Tag: creative nonfiction

CW | Saying “Whatever” to Fibromyalgia’s Grey Days

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“It must suck to have fibromyalgia,” says [Insert Name Here].

The sky is grey today.  I knew that before I properly woke up.  I could feel the grey grinding my bones, shaping my body into something that it wasn’t just a few hours before. Like the darkening clouds, the grey attempts to conceal my memories, blot out what I meant to today.

The grey binds itself to my feet, my arms, my head, my stomach.  I smell the grey, taste it, and touch it as I rub my limbs, my temples, my chest.  I hear it blend in with persistent beats of the hot water that pours down my back.  I see it etching whatever into the lines on my face, or perhaps that could just be an issue of age.

I cannot help but laugh–It’s a never ending competition between us, grey and me.  Grey tries its best, and so I must try even harder.

I’ll wear black today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What’s the Point of Being a Writer?

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Suffering.  In Buddhism, one of the teachings is that of “life is suffering.”  No, it doesn’t mean that all life aspects of life leads to suffering.  Instead, the suffering we experience is due to the impermanence of life itself, i.e. all things change with time.   It is the same with writing.  As you grow as a writer, your writing changes, morphs in ways that you may least expect.

Perhaps your favourite authors are among those acknowledged as prize worthy.  You spend hours pouring over every sentence in every book they have ever written, hoping to emulate them…but then realising that you fall severely short of the mark.  Your writing simply will not conform to your expectation.  Equally disturbing is understanding that your destiny is not to be the next Toni Morrison or Charles Dickens.

Still, you continue to write because you cannot help yourself but to write.  Your writing reflects your suffering.  It changes as you encounter life, find success, make mistakes, discover love, and regret loss.  Like death, writing looms over your life, defining it.  Regardless of whether you choose to embrace yourself as a writer or hide from it, writing is an inevitable part of you.

What’s the point of being a writer? You might as well ask What’s the point of living?  There is no point.  Writing is an end in itself.  Writers write.  Like breathing, there is no choice about it.

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I write because / I suffer because / I write because I suffer/ I suffer because I write

 

 

 

Fibromyalgia, Travel & Creative Nonfiction | Sometimes You Have to Be Poked & Prodded (Boston Update)

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It’s been a long day. Actually. it’s been a long weekend. I arrived in Boston on Saturday night but didn’t arrive at my hotel until early Sunday morning. Slept for 3 hours, contemplated why the universe placed a homemade ice-cream place next to where I’m staying. Bought myself some grapenut ice-cream, slept 3 more hours, woke again, and contemplated some more. Slept 3 more hours. Rushed to catch a bus, and then another. Went to the dentist. Endured 3 novocaine shots. Replaced two fillings. Walked way more than I should have. Felt accomplished. Went to the dermatologist. I don’t have anything cancerous. But my hair is thinning due to PCOS…probably.

Took my time to catch a bus, to catch a subway, to wait for another bus, to take that to my final appointment. Saw my doctor. She made me laugh. Actually, we make each other laugh. I’ve gained too much weight. That may have affected my mood. I need to be on more medications.  That may help my mood. It may help my thinning hair. It may help my weight. I smile and laugh. I get sent down to the lab to pee, to give 4 vials of blood, to get hit on by a random hospital worker.

I remind myself that I still need to pack things, to bring my life into some kind of order. I’m asked what I am doing in Rome. I say I am living. I ask myself that, too. I respond the same way. I poke and I prod myself. I take deep breaths like I’m told to, like I tell myself. My blood pressure isn’t so high. Still I need to get back on my medications. I need to control myself. I need to prod myself. To poke myself into some kind of action.

I speak about overcoming depression, fibromyalgia, being in my late thirties…because 37 is late, it’s not mid anymore. My body is changing. It needs different things than what I’m used to giving it.

It’s 18:11. I need to get home…but where is it?