Summer days, and trying not to drift away

June 2024 + Spring Favourites

I’ve been suffering with sciatica for over a month now, after injuring my back properly for the first time by looking at my own bum in the mirror (don’t ask). In spite of this, I sit on the hard living room floor to bathe my legs in the morning sunshine. The birdsong that has me wearing earplugs from as early as 4am sounds much nicer once I join the blue-sky day. I welcome the gentle bumps of bees and wasps on the window, occasionally get the shit scared out of me when it’s the bang of a bird, dazzled by the reflection. I rush to check neighbour Malcolm’s garden below, where a feeder attracts birds and squirrels alike, to find relief that there’s only a scattering of feathers on the ground.

I’ve been making cold coffees every day, switching from the warming chai that got me through winter and spring, and ignoring any signs of caffeine intolerance for the sake of my daily little treat. I keep bypassing the ice, unable to take that extra step of filling and freezing the tray that takes its seasonal retirement in the cupboard. Consequently, I’m going through gallons of soy milk (the superior milk, no debate) making the milkiest lattes, and have increased my vanilla-flavoured sweetener from three to four, sometimes five drops. I always regret the fifth. It makes my drink scream ‘indulgence’ wearing fake glasses with a moustache, underneath which you’ll find ‘a desperate coping mechanism’. Recently my reflux returned, with power and consequence unlike any past experience, so I understand the ritual must end. But I will replace it with another, my mornings propped up by this small action. Sipping on an extravagance not tied to survival, only pleasure. If it doesn’t burn a hole in my oesophagus.

Sometimes, the only green I see is this side of the window: my basil and mint plants, and the spring onions I’ve been regrowing in a tiny pear-shaped whisky glass on the kitchen windowsill. Most weekends I’ve not been making it out of the house, after a busy spring of birthdays and outings inevitably caught up with my body. Viewing summer days from inside isn’t a new experience, nor one I feel entirely oppressed by. I got my first sunburn in a long time last month. My skin will have an almost constant tingling all summer, sensitive to touch and stinging long after thoughtless scratches, but obvious burning is something I’ve made great efforts to avoid for years. This one left my nose feeling bruised (sign of a deep burn) but healed without any of the tricky skin peeling that would have undoubtedly caused sensory distress as well as a predicament for my tendency towards excoriation.

The heat (where is it?) makes my POTS symptoms worse, and contributes to greater fatigue, worse sleep. The air feels heavier, like I’m wading through it and it’s too rich to breathe. But the slower I walk, the more time I have to greet the flowers on my way to or from work. There’s a white rock-rose bush that grows out across the pavement in front of a porch. The flowers look so delicate and papery that I resist touching every time I walk past, and recent wind has scattered some of the petals across the ground, resembling littered tissues. Another garden that brings me joy is almost gothic; colossal, deep magenta foxgloves impose on the iron fence and further back, planted in a pot on top of the grey slate, a really unique rose blooms a dusty mauve. Two black cats live there, or at least one of them lives there; the sign on the gate only says ‘Beware of the Cat’ - singular. They have their own bench where they sleep or keep wide-eyed watch over the few square metres of their dominion.

I’ve been stuck in the mindset that I just need to wait for everything to calm down, that my schedule will eventually fall into the slow, barely-meandering flow that I know I can thrive in. But I think I’m just being cowardly. The more overwhelmed I feel by ~things constantly occurring, life happening around me, with no sign of letting up, I realise it’s possible to adjust my speed with it. The reality is: I AM coping. Yes, it’s necessary to check in with myself regularly, take measures to avoid burnout and rest - either as part of my plan, or in place of other ~things that ultimately can wait or simply not occur without any disaster or anyone dying. It’s easy to imagine myself as a rock, harsh-edged and heavy with no desire to rush along with the world. But even rocks are malleable, not subject to erosion but existing precisely as they are because of it. Riding the wave, going with the flow - it feels so opposed to my nature, but I want to be confident in my ability to adapt. I want to feel less besieged by the passing of time and more open to receiving life as it happens. I can observe the smaller things to balance the bigger ones on the scale, I can loosen my grip on the prospect of constancy and embrace everything when it is around, ready to watch it move on and make way for others. 

The day I pondered these thoughts, the universe did a wonderful thing. Or rather, Josie George, writer of A Still Life (required reading on living with illness as far as I’m concerned, and still one of my top memoirs), did a wonderful thing. In her latest Bimblings, she explores being “all in” - with life, and love:

“As soon as I begin to say no and pull away, there is a contraction, and that contraction closes me off. [...] I have to acknowledge that to say ‘no’ to the cloud means also saying no to the tight fists of the peonies next to me too.”

Frankly, if you would like far more beautiful, coherent words on what I think I was trying to get at in the paragraph above, I implore you to head over to her substack. There you will find a plethora of posts achieving true positivity that I never knew could exist, not just parallel to chronic illness, but running through it.

All In

Speaking of things I love…

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Spring Favourites

• Game: Palia by Singularity Six

  Still... Maybe forever. Look at my Cottonbean!

  

• Podcast: Galactic Yo-Yo with Molly Martian
  I discovered and listened to past episodes of this for three days straight because the new season of Doctor Who has made life worth living again.

  

• Books: No non-fiction this time, so throw recommendations my way!
  
  How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney
  Historically, I’ve struggled to tolerate autistic POVs in books, but something about Jamie’s stream-of-consciousness chapters had me sold. Yet more proof that Irish lit fic never loses, for me.
  
  Bellies by Nicola Dinan

  A deeply intimate exploration of the vulnerability that, whilst we don’t like to contemplate, is inherent to interpersonal relationships. As I was reading, I couldn’t help but think of a passage I read earlier this year, in None of the Above by Travis Alabanza:

  “It made me sad to think how normal it is for our own gender and bodies to be only part-owned by ourselves, and partly always in a deal with those around us. Even acts we may see as small deviances from expectation can leverage love away from us. It is sad how often love and acceptance are conditional on how well we can conform. That even in the smallest acts of gender non-conformity, love can be lost. […] our relationships to one another sometimes rely on a version of the other person we may not have checked they still feel is accurate.”

  Alabanza’s reflection is prompted by meeting a person whose relationship stifled their experimentation with gender expression. In Bellies, you bear witness to this pressure to have answers about personal identity within the framework of relationships. Layered characters - who transition, and grow, and travel, and eat, and love. Sad. Gay. Five stars.
  
  In Memoriam by Alice Winn

  Sad. Gay. WWI. One of these things is not something I often read.

  
  Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth

  Also sad. Also gay. But Irish!!
  
  

• Album:

An unintentionally very queer list of favourites there… happy Pride!