listen to your body
searching for humanity in sickness
Light that day, was tinged with yellow, not purple or pink like other days. The fog was more like clouds than an impermeable wall, light and wispy and flying across the sky. It had places to be. Other parts of the sky, one has to imagine. The wind whipped across trees and bicycles and children, as it always does during this time of day, the sun melting away from view. It was the sort of sunset that you continue to think about, one where you take a dozen pictures that remind you of every flaw of technology. It’s the type of sunset that makes the sun look so peculiar that you stare at it, wondering if it’s the moon or the sun. The kind of sunset that leaves your eyes burning for days after.
This was last Wednesday when I was planning on writing about things that were “spiritually healing” with plenty of mentions of this sunset. But as my eyes stung every time I looked at the screen, I went to bed and hoped that I would still have my vision in the morning, that I hadn’t ended up like the people who stared at the eclipse without glasses as WebMD told me I might. I thought to myself, “If I wake up blind, at least I got to see that beautiful sunset.” But I woke up as normal, and the eye doctor didn’t think that the sun did any damage to my eyes. She told me that my eyes were dry, maybe from dehydration, or screen time, or the wind, and gave me some eye drops.
My body was trying to tell me something. After taking the brute force of too many 6+ hour screen time days, it had decided that its machinery, built for socialization, hunting, and gathering, was getting worn down by my lifestyle. And how foolhardy was I, blaming the sun for what I had done to myself, making an idol out of my phone instead of the source of all life. So I decided to listen and try to live more like a human was meant to — less screen time, more socialization. I re-enabled some of my app limits and filled my calendar with plans, ready to take on the task. And as I tried to do this, I wondered if my days had always been so long and silent. Time seemed to move so slowly when I wasn’t scrolling it away in front of a screen. Had I ever let myself notice how much time I spent alone in my room, surrounded by screens?
The time with friends, however, was gratifying in a way that is so natural that it must be in our genes. Tell me we weren’t wired for love and connection after an outdoor dinner as the sun sinks, or a picnic in the park, or a night playing poker. Tell me that experiencing the fresh air with them and seeing the sunset doesn’t taste like home, regardless of where you are. Tell me that my body wasn’t right to loosen my grip on my screen-based existence.
As I looked forward to my several plans for this week, I grew excited about the lifestyle that I was adopting. There would be a walk in the park! A dinner at a new restaurant! A show where my friend was performing! Writing time with a friend! But a tickle in my throat appeared. Then a headache. And when I left work early and checked my temperature, it appeared that I had a fever.
I continued to ride my socialization high, made emotional by the kindness of my Uber driver, that of my doctor, and of the pharmacist who gave me the antibiotics for my strep infection. When I got home, I realize that my condition trapped me in my room with nothing but screens to entertain me, my mind too unfocused to read a book. I watched a video about how fever helps fight infection, it suggested that not treating fever with Advil might shorten my infection, so I tried to see how long I can handle the heat, like the world’s worst sauna, how long I can handle the pain — a completely unnecessary trial.
I tried to relish the experience of it all a little bit, painting myself like a Victorian literary character stowed away in my quarters. But the manufactured joy of that framing lasted only so long as everything became hazy — hours seem to move like seconds or years, I enter and leave wakeful states, I am sweating and I am freezing within moments and water feels like both poison and an elixir. I try to listen to music from time to time, and it all feels too real. A line from The Postal Service’s “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight” echoes through my head, “I am a visitor here; I am not permanent.” The line is about visiting someone’s apartment, but it feels like it’s about everything.
I forget that there’s anything but this feverish state, and a vigorous form of nostalgia emerges. I imagine everyone I’ve ever loved, but I am too dehydrated to cry. These hypothetical tears: of gratitude that I had a chance to love so many times but also tears of loss, of how love must change and often grows more distant than anything else. I languish in my bed and have never been further from some of the most important people in my life. I languish in my bed and the only way to contact them burns my eyes and worsens my headache. When I do text them, my words are colored by the rage and annoyance that the pain brings. Maybe this is evolutionary too — the sick isolating itself from the tribe to keep them safe.
I try to numb the pain by distracting myself on my phone, only capable of passive, open-mouthed consumption. I scroll past beautiful people showing me the beautiful life that being beautiful could be. Normally, this makes me want to work out or figure out fun outfits with the clothes I have as I seethe with a tiny bit of envy, but not now. I feel fully bad about myself. My body is hot in the wrong way. I’m making no progress towards becoming any better or different as I lay in this bed, isolated from the world.
But I remember the video about fever: how the heat makes bacteria worse at colonizing the body, how the immune system is the only bodily system that works better in warmer conditions. The knowledge of these systems was gathered by thousands of people over the years, and we still don’t fully understand it. People sought to push for ways to make us to survive these small hurdles, to aid the systems that we all share, and let so many lives continue that would’ve been cut short. Even as I feel isolated and vulnerable in my room, fingerprints of humanity’s love are impressed upon every surface: the medicine that I take, the bed that encompasses me, the food that I order, the building I reside in. I am not living a fake beautiful life, but I am not languishing alone. I will be well soon. What else could I ask for?
All my plans can be rescheduled; my life will still be different, tinged with gratitude and wetter eyes.
We must do what we can to push back against the genocide in Gaza. Consider calling your US representatives to support de-escalation and a ceasefire, donating to Care for Gaza (a grassroots organization delivering food to Palestinians), directly to families or by buying e-SIMs to keep folks connected to their families.
💧 Drops of the Week 💧
ALBUM - Give Up by The Postal Service - I mean, of course
POEM - “Enlightenment” by Vijay Seshadri - The world happens, the world changes, / the world, it is written here, / in the next line, / is only its own membrane—