This text was written as I learn to live with Long Covid and attempt to regain my creativity. All the posts and some more info can be found here.
It is the 24th of December. I have worked all day in the study, running maintenance tasks for work so everything is in order when I switch off at the end of the day. When the tasks run, I walk downstairs and make myself a cup of something warm and watch the garden, wet and scraggy. I still wait for the time I feel strong enough to cut the grass. There isn't much point to it at the moment but it's become a personal marker, a signal to rekindle my relationship to the earth and plants of the garden. It won't be for today.
It is the 25th of December. I am sitting on the sofa bed in the study whilst my partner watches a movie downstairs. It's an old black and white movie with songs and dance routines. The voices bubble up to my spot in muffled burst of joy. The noise squirrel inside my brain, a drone that scrambles the words on the page. My hands lose their strength. The book slips off and I drift into sleep.
It is the 26th of December. I have found some energy today to replenish the bird feeders. I drop the fat balls in their holder, I sprinkle the seeds and peanuts in the long dangling tubes that pigeons do not know how to master. I return to the house and sit on the sofa to watch the garden. Nothing happens. It is late for the birds. Still, I feel a sense of accomplissement, one less thing nagging at my brain for the end of 2024.
It is the 27th of December. My partner has to return to work and I set off for Bath. It's too much. I know it's too much but I want to sit in my favourite tea shop and lose myself for an hour in the stillness of tea. I swap my usual oolong order for a Yunnan and let myself float somewhere else. A little way from me, a couple of kids debate their cup of teas and gyoza. A group of retiree friends laugh at the antics of their grand children. A quiet couple drink their tea and murmur words that don't reach me. I uncap my pen and write.
It's the 28th of December. I watch timid robins come and go on the bird feeders. Their heads constantly jitter and scan the horizon for threat. None come. My body gradually slouches onto the sofa. I disappear into a room of fog and fatigue, courtesy of the previous day's excursion. A travel cookery show unfolds on the screen, a plate once filled with salad is discarded at my feet, and a warm cup of rooibos swells with steam on the sofa arm.
It is the 29th of December. The acrid tang of the oven hits me as I open it. I wince and spray the cleaning product in. I am not thrilled at the foaming chemicals that turn the inside white but I also know I have no energy for the natural recipe I saved months ago. The foam is soon tinted sepia. I let it soak up the grime as I wash the dishes, clean the countertop, move the spices and racks to clean the spaces they inhabit. I pull on the long rubber gloves and push down the urge scream and tear the gloves apart as sensory pain kicks in. This is a one time deal. I focus on the oven, wipe the foam away, rub at the surfaces, and drench them in water. Later I collapse on the sofa. This was all too much, but it is another thing that will not slip into 2025.
It is the 30th of December. I am settled in front of the TV and watch a travel cookery show when my eyes catch the time. 'Shit!'. I jerk to my feet. I have three minutes to get to the park. I rush upstairs to gather my bag and essentials before jumping on my bicycle and racing to the park. I am only seven minutes late when I arrive. A man waits for me on a new wooden bench. I do not know him much and neither does he know me. We started to chat online around a common interest and found out we're basically neighbours. I don't know if this will be the start of a friendship but it's okay. For now we chat and share stories on a damp bench whilst children and dogs run about, and that is enough.
It is the 31st of December. My partner and I are huddled on the slop of her sister's old sofa. Presents lay on our knees, the wrapping full of jolly Santa heads floating in a sea of bright red. I am tired on this last day of 2024, unsure if it was wise for me to tag along the drive south to Dorset. I am glad to be here, to be allowed to be passive and slow. The four of us - my partner, her sister and her partner, and me - open gifts one at a time. A box full of treats with birds on the lid, a book about tree, a puzzle about mushrooms, and more birds still on the chocolate bar wrapping. I am overwhelmed by the thoughtfulness of these gifts. In a year in which I have keenly felt a severing of my connection to the more than human world, here are reminders that there are other ways to connect. The more than human world is still all around me. I can still learn and care and love and have a life rich in connection and interaction. In the car journey back, I watch the sky mellow from salmon pink to deep blue. Tree branches sway in the rising wind. The windscreen wipers clean the first drops of the oncoming rain. I close my eyes and remember the soaring buzzard we saw along the quiet lanes of Somerset.