Bad night

I didn't get much sleep last night. I ate gruel - honestly it was just clear broth - for dinner but a bout of upper abdominal agony started around 9pm and only subsided enough for sleep by 3am. Wren woke at 5.30am.

I feel as if I have been reduced to a tunnel focusing on my stomach and survival. At times everything else seems very bright and definite but unrelated to my life - like tiny snowflakes falling across my vision. There is no urgency to do anything except plod onwards and try and get an answer.

By contrast, I have become quite attached to a particular branch of the cedar outside our window. Lying on the couch its branch makes a curl that reminds me of Japanese prints in which you see each needle of a fir in crystalline clarity. Nothing more.

It is surprisingly reassuring to look at that twig. Very peaceful.

I am trying to do normal things to pass the time between not eating and having attacks of pain. I am enjoying laundry. I am medicating our diabetic cat. I am discovering that big floppy clothes are comforting and that Wren likes to finger my pajamas. I like the rain. Bad weather smooths out the differences between the sick and the well. When its stormy nobody is water skiing and picnicking and its ok to have a remote control on which the buttons are worn wobbly. It is lousy to feel lousy when everyone else is celebrating "the great spring weather". Humph.

Its ok, you can tell me I am a curmudgeon.