The View

Well, this is where I've been holed up for the past couple of days, watching the light shift across the covers (here it is graciously warming up my feet). Everything I planned to start the week with (including going to work of course) has fallen to the wayside.

I'm not usually good about the "bed rest" part of treating a virus, but part of me is thankful for a legitimate reason to hide beneath the covers for a couple of days. I wasn't about to let myself take a break, but perhaps sometimes our bodies know better than our minds what's needed.

Since I'm not often this sick I remember the last time quite clearly. It was about 6 years ago, during a January cold snap, and I remember my mom calling every day to check in with me. The bedroom was tucked away upstairs, and rather than stay removed in the attic I'd head downstairs with a comforter and curl up in the bright kitchen, by the wood stove. J was away at work, but we had a sick kitten who slept on my bathrobe-covered arm and kept me company all week. On one of those afternoons I turned on NPR and found myself listening to Deepak Chopra for the first time, gazing out at the crisp blue sky and trying to absorb every word. He was talking about a world that made sense to me, a place where the universe can send messages to those attuned to it, where our intentions can become realities.

Six years later the bedroom is downstairs and filled with light, and on the windowsill stands the bronze Shiva Nataraja statue J bought me for Christmas. I'll explain the many intricacies of the statue in a future post, but for today I'll tell you that in this form Shiva is doing a cosmic dance of destruction and rebirth, and among other messages related through his hand gestures and in the details of the statue, his upper right hand forms the Abhaya-mudra, the "fear not" gesture, as his right leg destroys the demon of ignorance.

Beyond Shiva and his cosmic dance I can watch the dried blooms of last summer's hydrangea wave in the gusty wind, and the clouds slip away beyond the horizon of bare hills. Being sick is never pleasant, but I'm thankful that I have a comfortable place to rest, companionship, plenty of tea, and a stack of books, though I haven't felt much like reading. Today was an improvement over yesterday though, so I'm confident tomorrow will be better still.

As the afternoon wears on I watch the clouds bump into each other and begin to pile up and turn gray, and the sun dips into the back woods as a half moon rises and is soon eclipsed by a stray cloud over the field. I blow my nose for the umpteenth time and reach for another sweater as the bedroom temperature begins to swiftly sink without the heat of the sun. I've missed two days of work already, Sunday night's kirtan, and the Anusara yoga class I'd hoped to start on Monday, but all of these things will be waiting for me when I'm back on my feet, literally and figuratively.

Until then I sit and lay still, sip tea, appreciate the view, and contemplate the way in which the universe has guided and continues to guide me. Oh, and I blow my nose. Again.