Recently, I had Covid. My symptoms were not any different than ones from a cold, but I knew for sure because my kid tested positive. The first day, my throat started to close and my body ached. So I took pain medication and carried on with my daily tasks.
One way to figure out how sick you’re getting is through measurements, like test results, body temperatures, how many days you’ve been sick, and how much med you need. My way is by how well I can move throughout the day as if I wasn’t even sick. If an ibuprofen every 4 hours would allow me to do so, then I take it as a part of the daily regimen. It’s a trick I’ve gotten used to since having a baby. Baby needs to be fed and tended to regardless.
By the third day however, both the cough and the pain had worsened. I found myself exhausted more often and stayed in bed more often. I gazed at the view outside the window, at the range of mountains twisting, splattering across the sky blue canvas, shaded with an even darker blue. A couple of power lines cut across it, bounded by a palm tree and a utility pole. A bird landed on the powerline, and then flew away.
It reminded me of a book I had read to my kid, about an old rock. The birds and the trees pitied the old rock because it couldn’t move and thus couldn’t see any more than its immobile point of view. Little did they know that the old rock had seen more than any of them because it had lived for millions of years more than they had. Well, I’m not an old rock, not even older than an oak tree. If I were bed-ridden, I’d not see any better than the apricot tree perching into view, ahead of the bird, the power lines, and the blue mountains far, far away.
I stared at the yellow paint on the wall. I had painted this wall a long time ago. It was of a birch forest, a scene fixed into my head while I was on the train across Siberia. For days, the land was flat and I’d pass nothing but birch trees. I had painted the blooms of the forest to be a cheerful yellow, but now it appeared more a shade of puke, a little sad.
All was salt and sugar. I started to lose my sense of taste, and the stench of sickness filled my nostrils. I had once wondered whether it’d be just as beautiful to live inside a head filled with memories and stories. Now I wondered whether it’d be bearable without a taste for life. Then a sense of pity washed over me, “Look at me – less than a week and I’m already pondering an existential crisis.”
On my trip to Colombia, I befriended a girl in Cali. We spent a few days together in Cali, Popayán, and San Agustín. She was only in her early twenties at the time, but she was philosophical, intelligent, and opinionated about everything. She was not only traveling, however. She was there to be with her boyfriend. Recently, he ended his own life. It can be very difficult to try to walk in others’ shoes. I can’t even fathom what it’s like to lose your taste for more than a few days; how can I imagine what it’s like for years?
Sometimes I am sadder than I let it out to be. It felt like the end of an era.
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