For those of you out there who typically click through to read the comments that other people have left on my posts, you will have noticed that yesterday, my mom left a comment. She did so in order to ask me to please stay in one more day and to take care of myself.

My mom reads my blog every day, but she rarely leaves comments. On the infrequent occasion when she does leave a comment, she often uses a pseudonym because she doesn’t want to appear pushy or overly mom-like. So for her to comment and just call herself “Mom” indictated the level of her concern.

She shouldn’t have worried though, because when it comes to subjects such as health and bodily well-being, I have firm policy of always listening to her. This policy didn’t always exist. When I was a teenager, I liked to think, like all teenagers do, that nothing could possibly happen to me. So when I was 16 and she told me not go horseback riding, because I was leaving for Poland* three days later and she didn’t want me to be achy on the plane ride, I ignored her warning and got on the horse. I was at the Oregon coast with my dad, my sister and several cousins and it was a beautiful day. Why wouldn’t I go horseback riding?

Well, that day I got a particularly high-spirited horse. I was not very experienced on horseback and while galloping down the beach, my feet slipped out of my stirrups, I lost control and fell off. I was okay, but the wranglers made me try to get back on the horse. During that attempt, the horse reared, I got thrown and broke my ankle badly. It took two operations and three years before my ankle worked normally again.

I believe that my mom had some intuitive sense of the risk I was taking in getting on that horse. I could have saved myself a lot of hurt and anguish had I listened to her that day. So these days, I always listen to my mother when it comes to keeping myself in one piece. Case in point is the fact that I strayed no further from my apartment today than the trash room down the hall.

*I still went to Poland, but I went on crutches, which prevented me from exploring some of the museums and castles the way I would have liked. One memorable moment from that trip was when a beggar, also dependent on crutches, hobbled up to me and started talking and gesturing to my crutches. Since I didn’t speak Polish, I had no idea what he was saying. One of the translators spotted the situation and came over to save me. It turned out that he was simply admiring my crutches and wanted to know where he could get a pair like them.

Heading into this week, I had every day booked. I had lunch dates with friends and had filled the evenings with meetings and movies. Getting sick meant that all of that had to go, and it’s been amazing to me how easily the decks got cleared. Friends were understanding and meetings went on without me. It has reminded me that so much of the pressure I feel in my day to day life is mostly self-imposed. It makes me wonder why I do this to myself.

Two cousins stopped by today with home made matzo ball soup, orange juice and flowers. It made me feel so loved and taken care of, even if they did keep at least two feet away from me at all times (in an attempt to not pick up my bug). It was really good soup too.

I’ve heard from a couple of reputable sources (friends who have also had this flu) that I’m heading into the home stretch now. Maybe I’ll actually be able to leave my apartment tomorrow.

I am alive, but just barely.  Other than a few brief trips to the kitchen and bathroom, I spent the day in bed.  My cousin Angie called me from the front door late this afternoon, when I didn’t hear the bell ring, to say that she had left a container of soup.  By the time I got there, she was down the hall in front of the elevators.  We carried on a brief shouting conversation, so that she didn’t run the risk of getting sick from me.

Other than that hello-and-goodbye shout and a two-minute conversation with my roommate as he stood in my doorway, I have had no in-person human interaction today.  This is one of the times when I regret living so far away from my parents.  I think back to the times when I got sick like this when I was younger, and how my parents (my mom in particular) always took such good care of me.

When I was in middle school, the Portland Public Schools ran a thing called Outdoor School (I think it still exists in some configuration, although budget cuts have curtailed it’s effects somewhat).  Every sixth grader in the district would spend a week at a camp in either the fall or the spring, learning about soil and water and plants and animals.  High school students, although with a small team of professional camp counselors/educators (my sister was one of these folks for a time after high school) would teach the kids all about the being kind to the environment.

When I went to Outdoor School, I got sick on the third day and my mom had to drive out and pick me up.  I had a raging fever, a sore throat and a nasty cough.  After she claimed me from the nurse’s office and evaluated my tempurature with her experienced mom hands, she helped me tip my car seat back so that I was almost reclining.  She stopped at a convenience store on the way home to buy me a popsicle to numb my throat a bit, a rare and deeply exciting treat.

I am sure that I apologized ten or twelve times on the way home, I always felt so guilty for getting sick in those days (vestiges of that sick-guilt still remain, although I have shaken a good bit of it off.  People get sick).

When we finally got home, she tucked me into the big bed in the downstairs guest room (the only room in the house in those days with a bed that had a view of a television).  I don’t remember if there was a visit to the doctor during that bout of illness, although I seem to remember it turning into strep throat and having a moment of hallucination because of the high fever.

I don’t have much of a point here, except that I always miss my parents the most when I’m sick and that I’m grateful that I haven’t started hallucinating white faces floating above my head because of excessively high fever.

I’ve always believed that when you see patterns develop in your life, that there’s something to be learned from those patterns.  One pattern that has appeared in my life over and over again is that when I get a break from school or work, I get sick.  As soon as my life slows down, my immune system decides to go on vacation.

Well, my spring break started today and I woke up with some nasty, flu-like symptoms.  There is the low-grade fever, congestion, headache, cough and chills.  I feel crappy.  I’m taking a fairly open-minded approach to this latest virus though, trying to actually learn something from it as opposed to just suffering and feeling bad.

I realized that I had looked at a week off from classes as an opportunity see lots of friends and get a whole bunch of stuff done.  Nowhere in this break did a plan any time off for myself to sleep in or just veg out.  And now I’m forced to veg unhappily for the next couple of days while I recover.  I also realized from this cold how I feel like I have to be productive all the time.  When I do take time off for myself, it comes bearing a certain element of guilt, a feeling that I have to look around and make sure that no one sees me watching movies or the food network.

So I am embracing this latest bout of viral discomfort as an opportunity to learn.  I’m also looking forward to the matzo ball soup I hear is coming my way tomorrow.

The Instructions: Set your pod a’shufflin’ and report back the first ten songs. No skipping, omitting or hedging allowed.

1. To Lay Me Down, Cowboy Junkies (Rarities, B-sides and Slow, Sad Waltzes)
2. Lord Have Mercy on my Soul, Black Oak Arkansas (Even More Dazed and Confused)
3. Chestnut Mare, The Byrds (The Essential Byrds)
4. The Most Dangerous Woman, Ani DiFranco/Utah Phillips (Righteous Babe Sampler)
5. Talk to Strangers, Charlotte Martin (Test-Drive Songs)
6. Go Now, Antje Duvekot (Boys, Flowers, Miles)
7. Talk a Little Texan to Me, Small Potatoes (Time Flies)
8. Chained, Cerulean Groove (Over Crooked Tables)
9. Mary Mary, Paul Butterfield Blues Band (East-West)
10. A Walk Outside, Butterfly Boucher (Flutterby)

Loving: I have a soft spot in my heart for the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, especially the fact that before Paul Butterfield turned to blues he played the classical flute.

Seen Live: Cowboy Junkies (two years ago at the Three Rivers Arts Fest in Pittsburgh with Cindy and Ingrid), Ani DiFranco (from under a waterproof blue tarp at the Appel Farms Arts and Music Festival in June of 2004) and Antje Duvekot (once opening for Rachael Davis at the Sedgwick Cultural Center and the other time opening for Ellis Paul at the Tin Angel).

Other players:

Andrea
Ben
Brian
Ellen
Fred
Howard
Jessica

The next episode of Fork You is up and running. In it I reach back to my parents’ hippie roots and blend up a big old batch of nutty, fruity granola. Scott spent most of his time behind the camera this time, so it’s a whole lot of me talking and mixing. Don’t hold it against us!

I can’t seem to keep a rosemary plant alive in my apartment, although for some reason the little bay tree I got about a year ago is doing fine.

My sister got pulled over by the cops someplace in Oklahoma a couple of days ago, because she was driving 55 miles an hour to conserve gas. They accused her of erratic driving and demanded to be allowed to search her car or they were going to bring in drug sniffing dogs. They made Raina sit in the back of the police car while they took apart the interior of her van apart. She was so terrified that she couldn’t stop shaking and started to sing Amazing Grace in an attempt to comfort herself. One of the guys she was traveling with was carrying. Luckily for Raina, he took full responsibility for it but was arrested on the spot.

My friend Ingrid drove from Wichita Falls to Austin, TX today in order to spend the weekend with a friend and attend Raina’s show at Flipnotics. I would give many things to be there with them tonight.

I’m feeling a little low today. I have done battle with my body image and weight for most of my life, but really thought I had come to a good, peaceful place about it. Except that I got on a scale today and the number on the display ripped the oxygen right out of my lungs and has left me struggling with issues of worth and beauty. I had no idea that that one particular number still claimed so much power over me.

I apologize for being so cheerless, but right at the moment this is all I’ve got.