The dreaded lurgy

Shortly, hours after quitting fb I came down with the dreaded lurgy. I'm just starting to surface - spent the last two days lying about moaning and so am behind on my tasks. What tasks say you? I know you think I just lie around here moaning anyway but I don't. It is hard work being idle I'll have you know! I do try to write a letter every day - a thing which I did for the first six months of living here - a letter written and posted every day. The other things I do daily include a Buddhist practice, going for a good long walk, posting a poem and a photo on the aforementioned fbook, working on my writing projects and of course the other things that grab me and keep me enthralled until they don't. The latest is quilting. I'm on my second quilt and the first one I didn't actually quilt - I tufted - this one I'm going to quilt by hand. Today I'll put the top together - I was supposed to do that yesterday but I really really couldn't. Then I'll make the quilt sandwich, then quilt! I hope. But hey, I'll post more about that on one of my other blog's, Living the Complicated Simple Life.  My point is that I do try to keep a certain discipline of doing around here which was interrupted by whatever bug it is that I caught. First time I've been sick since I came here 7 months (almost exactly) ago.

Being sick is always a good thing in the long run for me. It is one way for me to stop whatever I'm doing and have a good long look at it. I think that I get sick when I'm out of line with my purpose. Lately I've been in the grips of a very old script - it comes upon me when I don't pay attention to the mundane and NECESSARY duties in life. I will cling to things like making quilts and ignore things like paper work, money matters, collecting or paying bills - real livelihood issues. The ignoring can only go on for so long before I wake at night, fretting and fussing. I don't intend to go into this very much right here - it isn't why I brought it up and I'm well aware we all have those shadow sides, those corners of our hearts collecting cobwebs and past due notices. I shan't burden you with mine but only say that I might be out the other side. Not in the frozen world where I believe I can't act, but in the human messy but wonderful world of picking up one bit of it and beginning. I will be doing that over the next few weeks, wanting to leave here without too much hanging over my head. I'll begin with my desk, unopened mail and my buried to-do book which really helps me when I keep it top and center.

And I'll also attend the other thing that is burning in me - the Labrador project - I need a better working title but can't think of one right now. I know that because I'm coming back here I could let it sit and ripen while I do other things but my gut feeling is that the poems I began to sketch out over the winter were strong because I was coming from such a place of not-knowing. Next year will be different for so many reasons and I want to capture my first meetings with this land.