I sat out on the Adirondack chair to get some fresh air and rest and after a few minutes I fell asleep. When I awoke, I saw Simon standing at the fence a few feet from me, just looking at me. He never does that when I sit out on the chair but he was starting at me with a special intensity. I sometimes forget how intuitive donkeys are, how sensitive they are to human emotions. I got up from the chair and went to the fence and he carefully sniffed my hand. “It’s okay, pal,” I said, “I’ll be fine.” He stayed at the fence for a few minutes, then was gone.
There are chickens in the Rhododendron. It sounds great just to say it. Doesn’t everyone? Being sick for me is a curious mixture of things. Life is suspended, I am liberated from chores, work, responsibility. It is sensitizing, it opens me up to empathy, and an awareness of pain and suffering. It is distracting, narcissistic. It opens the doors to love and caring. It removes hope, and then offers it, I am conscious of feeling well. It takes creativity away, yet healing is profoundly creative. Photographs are my thermometer, a way of taking my temperature. Maria took the dogs out for a walk in the woods but I felt weak so couldn’t go and I took the camera and sat out in the chair and waited for my farm to help me heal, and it did, the farm never disappoints.
There was a cool breeze, but I was soaked in sweat, I felt weak and sorry for myself, and then I breathed quietly and listened to the soft pecking of the chickens in the grass, watched the fading light move across the cornfield, saw the deer come out of the woods to graze and I felt peaceful and at ease. Being sick reminds me of what is important, what I care about, and yes, lets my restless soul rest.
Red came back from the walk and sat by me, the chickens marched into the Rhododendron, Flo the regal barn cat came over and sat in front of me, I saw one of the chickens out in the pasture, Simon came over to the fence and stared at me for many minutes, donkeys do not miss things like sickness. And so I got a photo album, was able to record some images of my own healing, for me the very embodiment of beginning to be well.
Red has been babysitting me with great vigilance so I owed him a few minutes of herding. Karen Thompson wrote me and explained that although Red was harshly treated in Ireland, he never lost his capacity to trust and this is why she loved him so much. I can see that. He is a pure spirit.
Writer’s pride perhaps, but I thought if I could write anything coherent today, I’d be either a fool or a credit to my profession, or both. After several days of chills, high fever and a sort of delirium – lots of scary stuff in the head – Maria spotted one of those rashes on me and we were off to the Hoosick Falls Family Health Center and in the touch and capable hands of Nurse Practitioner Karen Bruce. Lyme Disease, she said, the third one she’d diagnosed that morning. It was an interesting trip for me, I’ve been seeing a naturopath for the past five and when they asked me for all my records I didn’t really have any. But rigidity can be reckless and they were thoughtful sensitive and competent. It was fine. They e-mailed a prescription to my local pharmacy – the clerk at the counter looked at me and said, “hey, wait a minute, you’re somebody, aren’t you?” I said yes, I supposed I was.
Writing and photography is like breathing to me, very healing and I took poor Red – he has been by my side every minute of this – out into the new pasture, drawn to the beautiful sky. I got a couple of photos I like and I swear, as I stood there in that pasture, after three feverish and sweat-soaked days, it was healing, I could feel it. There are a lot worse things than Lyme Disease and it is amazing that in 15 years of tromping through woods and pastures I didn’t get it before. The clerk at the pharmacy said she had it for a year. (It’s kind of like talking about dogs. If you mention your dog, you will get a story about their dog, if you mention Lyme Disease, you will hear about everybody else’s Lyme Disease, and a few other things as well.) Nurse Karen things we got it early and I’m on antibiotics. You might get nauseous, she said. Can I write?, I asked. Sure she said.
Anyway, I am grateful to Maria for taking such wonderful care of me, for spotting the rash, for making me go into conventional medicine for the first time in five years. It could hardly have been a more loving anniversary. This morning, I gave her a framed photograph of her and Rocky out in the field, and on the way back from the doctors, she stopped at the Round House Cafe and got me lunch, and that food is healing as well.
This reminds me that marriage is about trusting and caring and communicating. She was doing all sorts of things this week she did not have to do and I can’t wait to feel good again so I can be as loving to her.
