"With a Conscience" - "Achoo, the flu!"

“The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while Nature affects the cure.”  -Voltaire

I have the flu.  I do.  As I've  been lying in bed recuperating, I can't help but feel angry at myself. It started in my throat and sinuses and my ears. I realized this weekend as I'm restoring my pride, that the reason it started in my throat and my ears is because I spend my days, talking, listening, and giving my energies every day to those who need it more than they know, children.  I'm very good at denial.  I would talk myself out of feeling sick much like my students do when they haven't written the essay we've been working for the past two weeks. Denial works but it does catch up with you.  It always does.

 People get sick because they don't pay attention to themselves.  I believe that the current flu epidemic is the result of our refusal to stop, relax and feed our souls. We push and push and push ourselves because we believe we have to and the result quite honestly are these epidemics. For so many people, work becomes priority or we experience a lighter paycheck.  Something none of us can afford but it's happening regardless of our votes. Or we must show proof we were sick because well, our word has not been shown to be enough. We are not to be trusted.

Epidemics show we are weakened.  The priorities have shifted to such a degree that it eventually had to show up in our health.
Physicians can do very little to help us with the flu.  They can do very little about viruses indeed.    I refuse to get the flu shot basically because well, the shot has "THE FLU"  virus in it. Why would I inject myself with something that I absolutely do not want in the first place?  The answer is this.  We can't avoid the flu if we refuse pay attention to ourselves.  Common sense dictates that we respect illness as the sign that our bodies need to slow down for a spell and heal.   The flu I have was direct result of all of these things.  As I've sipped my soup and eaten my husband's special grilled cheese sandwich, I've realized that although change doesn't come easy, it has to happen.  The average middle-class American has the responsibility of everyone else on their shoulders.  They have demonstrated this willingness too.  With every world war, depression, weather disaster or crisis overseas, we support the decisions being made.  But we need to slow down.  We need to allow ourselves to slow down and demand the support to do so. 

Some may say this is claiming a position to be lazy, to be entitled.  Trust me, I know what "entitled" looks like. I see it  continually.  I'm talking about common sense.  I'm referring to holistic, basic, simple things that we can do to keep ourselves as healthy as possible.  I'm talking about paying attention. This week, I was at the food store and I watched this family get out of the car.  The child was dressed in shorts and a t-shirt. No coat, no hat, shorts-t-shirt, socks and sneakers.  All I kept thinking to myself was how ridiculous the parents of this little girl looked.  They did not look disadvantaged but my only thoughts were, "Could this flu epidemic also be due to stupidity?  Are we that clueless?"

If we don't take of ourselves we become slaves to illness of all kinds.  I have been in borderline health situations and it's scary and it isn't fun and the only way out is to change.  Change is hard.  We have lowered our resistance and we need to re-build it. That's the fundamental message here.  The flu is our saving grace.  It is our internal message to look inward and take care of ourselves even when we think it is inconvenient.  

Now excuse me, my head hurts and I might need to go to the, the, well....Forgive me...I'll be back momentarily...

"With a Conscience" - "The Story of Killer Gulch"

"Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of York ..." - William Shakespeare

"The winter of our discontent..." Shakespeare wasn't talking about the weather.  He was talking about the end of the public's discontent because Richard III was going to come into power.  This was pretty far from the truth.    As for the weather, well, we handle the winter differently.  

There are people like my sisters, who like to cross-country ski.  There are those who go tubing, down-hill skiing, There are those who love watching the winter Olympics.  When I was younger, Mom made sure we learned how to ice skate.  We had a toboggan and every year we would wax it up and get it ready for the hill we jokingly called "Killer Gulch." "Killer Gulch" was the great divide on the farm behind us. Given the appropriate speed and trajectory, one could ride the toboggan from the top all the way to the ice-skating pond clearly a half mile away.  When my nephews and niece were little, we decided that they were ready to be introduced to the excitement of the winter, tobogganing and "Killer Gulch."  We bundled everyone up.  They could hardly move their legs with their snow suits and boots. They are their homemade hats and gloves on too.  "Killer Gulch" awaited.

My sister Jojo and I trekked up to the top of the hill with the toboggan.  My other sister Jen and the kids waited at the bottom.  Jojo and I were going to show them how it was done. Jojo and I  were more excited than they were I think.  The snow was icier and slick. It was not the powdered snow that would have been preferable had we thought about it.  We didn't.  We got to the top of the hill and positioned ourselves on the toboggan. I took the back.  Jojo rode the front.  She was better at steering.  We pushed ourselves off.

We were going at the speed of light, laughing hysterically, waving to the kids.  "Killer Gulch" had one smaller hill to it and if you hit just right, you flew into the air.  Apparently, we were having so much fun that we didn't see the smaller hill and hit it just right and up, up, up we flew.  I looked down, we were off the snow!  I hung onto sister and just as we touched down for a landing, my legs loosened and I flew off the toboggan, but not before smacking my jaw into sister's back.  I tumbled off and laid in the snow.  I couldn't move.  When I finally looked up, sister was lying face down in the snow.  She looked up and she had a beard of snow.  I couldn't move my jaw but I know funny when I see it and sister was  well, FUNNY!  The toboggan continued, as we knew it would to the pond.

As sister and I tried to put our bodies back together, we hadn't noticed that the kids had been watching the entire scene.  They looked at us, looked at Jen and promptly asked, "Can we go home and have some hot chocolate?"  We licked our wounds and sister wiped the snow from her chin and we ambled home.

Winter isn't exactly a season I embrace but on that day nearly 20 years ago or so, winter meant something to all of us.  We laughed so hard that day, we couldn't breathe, sister and I.  We drank our hot chocolate and we got reprimanded by Mom for our "risk taking" but we didn't care.  Till this day, we remembered a winter day where we ceased our discontent and had experienced the thrill of "Killer Gulch."  We didn't care about the cold or the ice.  We were simply in the present, experiencing the possibilities of winter.  We may have our misgivings about the winter season but no matter what season we are in, we need thrills, laughter and perhaps, take a risk or two, or three, or four, or.....