Today Will Be the Day
Part 20
In the last entry to this journal-of-sorts, I found out I had Lyme disease. Caught early. Everything hopeful and positive. Now, three weeks later, I have one more day’s worth of antibiotics, and though I was told I would start feeling better after a few days, I did not. In fact, it got worse. So, so tired and my brain never quite knew the time or what my body was supposed to be doing. The one thing I could keep track of, the only thing, was what herbs and vitamins and oils and teas and pills I needed to take when. My days have been rounds of pairing pure food with strong medicine.
In the morning, I get up and take a vitamin C and a vitamin B-complex. Did you know that if you take vitamin B about half an hour or more before you eat breakfast, it doesn’t turn your pee as yellow? Vitamin B is water soluble, so if you take it with food, the fats in your meal make it harder to absorb. And this is why I just take it with water.
My mini meal of vitamins was followed by oil of oregano and breakfast, always the same, except on Sundays. Don’t ask. There is no real reason. Oatmeal, or cooked spelt flakes with walnuts, almonds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, chia, raw hemp seeds, coconut flakes, half a banana, blue, rasp or strawberries, or dried apricot in the winter when those are not in season (Banana stays. Always a banana.) A smidge of maple syrup (How? How can people use that pretend “maple flavoured” syrup? Why? There is nothing better than the sugar that is made by the trees in our own country. Canada’s National Tree, the Maple tree. Except maybe honey, which has such magnificent healing properties if you buy the unpasteurized kind. Local is better), and cashew milk. And every two weeks on, two weeks off, I take 1/2 teaspoon of powdered Macuna pruriens. I have found its works well for depression. It’s also good for muscle repair and working hard around here, I could use a little help in the muscle repair department.
I drink one cup of strong coffee a day and I cheat on my no dairy, sugar or wheat, Lyme diet by having a bit of cream in my coffee.
Breakfast is followed by rinsing my dishes and stacking them on the counter with the other dirty dishes that I just haven’t been able to find the energy to do. The idea of standing for that long at the kitchen sink makes me tired just thinking about it. Walking past the laundry that needs doing, through the dining room where the bins of material remind me that I am supposed to be sewing bedcovers for the beds and some flags for my deer fence. I hang onto the wall because I’m just not sure if my legs can make it on their own, carrying the whole upper part of me as well as themselves. I know I’m heading for the love seat in the living room because I just need to sit down for a minute so I can remember what it was I was supposed to be doing.
I did, in fact, know what I was supposed to be doing, but I could not concentrate for the life of me. I was supposed to be drawing an illustration for Andrea, a longtime client, friend and owner of The Surgeon’s House Bed and Breakfast in Jerome, Arizona. This illustration is a complex one, and full, as are all of the pieces we create together. It takes some figuring out how all of the elements are going to fit in a way that is pleasing to look at, styled for her particular brand, and drawing your attention to the thing that we are marketing / celebrating / announcing. I am so, so fortunate to be able to work with her and call her my friend. She is a force of a woman. Ageless, boundless. When we collaborate, we sit for a brainstorm session, she does a “mind dump” in her amazing way with words and ability to describe things. She is articulate and endlessly entertaining. I draw a couple of rounds of sketches, and then a finished piece happens, scanned and print ready.
She commissioned me, before my daughter was born, to paint a mural on a large, exterior retaining wall. She uncovered the wall while removing a tangled forest of Paradise trees from a piece of her land beyond her garden. She had steps and a terrace built overlooking the breathtaking view of the Verde Valley, the San Francisco peaks in Flagstaff, and the red rocks across the valley in Sedona. Behind this terrace was a blank concrete retaining wall. On this wall she wanted a view of the sea. But not just any sea. She wanted it to be a view of the island of Atlantis. She wanted a white ship in the clouds like the story by H.P. Lovecraft.
The wall came out and tapered down to the ground, about 15 -18 feet on each side of the 28 foot width. On these side panels, she wanted, somewhere: Dionysus, joyfully drinking wine, nymphs dancing, a peacock, a raven, and Fairies. I’m sure there was more. Oh yes, and she wanted a grand terrace with a garden off in the distance. It took a couple of weeks to do some research so I could tie all of these bits together. The research on the island of Atlantis was pretty fun, and as I was researching Greek myths and deities, there was a strange correlation between Atlantis and the myths. It all came together in a series of detailed sketches and then a to-scale sketch, once we ironed out the placement and importance of each of the elements.
Once I got to the wall, there was the matter of preparing the surface. The wall was about 100 years old and was holding back the side of a mountain to 13 feet up. It needed to be waterproofed and primed for painting. After brushing the loose matter off the wall and sealing any cracks, I used a heavy duty elastomeric paint (similar to that which I used on my shower wall), and 3 coats of gesso. This was all done by ladder for the corners and a long pole for the rest.
I drew a grid over the scale drawing, and to-scale, drew the same grid and drawing on the gessoed wall. I rented a rolling scaffold for the rest of the work. It would be easier to work on larger sections at a time. The palette was determined and I purchased Golden Acrylic paints and mediums in the largest tubs I could find. There was a great art supply store in Phoenix called Arizona Art Supply (of all things), and they had everything. It was a big warehouse space, full of art supplies.
I remember laying the sky and the sea on in transparent layers of paint, each layer, deepening, varying the hue. It was hot. And it was right in the middle of monsoon season so we had to get help erecting a tarp that would protect the surface and direct the rain from running over the wall.
Andrea would come out each morning and bring me some goodies left over from the breakfast she made for her guests. She would sit on a five gallon bucket and (as they say here on the South Shore) we’d be yarnin’ while I worked. She kept me entertained. One day she came out with a children’s book, called Eloise in Paris, by Kay Thompson and Hilary Knight. She sat on the five gallon bucket, and she read it to me, with voices for the characters and great intonation. I remember I had to stop painting a few times, I was laughing so hard.
It took five weeks to paint and seal and varnish the Atlantis mural. In the last 22 years I’ve gone back a couple of times to make repairs on small, water-damaged areas, usually adding anther element as we go. Really, it’s held up quite well considering its age. I hope the same can be said of me.
After sitting on the love seat for a time and fighting the urge to lie down, I would lie down. The next thing I knew, it was lunch time and I had to take one of my antibiotics with food I prepared for my dairy, gluten and sugar free, plant-based diet. I am not a food thinker at the best of times, but when I don’t feel well, I really don’t want to cook. But I have to and I do because I’m so nutrition-obsessed. This diet is a bit of a challenge. After a couple of weeks of it, I’m getting bored and craving cheese, and I find it difficult to get excited about eating. I like cheese sometimes, and eggs, or a piece of toast with cinnamon and sugar. Not all the time. Not very often really, but knowing you can and not having it because you’re making a healthier choice, and knowing you can’t and missing it because, well you can’t…
Lyme is pretty freakin’ serious so I’ve come to learn. If you don’t get it at the get-go, then it can be really hard to eradicate from your system. It is advised, because the bacteria causes your immune system to over-react, to eliminate any potential allergens or inflammatory foods, such as dairy, gluten and sugar, and eggs, fish, chicken and meat in general. I imagine I’ll be doing this for a couple of months at least. I just hope I don’t lose any more weight. I started out damn lean, and have no extra to lose.
I know there are people who say, “You’re so lucky, you never gain weight.” “You’re so skinny.” I grew up with the nickname Pin (or Stretch when I grew a foot taller than everyone else, but no wider). How is calling someone “skinny” not considered the same as calling someone “fat”? Neither is regarded, by societal standards, as attractive. Skinny people don’t choose to be that way. I could probably gain weight, but I’d have to sit on my ass a lot, and eat constantly. Someone once told me, there are two types of people in the world. There are those who live to eat, and those who eat to live. I’m an eat to live person. I don’t think of food until my stomach growls and even then, if I’m in the middle of something, eating has to wait.
After my lunch which included a Co-enzyme Q-10 and an Omega-3 capsule, I heated up some Chaga, cardamom, cinnamon tea, and drank my first of two cups of this. The second week I added dandelion and burdock root tea as liver support to help flush the dead bacteria.
At this point, I needed to sit again. I felt for over a week that I was drifting into and out of a dream world, my head not really present at all.
Dinner came then, and with my dinner of vegetables, legumes and grains, I took my second antibiotic.
After dinner, another cup of chaga tea. Before bed, a cup of dandelion and burdock tea, vitamin D, zinc and another couple of drops of oregano oil. This third week, the oil of thyme arrived from Catherine, and I have started this instead of the oil of oregano. Wow. Potent stuff. If this doesn’t kill that bacteria, I don’t know what will.
The next day, repeat. I have had a couple of good days in there, days that allowed me to clean the pile of dishes, wash the laundry, vacuum the cat hair fluff balls off the floor. I even had a bit of beach therapy on the day I drove to town to get groceries. And, I wrote a short story for a contest. It was accepted, and the winner will be announced on the 13thof July. The perameters were, that it had to be a piece of dystopian fiction, 600-2000 words, and had to have in the story somewhere, a heart-shaped locket. Here it is if you care to read it: And We All Fall Down.
Thankful for the rain, let me tell you. It has meant that I don’t have to haul buckets and buckets of water out to the garden.
Tomorrow will be the day I feel healthy and strong again. For good.
Next: Memory Serves Me
Notes from the Edge of the World 