I'll slow down when I die
..or at the very least when I reach a hospital bed. Lessons I learnt from recovery.
When I came home from the hospital, I slept on a mattress on the floor. Our bed was taken apart by my husband that morning, ready for the handyman to take on his back, slats and screws in a neat pile next to where it once stood.
That didn’t deter me. I crawled into the blankets and fell asleep, a small heater purring next to me, the blinds pulled down all the way. Slow, still.
In the days that followed, I had to re-calculate even the small everyday abilities. I took the laundry hamper to the washing machine and found myself recovering on the sofa for the rest of the morning. The sunshine took me on a walk the day after, but I had to stop and turn back two houses down. I wasn’t really up to driving or running. Jelly legs and head, no good to cook or set alarms or write lists.
Anyone who knows me, knows that I do not need to be convinced to slow down. It’s my method to survival, sidestepping the cues around me to hasten up my life — drive faster, eat faster, sign up to more, taxes on the go, meal prep, skin prep. Go go go.
No, no, no.
For me, it’s always naps on the couch, it’s a slower walk to the bus stop. It’s sitting down for lunch, it’s paying attention. It’s a shorter to-do list and it’s a journey towards fewer, if any at all, self penalties.
But slowing down in the world today is is an opposing force against a dominant one. While it is possible to still exert, sometimes there are small, invisible succumbings that slide through. And these small transgressions add up. Without really consenting, you’re swept up into a sneaky striving for more speed, more efficiency.
Entire sunsets unfurl outside our windows while our necks are tilted downwards into our humming devices, alive with deadlines and tiktoks.
Reminders help. And in my case, this physical was just what I needed, along with the village who supported me as I listened.
The anaesthetist who held my gaze warmly and said “sleep tight”. The perfect cue for my body and brain to soften into a jelly and tumble into a rabbit hole of rest. The hardworking elf (that i’m married to) who gallantly took over all of my half duties.
Flaky chapatis with spicy vegetables that arrived at our dinner table, the smells of fresh yogurt curries made by friends that filled the air at lunchtime. Our child being fed and played with and read to while I slept.
What this afforded, was a chance to not just slow down, but stop altogether. I saw that even my daily routines and rhythms, the things that comforted or soothed me, needed time to be aired out in the sun.
Our households that shelter and feed us, and workout regimens that energise us, and social events that make us feel witty and sharp and beautiful with our red lipsticks and points of view, also need full stops every now and again.
Rhythm, I grew to learn at recovery, is half silence.
Recommendations and discoveries from the week
Longest Third Date: So unexpectedly wonderful. Will leave you feeling inspired to make the full of whatever situation you’re in.
American novelist Rebecca Makkai The Plaza: Read a short story by Rebecca Makkai that read me glued to my seat, unwilling to even blink before it finished. Followed up by reserving one of her novels.
That’s all from me, folks.
Hope you’re having a magnificent week, wherever you are.
xx
Som