On Sickness and Gratitude

Several weeks ago (starting on February 24), I contracted the flu. I woke up that Monday morning coughing and with a general malaise. Soon after, I answered a phone call from my sister (whom I had spent nearly the whole weekend with) who apologized profusely because she had just came back from the doctor’s and tested positive for the flu (type-A).

Having not had the flu since I was a young child, I was skeptical that what I had wasn’t just a cold. However, halfway through that Monday my fever shot up and did not come back down again until Thursday morning. My head hurt so bad during the time I had a high fever that I could not sleep for more than two hours at a time, I could not watch movies or read because focusing my eyes on anything at all was excruciating. I spent three nights in a row awake nearly all night just staring off into space, weak, drained, unable to sleep, barely able to eat. I contemplated the concept of a virus, a lot. I wondered how my body was fairing in the fight.

Once the fever broke, the ride wasn’t over. I spent many more days in bed exhausted with a violent cough. My chronic illness decided to flare just as soon as my fever broke. I quarantined myself in the bedroom and my spouse slept on the couch and fed me all of my meals. For over a week, I pretty much only went back and forth between the bed and the bathroom with no physical contact from another human being and very little socialization or entertainment. The quarantine seemed to work because my spouse never got quite so sick, although did develop a cough and fatigue. Today, 19 days later, is the first day that I woke up and my lungs have felt normal, where my cough has generally subsided.

It has been a wild ride.

I have had a lot of time to think about health, mortality, gratitude, purpose. In the time that I have been sick, MFA rejections have been rolling in, a global pandemic began, and I had to cancel my trip to San Antonio for AWP which I had been looking forward to all year. In the end, though, this experience has really forced me to be thankful in a big way.

I have a ritual at night before I go to bed that I call the “gratitude rock.” I hold a fossilized coral stone I keep on my bedside table in my palm and think of ten things from the day that I am grateful for. With each item I let a finger unfurl until my palm is open to the stone and then curl them back in until I am grasping the stone again. I continued this ritual while I was sick and it illuminated things about my life and experience that I couldn’t have known had I not been so violently ill. I found myself feeling deeply and profoundly grateful for things like my bed, a moment of sunshine, a cuddle from my cat, a text from a friend.

Sometimes my nighttime ritual feels like a chore, a box to tick off. It is tempting to quickly list items like food, shelter, a warm bed, health, etc and not actually feel any gratitude for them. But, nothing in this life is promised. I am not owed any experience or circumstance. Allowing myself to sink into the gratitude of what I do have is a practice that has transformed my life.

I am grateful to be alive.

Another Day Hike on the AT

Last weekend I re-visited to the Appalachian Trail in an attempt to hike double-digits on a day hike (a feat I have yet to accomplish and one of my 2019 goals). Unfortunately, I miscalculated the start date of daylight savings and was only able to eke out 9 miles before sunset.

My reward for trying (other than soreness, strength, and the satisfaction of a whole four and half hours in the woods by myself) was getting out of the woods in the magical time of around a half hour after sunset. The autumn leaves lit up in a show as the fiery sky allowed its last traces of light on the day. It was breathtaking.

I chose the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown to listen to on the hour-long drive to the trail. Mindfully choosing audiobooks in order to ponder new thoughts and ideas in the silence of my solo hikes is a ritual I have written about before. However, the day prior, I also got the lucky chance to meet one of the legends of rock climbing, Alex Honnold, who has greatly inspired my thinking and approach to life. Alex made a whirlwind trip from El Capitan to my climbing gym and back again in order to give a talk on the impact of giving, to share some cool new stories, and to sign autographs.

Over those 4.5 hours on the hike, there was a lot of time to think. The gratitude I felt from manifesting the dream I had to meet Alex (and more specifically to shake his hand) was palpable and a feeling I carried with me the entire hike. But, more importantly, his words stuck with me. During the talk, he spoke about the privilege of being born into the comfort and relative safety of a developed country and the moral imperative that drives his own philanthropy. He approaches life with gratitude, not only because he is living his dream, but also because it is what allows him to make the biggest impact.

Essentialism echos these sentiments in its own way. It is a book about mindfully curating a life that fires you up. McKeown emphasizes the importance of creating time to think, something that Alex had plenty of time for on one of his deep water soloing expeditions, which he told us ultimately inspired him to create the Honnold Foundation. McKeown advocates focusing our energy, time, and efforts on the tasks and ideas that allow us to make the highest possible contribution to the world. In a capitalist meritocracy of “more, more, more” where burnout is a badge of honor, he asks us whether busy is the enemy of true productivity. In pursuing fulfillment there is another path. It is to define what is essential and to relentlessly focus on only those things, saying “no” to everything else.

So, my hike became an opportunity to further refine my intentions and to let go… I resolve to continue to use my time to write, to teach, and to protect the natural world and its inhabitants, aiming to always lead with gratitude. I will also remember the necessity of carving out time to think, to ponder, to enjoy nature and the gifts of being alive.