The Capacity to Receive

In my reading last year I took note of this quote from Susan Griffin, speaking of her experience of illness:

Tried to sit in the back. It usually restores me. The sun, the shade, those rare old deciduous pines. But I couldn’t do it. The illness damages something in my body, what one takes for granted, the capacity to receive. As if too much sound, movement, light were coming at me. I could not take it all in. (What Her Body Thought: A Journey into the Shadows, HarperSanFrancisco: New York, 1999, p. 296)

This idea of ‘the capacity to receive’ struck a nerve. It got me to thinking of how energy is required just to perceive the world, to take in stimuli, and for the body to be able to make sense of things and respond. Thus, with chronic illness and limited energy, when the body is just trying to maintain homeostasis, the world can simply be too much. Too much light, too much noise, too much movement and activity, too much colour and life.

I have continually written here about needing to be open and receptive, as if that is all there is to being creative, to living, to being able to function. If only I was open, if only I was receptive, I would be able to write, to make art, to enjoy life. But it’s not so simple. It never is when it comes to chronic illness. I am literally unable to receive. Something in my body has been damaged, or, at least, is not able to function right now. My senses are overwhelmed and exhausted. And without the energy to process stimuli, to let the world happen to me, the only thing to do is withdraw. 

The situation is made worse by the fact that summer in Australia has become an endurance event, which I had to drop out of months ago. I’ve been indoors mostly, which seems like such a waste, to be avoiding sun and heat and abundance, letting the high point of the year just pass by outside. Yet I feel I need to protect myself. 

I suppose I am aestivating, going dormant for a while. Though the word aestivation (essentially the summer equivalent of hibernation) carries connotations of hiding and harshness, unbearable heat and aridity. While I understand that a fiercely cold winter can be just as harsh as a hot summer, hibernation, in comparison, still makes me think of warmth and cosiness, inwardness and dreaming. Winter is the time of rest, slowing down and darkness, and is therefore somewhat easier on the senses. It’s not that I don’t like summer—or at least, I’d like to like it—but it’s becoming less and less bearable.

As I write this I am sitting in my studio looking out on a garden made suddenly lush and green by recent rain. It’s bursting at the seams, while I feel contained and distant. I’m not sure what to do about this state of things other than wait it out.

Happily, I haven’t been entirely idle. I’ve been learning to sew, and working on a small knitting project (when I cannot work on art I turn to other kinds of making), and I feel content with that for now. 

I’m trying not to ask too much of myself, for I cannot force my body to be open to what it is not capable of receiving. I’ll continue to aestivate, to keep myself safe from the too muchness of summer, while wondering: Is there an inwardness to aestivation? What kind of dreaming can summer bring?

Koala, Kangaroo Island, by Buiobuione (Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

Wise Words: Being Seen

Being invisible can be lonely, isolating and frustrating. When there are no obvious demarcations to hint to the world that you are not functioning in full health, one can exist in an ‘in-between’ state where concessions and help are required, but rarely offered; and adjusting ones expectations of themselves, as well as the expectations of others, is an exhausting and disappointing reality.

However, ‘coming out’ as ‘other’ can also be a challenge. It requires one to advocate for her own needs, when she may not fully accept the limitations of her condition. And the prospect of placing what is, for many, a highly personal and private struggle into the public domain is daunting, to say the least. The level of vulnerability and openness required, mixed with a fear of the opinions of others, can seem worse than invisibility.

These illnesses can also leave a large gap between what is seen by others and what is known by the sufferer. This gap is easily filled by self-doubt, shame and guilt. Are we enough as we are? Will others think less of us if they know we are ill? Can we be loved and desired while also being unwell? How much of our condition do we accept? How much do we try to fight? In acceptance, is there room for hope? In acceptance, is there room for recovery?

(From Jessica Cohen, ‘To Be Seen or Not to Be Seen: Coming Out as Unwell,’ in Heather Taylor Johnson (ed.), Shaping the Fractured Self: Poetry of Chronic Illness and Pain, UWA Publishing: Crawley, Western Australia, 2017, p. 42)

Beginning with the Birds

I don’t really celebrate the new year. As I’ve said before, I dislike fireworks; and, contrarian that I am, if everyone else is doing it, I’d really rather not. (Needless to say, I went to bed early last night.)

I don’t see that the Gregorian calendar has much relevance to reality. It’s an abstract system that has been imposed on the natural cycle of the year. It does makes more sense in the northern hemisphere, where the new year comes in the midst of the winter dark, but here in Australia the summer light and brashness of the celebrations grates on my nerves.

My aversion has been heightened this time round by the events of the last few months. Australia is experiencing an ecological crisis with the bushfires on top of a decade-long drought and some of the hottest days on record, with no decent rain in sight. So many people and communities have been affected. Yet what concerns me most is the ecological destruction. Ecologists estimate that around 480 million animals have died (and this doesn’t include trees and plants). Add that number to the millions of fish who died last year in the drying-dying rivers of western NSW, and it doesn’t seem like the right time to celebrate. Too much has been lost. And the fires still rage, and the drought goes on. The numbers will continue to rise. I’m not sure how I am going to come to terms with the grief of this ongoing catastrophe.

Yet this morning I took a detour from my usual walk and went to the lake, and what I saw has given me some hope. Yes, nearby there are charred landscapes which will take years and perhaps even decades to regenerate, the fires in some places having been so fierce. Still, right here is life doing what it does.

An eastern great egret (identified by the prominent kink in the neck) was standing in the shallows, fishing, and seemingly waiting for me. I have never been so close before.

Meanwhile superb fairy wrens were skittering along the shore, and a black cockatoo flew by, calling sadly.

Later I watched as a wren youngster was fed tidbits by her mother. The undergrowth was alive with the musical trills of a large family of these tiny birds.

And when I finally arrived home I was met by the gaze of a curious young rosella. 

I have no idea what 2020 will bring. I wish only to work on my health and make more art—both challenges I am very uncertain about. Yet the birds have given me hope. Life will go on living, despite the massive changes that are happening here and everywhere else around the world. 

This is a time of so many endings, I’ll grasp what beginnings I can.