring forward again because I’m glad I recorded this post about getting around some of the significant Life imposes on those with disabilities and chronic illnesses: finding ways to keep the raft of experience growing even as we chop off pieces to fund our work.

I have to find a way to make the singing a bigger part of the current life.

And it is also timely, as Easter is next Sunday.

From February 2013:

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I have been coping all morning with the side effects of yesterday, not being able to write, nor even look at my notes for, the current scene under revision in the WIP.

And yet, I am not unhappy.

With the limitations of CFS, I live a tiny life: I try not to leave the house more than 2-3 times a week, I say no to almost everything, and I have worked hard to create a schedule that puts the writing first (Get up. Grab First Diet Coke. Block internet for 2 hours. Write. Take First Nap. Get up. Grab Second Coke, protein breakfast shake. Block internet for 2 hours. Write. Take Second Nap. Phew – most of day is now gone.).

My house is, understandably, a disaster area. The bills get done when I am either forced to or have a functional period after the writing. Taxes, end of year deductions, holidays, occasional trips – all interrupt the flow, and take a week to recover from – and get back on schedule from. They are necessary, so I pay the price and don’t worry about it too much. If there’s energy, I write – I don’t spend it on housekeeping.

It leaves little time for the ‘life experiences’ writers need to grow – a Hobson’s choice.

But for ten years I made space for a weekly singing lesson (even though the teacher said I should practice an hour every day – and it was a rare week when I had any energy for doing anything other than singing if I had to drive myself somewhere that week). Up to 8 times a year I go to a Folk Sing on a Friday night. And a year ago, when they were soliciting new members for the tiny choir that sings at the Princeton University chapel for the 4:30 Sunday Mass I attend when classes are in session, and knowing that they practiced before Mass (rather than having a separate choir practice night, which would have been an additional outing every week), I volunteered. With the caveat that it might not be something I could continue doing.

For those who sing, I needn’t explain the joy of learning something in four-part harmony every week, however short. For those who don’t, just know that I am treated as if it’s obvious that I CAN, and that’s enough.

After a year, which I survived, we were challenged to take turns as Cantor (it’s an erratic crew due to school and other commitments, and we were down to two or three who had cantored – yesterday all but one couldn’t come). One additional training session required – I can do this: I said yes.

Yesterday was My First Time – and, minor bobbles aside, it was glorious, and made up for the loss of Saturday (preparation), Sunday (warmup, practice, Mass!), and today, Monday (can’t seem to get it together, and it’s 4:34pm). Let me say it this way: there is nothing to compare to the experience of opening your mouth and pouring sound into a properly-designed nave and choir in a stone cathedral. It is a living thing that feeds back the sound and amplifies your voice enough to fill the whole. I prayed – went for it. The feeling is a shock, the feedback amazing. The first notes of the a capella Kyrie (which I may have been a third low for – but it doesn’t matter, as the cantor sets the note, and all the rest are relative – the organist had told me not to worry, to just go for it and with it, rather than get a note from him) – me, alone, for a few seconds, and then the rest of us joined in – was an experience that is not available for money. Nor should it be. It is only available for love – and without fear.

The same for the first verse of the meditation, followed by all of us singing what we have been singing throughout Lent.

My point? That even in a life circumscribed by circumstances beyond control, there are still times when it is necessary – and possible – to say ‘Yes!’

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How do you replenish?

 

Give us this day our daily pain

WORTH OFFERING UP IF YOU’D GET RID OF IT?

Some days, if I squint at the daily/morning skeletal pain and muscle pain, I can call it the result of not stretching, or even ‘stiffness’ or ‘mild joint pain.’ synovial fluid in the joints needs to get moving, and the joints themselves have adhesions – everything’s, scientifically speaking, gummy.

Some days it’s worse than others. I don’t like it, but I can handle it.

But this morning, while resting in extension (like the Sphinx) on the floor, I was marveling that I’d never noticed that ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ from the Our Father has one of those little cross-linguistic glitches – the word for bread in French is pain.

No rhyme or logic to it, just a noticing.

The saints offered their pain up.

I’m not saintly or heroic, but I can do the same thing, try to handle every day with as little medicine for pain as possible (to ease the load on liver and kidneys in getting rid of the byproducts). I can ignore some of it, and a special seat cushion takes the brunt off, but there is usually enough left to be, well, significant. Too bad, and I say, “The heck with it!” and try to find something that won’t leave me groggy but will reset the brain.

Above that level, there is the way it takes over, and you do nothing else until stretching, isometrics, yoga, and chemicals are allowed, even if I end up not being able to think.

I feel for my friends who live with a lot more than I do – I had that experience as a side-effect of the various cardiac meds: every single one of them raised the pain to the I can’t think of anything else because I’m dealing with pain level. Glad the new cardiologist decided the benefits, if any, weren’t worth the consequences. Not that I would take them now, but it does help to have at least one doctor who’s okay with that; really reduces the stress.

I don’t understand offering pain up.

I’m not good at those theological bits. I don’t believe God gives other people pain or suffering that is waiting for me to offer my pain to be removed. But pain does teach you a lot about self-reliance, and getting help, and the limits of what you can take and do. Many people reduce or ignore what others magnify. I don’t see the point in taking on more just so you could offer up more. Seems like there are no good limits on that.

I do offer up acceptance and patience and such. I don’t ask Why me? because the answer is Why not me? if there’s going to be any at all. Not often, anyway.

I’m scared it will escalate – and I won’t be able to do enough to ameliorate it to the bearable level. I don’t think I’ll get rid of it any more – it’s too constant a companion.

I’m a wuss: I offer it up, but will do everything possible to get rid of it – at the same time.

Sixth Sunday of Easter: the sermon I wish I’d heard

I’m going to try something I’ve been thinking of for a couple of years: to write the Sunday sermon I wish I’d heard.

Caveats: I know no more about theology than I do about medicine: I’m an interested, reasonably well-educated non-specialist layperson.

My opinions are my own, puzzled out and pieced together over many years of cogitating about the eternal questions: why are we here? where do we go when we are no longer here? what does it mean to be a good person? or to do the best you can? and even who is okay and who isn’t? If you can’t read what I write in this spirit, peace be with you and farewell.