I’m now at the one-week mark of my current captivity. More like a week and a half, actually, since last Saturday’s reprieve was so brief—more a tease of what I hadn’t had for days (and haven’t had in the time that’s elapsed between then and now) than anything else.
Counting from part one of the recent cluster of snowstorms, then, it’s been eleven days since I’ve had the luxury of coming and going at will. Eleven days in which I’ve had to cancel several appointments and miss many commitments. Eleven days of relying on my husband and grocery deliveries to take care of my practical needs and on the kindness and generosity of friends (and my husband, I guess) to satisfy my human need for conversation that isn’t with the grumpy voice in my own head.
I was pretty mopey this morning when I finally accepted that I wouldn’t be able to go to an event I’d been looking forward to and that’s taking place at this very minute downtown—normally a relatively speedy trip, now an impossibly treacherous journey. I helped plan it, and it’s with a nonprofit I volunteer for that’s been super important to me for decades and that gives me a true sense of purpose and belonging. I’d clung to the delusion that the post-storm(s) clean-up would have advanced to the point that sidewalks would be manageable, but alas. No matter how frequently I refresh PlowTO (a site that tracks where the plows are and where they’ve just left in real time), my area remains a mess. And hasn’t been plowed for several days, but I won’t get into that.
All that said, I’m still plowing through this frustrating period with as much positivity I can muster. Which isn’t always much, but whatever. I continue to be productive on the writing and sewing fronts, and I continue to remind myself that it’s not just me stuck inside—there’s an entire, uh, navy of people with reduced mobility stranded in the same proverbial boat. (Why the militaristic metaphor? Because it’s my fervent wish that one day an army of marginalized-but-empowered citizens will rise up in battle against this ableist society and get what’s rightfully/should be ours. Really, though, because, lacking much real contact with the outside world, I’m growing more and more delirious with each passing day.)
In classic “me” style, I’m determined to take full advantage of this snowy sabbatical. Not doing so would be letting the weather win, and I’m competitive by nature. Indeed, it isn’t as if I’ve been sitting around doing nothing; I’ve in fact been remarkably busy, all things considered. One of my special skills is looking at an empty page in my agenda and quickly overfilling it, sometimes to my detriment, and this talent has served me well this past week. So it isn’t boredom that’s getting to me: it’s not having the option of going out, which is funny, in a sense, since I’ve gone months and months and months on end at several points in my life without gulping a breath of fresh air. The difference, however, is that that was my normal then whereas it very much isn’t now. So maybe I should rejoice in my frustration, signifying as it does the progress I’ve made? Meh.
I could make this longer and more profound and include links to various news stories I’ve read in the last twenty-four hours that emphasize how ridiculously slowly the city’s plowing itself out of this situation, but I’m going to go prepare myself a gourmet sandwich and then order some sewing notions instead because I’ve gotta reward myself somehow. In any case, I hope you’re out and about today, enjoying whatever it is you’re doing. Before long, I’ll be with you out there haunting the city streets, making up for lost time and breaking in my power chair’s new batteries.
De Morbo Sacro: Life and/with Epilepsy 