Goodbye Ox

February 1, 2022

The ox in the Chinese zodiac is described as strong, reliable, calm, and trustworthy. But it is also a draft animal that works the fields and pulls heavy wagons. As a spirit animal, the ox reminds one to be steady, stay the course, and reach ones goals no matter how long it takes. 

 

The Ox Year did evoke some of this for me as the continuing covid storms shook us all. The last weeks had lessons that have sunk deep. 

 

The combination of anxiety of the spouse getting covid, and the mind fog from the antibiotics, was devastating. I went through ten days when my moods fluctuated wildly, with more downs than ups, and I felt more like an ox yoked to a heavy plow than ever. But in that time life continued, I had deadlines, and trainings, and I had given up my writing room as the isolation space to the spouse. 

 

The first thing I learnt was that I could write anywhere. I used to think, and many writers do, that one needs that special space to work in. I fretted initially when I lost my room, but I discovered the writing room can be more an internal, psychological, space, than an external one – though a consistent and pleasant external space does help. I wrote in my bedroom or on the living room sofa. 

 

The next thing I learnt was how to carry the discipline I have absorbed from karate training to my writing life. I have said before that I train when well or when not so well. Even with an injury I don’t skip training, only avoid things that would aggravate the injury. Finally, I learnt to write despite my brain fog. True that it was only 200 words a day, but first thing in the morning when my mind did have some freshness I managed them. They were often half thoughts and unfinished ideas, but they were worth recording and once the brain cleared, I coaxed them into a finished piece fairly quickly. I met a deadline and submitted something I never thought I would be able to do. So, I can write anywhere, and I can write something meaningful through the most turbulent times. For me this is huge. 

 

The last lesson was the most important. Covid is definitely not done. Covid and related things will cause further damage. There will be, possibly many, times when the sense of loss of those just begun pre-covid structures falling into ruin and being overtaken by vegetation will devastate me. When those unwanted guests visit, those images and pains grip me, I will let them in, I will brew them tea like Rumi would advise, and sweep the room clear after they leave. 

 

I know also that I will lose these learnings and will have to re-learn them again.

 

I am looking forward to re-connecting with the daring, the passion, the fearless energy of the Chinese tiger this year. I also welcome the strength and majesty of the forest animal and hope the tiger spirit’s fiery will and ability to listen will be mine as I reclaim my sense of power. 

 

Happy Water Tiger Year to all. 

Uncertainty Rising

January 20, 2022

 

The woolly-apple brain syndrome is more manageable on this second day of antibiotics. The doc’s office phoned yesterday morning saying I had a urinary tract infection, and I needed to pick up antibiotics. 

 

I hesitated and said, I’m not sure I should. My husband tested positive for covid. 

 

No, no, don’t come. Come next week. No, you need to take them, Grab Express today.

 

As such, Health Risk Warning, Protocol 3 at MOH says close contacts of positive patients can test using the rapid antigen and if negative leave the house. But doctors don’t want you in their clinics, in case you manage to infect others there. Grab Express Instant brought the antibiotics to me in less than half an hour. Strong infection needing four doses a day for seven days. 

 

Yesterday afternoon, after two doses, I sat on the grey day bed in our living room feeling desolate and angry. A senseless, targetless anger. At tiny tiny corona virus? At the bacteria in my bladder? The spouse was isolating in my writing room. He was on a work call, and I was relieved that I didn’t hear much coughing. I was trying to work out the plot of a story, but it felt like a ghostly hand was slowly moving right and left through my brain, constantly agitating, and creating waves that never stilled. It was a bad day and by evening I paced back and forth in frustration (I got my steps at least), and later cried that I couldn’t, I just hadn’t, focused on anything all day. All attempts to document the emotional states I traversed had failed. I don’t know why I tried again today and tip-tapped-deleted repeatedly till I wrote this… drivel? 

 

My throat is sore as fire, and I have this terrifying headache, but I continue to test negative. 

 

The covid attack had come on suddenly for my spouse. Sunday morning, he tested negative and uploaded the test to his office, but by evening he was flushed, and the fever climbed all night, despite Panadol. He decided to work from home, the cough began Monday evening, and on Tuesday afternoon two red lines, one very thick, confirmed he was positive. 

 

Most things feel uncertain about my life, and the world in 2022, but I both never expected this, and at the same time knew that almost everyone would get covid at some point or the other. 

 

The corona virus is a trickster. A trickster is often described as a boundary crosser, something that ‘disrupts normal life and re-establishes it on a new basis.’ I don’t think that the corona virus can be described any better. My doughy covid and antibiotic mind doesn’t allow further introspection on covid as trickster archetype and why the world needs it, blah, blah, blah. I can only say it crosses every barrier set up to keep it out, it enters without visas or detection, multiplies, and has changed our world. I wish I could fast forward to a future year when I don’t repeat this ad nauseum.

 

We are lucky that covid struck our family in this wave when we can isolate at home, when they know so much more about it (though it often feels that we yet know nothing), when the number of days of quarantine — for the vaccinated — is fewer than it was in the first waves.

 

The immediate uncertainty has risen. What goes up must come down? 

Through everything in my life, one thing I used to be sure of was, that I would be climbing the stairs to the dojo on Saturday mornings around 8:30 am, but this week I cannot go. Every week on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, I would most certainly would be found in the gym, but not this week. My chest aches with the uncertainty, the unpredictability, the not knowing of whether I will continue to stay negative.

 

To end this on a fun-er note… If I don’t catch covid despite sleeping on the same mattress as my spouse on the two days his fever was the highest, I will boast that it is because of karate training. My friend in NY says, don’t say that, intense exercise can reduce immunity — say instead that I scared it away with karate. That too works for me. I wish I could have scared away the bladder micros too.

Stay safe, and if you can don't let corona catch you. 

To Faff, or Not to Faff

 January 13, 2022

 

On the third day of faffing, Wednesday Jan 5, bliss shifted to anxiety. 

 

It began subtly. I’d had another day of reading and chatting. I only moved from the black futon to get food and drink. I watched news, debates, and witnessed the ugliness of the UP elections unfold. Hard to believe that election issues in this century and after two years of covid devastation centered around destroying mosques and building temples. On Muslim hatred and not on economics and re-building lives. Something painful entered the cleared inner spaces. That evening I spoke to my mum in Bombay and had to tell her that I wouldn’t visit her at the end of the month as planned. Then when? Her question brought back the uncertainties of the year. 

 

Nothing was done. Covid still dominated outer plans and affected my internal landscape. And I had received feedback, some great suggestions, on chapter two, and it had to be worked on. My body looked still but restlessness overtook as anxieties flooded the mind. Yet, I wasn’t ready to move back to that hectic, tense time. I still needed to detox and feel mentally freer. 

 

I tried to stay in that ‘relaxed’ state the next day as I got a haircut, ate a bowl of ramen, and walked into Tokyu Hands, but I was delaying what a part of me had already figured out. I wasn’t relaxed, I mean I could be for short periods, but I was still dealing with the losses that covid has brought us all. The uncertainty, the anger, and depression. The constant anxiety of wondering when, if ever, all the ‘stopped things’ could be moved ahead with again. The effort of trying to stay well, of giving up at times, and then wondering if one has covid as the sniffles and throat soreness begin. 

 

So many friends are sick with omicron, in USA and India. Still waiting to know if it is mild or if it has serious long-term effects. Not clear if the current rapid tests detect this variant. If it is the last variant of concern or another more virulent one will emerge. Boosters, no boosters. Not possible to take a break from all these thoughts. Different but also the same stuff as 2020. Need to breathe in and out when they overwhelm and hope they will pass. 

 

Still wondering how people are coping. I find I can get lost in a book but by the time I close the pages something of the present lack of hope has snuck in. 

 

By Friday I knew it wasn’t possible for me to faff. The empty mind bred, multiplied, things the busy mind had not. Truly the need is to balance busy hours with relaxation. Pure faffing is not possible for me yet. That much relaxing might lead to too much awareness of the endless loop, and result in instability, temporary insanity. But I resisted rushing into work. 

 

This week I find my mind drifting into numbness. The spikes of feelings that some events create die down immediately into the doldrum-ic plains of existence. The sharpness of pain when a photograph with an insensitive comment arrives in the inbox, or the simple pleasure of seeing the karate family on the country heads zoom, fade quickly. I said I would write about those events and feelings, but they vanished like marks in the sand on a windy day, and I found myself saying, nothing happens anymore, I have nothing to journal about or blog about. 

 

I need to sit up and anchor those fleeting, fleeing, feelings. Next week I experiment with finding balance. Between emptiness and plans. Not yet free of covid mind. 

 

Wish I had something lighter, happier to report. Well, I will end by telling you about two incredible books I read. Matrix by Lauren Groff and The Sentence by Louise Erdrich. Now I will brew and drink green tea with Kashmiri spices and draw cute cats doing silly things.

Faffing Day Two

January 4, 2022

 

It’s day 2 of my faffing week. Yesterday I finished reading a novel I had begun on the 1^st, then sorted piles of paper in my writing room. Filed some where they can be found again, but mostly created a stack that had to be shred. I took my i-pad down to the gym and a new season of Cobra Kai stared at me when I opened Netflix. I binge watched it for the rest of the evening, and then began catching up on news from India. 

 

The Governor of Meghalaya had made some crazy statements about his conversation with the PM and HM. He called the PM arrogant and said the HM had said the PM had gone mad. It was hard to believe this but more importantly I wondered who this guy was that criticized the BJP but wasn’t removed by them from his governor’s post? A BJP person said that the PM was an institution and should not be criticized but no other clarification was made or action taken about the governor’s statements. Of course, everyone was talking about Omicron and vaccinations of 12–18 year olds that had begun yesterday. We hadn’t met the 100% vaccination of all eligible by year end goal, the BJP had promised after it botched up the second wave but nobody was talking about that. I guess great press management to divert from all that was not achieved works? 61% both doses, and 80% first dose became huge accomplishments. The Bulla Bai app, which was auctioning Muslim women, outspoken ones, who criticized the government, was also the topic of conversation. It scares me that not all women, most women, more women, in India are speaking about it. I mean yes right now the target is Muslim women, but it could be any woman soon? That is the way such things have worked through history. Allow bullying of a certain type of population and you have opened the door for more general bullying.

 

I am allowing my mind to un-stretch. At times I feel it happening. Strangely there is more space inside as it relaxes and contracts. I guess the mind, and self, being stretched are different from an elastic band being stretched? I mean if I drew dots on the band while it was stretched, they would be closer, denser, when the band relaxed. The mind on the other hand feels full of empty spaces suddenly. The fears and worries that crop up no longer feel menacing and impossible. In the stretched mind which felt constantly tense any small thing created acid creating anxiety. This mind absorbs stressy things, neutralizes them.

 

I had said some time ago that I had forgotten how to relax. It still feels true. But perhaps the extreme and constant tense state I was in until the 31^st is helping me know the other end — the relaxed state — and how it feels in body and mind. The goal is to be able to slide between the two easily. Or perhaps even be relaxed while tensing up to be focused. That reminded me of something a Senior Sensei had said about Tensho — a combination of a tight tanden, and lower limbs, with loose upper body and limbs. 

 

But already on day 2, I sense a part of me making plans for the day instead of allowing it to unfold naturally. Like the books I want to finish reading, because I have to return them, I am calculating how many pages a day I need to read so I can finish them on time. I could decide to not finish them, right? I woke wanting to draw and a part of me would have scheduled it into the hours, but a friend reminded me — ‘stop you said faffing don’t make plans now to draw.’ I have a lot to learn here. 

 

I haven’t yet wanted to go out though I feel sitting in cafes would be relaxing. Those piles of papers, magazines, journals strewn around my writing space were feeling too invasive. In the weeks I concentrated on my goals, I tuned it all out. Narrowed my focus but now they loom large in my consciousness. Today I cleared magazines and filed away journals in drawers which I labeled with green sticky tags. Then sat on my futon and stared out at Kallang Leisure and the Indoor Stadium under a greying sky. It was very soothing. I wish it was this easy to find a soothing view out of my brain. But I feel it happening. 

 

I wonder what will be welcomed into the inner spaces when they feel clearer? I am beginning to wonder about 2022 too, though it feels dangerous to make plans.