Procrastination

 September 1, 2021

It is a welcome hot and sunny afternoon, after days of clammy rain. The birthday month is done. I’ve woken myself up with four cups of tea—one black Ceylon, and three from a pot of white tea with champagne tones. I am still struggling with sinus problems which manifested as the fearsome symptom of vision blurriness and intense headache on July 31. This time I don’t want to see the GP and be put on antibiotics. A part of me knows the sinus will only resolve if I travel away from this humid Singapore climate and allow the sinuses time to dry out. That is the only thing that has worked in the past, but this is not yet possible or desirable. So I curse these empty spaces in my cheeks that are not functioning as they should, and I treat the symptoms with warm liquids and home remedies that include lemon, honey, pepper and ginger. 

 

I wrote the following on my birthday:

‘Some times are bright, easy. Things manifest in reality almost the moment you desire them. This is not one of those times. It’s a demanding and dense time where any movement is almost non-existent. I’ve been a huge fan of such times, endorsing them for the learning and insights they bring. I’ve bonked people over their heads with, adverse times are the best teachers.

 

But now I am weary.  It is also true that when such times are prolonged and seemingly endless their learning value diminishes considerably. Of course one could say that they are testing times and I am failing that test, but it’s difficult to keep moving while a barrage of fists are battering me from all sides.

 

It is hard to set goals or feel hope for better during such times, but I don’t know what it is about being human that makes us keep going on the worst of days. I’m not talking about myself. I’m talking about the millions in India, and elsewhere, that toil on with so little expectation of better. Their covid year has been a thousand times harder than mine even on my worst day. Their resilience defies the odds, it inspires.’

 

I had arrived at the beginning of the birthday month hoping for respite in which I could reflect on and absorb the covid year after my 60^th birthday. But right from the start, I had anxiety, scary symptoms and time spent in docs offices, instead.  

 

Nevertheless I hoped for a magical shift that would usher in lighter fortunes and after suspending visits to specialists, I set about planning my birthday week. Hmmm… why should the week be any different from the month or year, and it wasn’t. A new symptom had appeared—pain in the shoulder joint and immobility that I feared was from a torn tendon in the rotator cuff. It was on the left shoulder so I could still write in notebooks but typing and definitely karate were impossible. I persisted with leg stuff—kicks, running and biking, the things that release endorphins, dopamine, serotonins. 

 

On the eve of my birthday I surrendered to that Giant Obliterator—from the work on my sinus symptoms—who seemed to be pushing me to wander. I opened the drawer to pull out my backpack and was greeted by a terrible odour, dust and 'must' filled my nostrils making me sneeze, and setting off the current intense sinus bout. I found the least smelly bag in there and packed library books, a notebook and pen. It began raining the minute I stepped out. I felt disheartened but ran to the bus stop and just made the number 12 to the library. I dropped the books off and went up to the café. Chicken rendang pie, iced tea and a window seat. I stared at the rain and didn’t write in the open notebook. It had been sunny when I dressed for the library and I shivered in my sundress. I had not been out in so long that I had forgotten how chilled indoor spaces in Singapore are and not packed a sweater.

 

I went to the basement and wandered the shelves till I reached the back corner—poetry, biography, letters etc. I pulled out a pile of books by poets I had never heard off, took them to a chair and dipped into them. I drifted into a slower more beautiful space. Time and life felt real, felt true. 

 

I began to lose my fear of the birth day. I had been tense, worrying what disaster would explode the day, after the horrendous month I’d traversed. It was a pleasant day which began with stationery gifts—kanso noto notebooks with the tomoe river paper that fountain pen lovers covet, ninipies, a folding ruler, sticky notes and two black cat cases. The spouse and I spent the day eating dim sum and later mexican, drinking wine and margaritas, and chatting. The celebrations with other human family were reserved for Saturday and with cat family for Sunday. We drank a bottle of orange wine (my first try) with sea bass, prawns and burrata at Latteria on Saturday. Followed with an exquisite tiramisu, a raspberry and lemon meringue cake, and frozen vodka shots. On Sunday it was homemade Parsi style egg curry and a ginger pudding cake with toffee sauce. It was an indulgent 61^st after a time of sparseness and control. 

 

There is an opening in energies, a loosening of shackles in my mind. I have ideas, I have excitement about two writing projects—one karate related and the other a renewal of Boiling Frogs—though words still are flowing only like thick molasses, heavy and laboured. I know writing this a distraction from the hard work of plunging into the projects.