This Morning, 52 Fever Dream

This was not the intention for the day. The night prior, I had bathed, watched shitty TV, read, and made a healthy dinner. I had tended to myself, is what I’m saying. On this day, I had one need that I was going to get met. We were going to go on a hike, somewhere just outside of the city. I was desperate for nature, almost crazed for it. Or maybe more for silence. But when I woke, my body lurched towards the bathroom, against my will. Out of nowhere, I urgently needed to throw up. By 11am, we (my partner and I) are both sick in all the ways. It’s a stomach bug, and we are laid out flat like a couple of puppies with Parvo. Flopped on top of each other, lethargic, feverish, depressed. We alternate between being the one who briefly gets enough energy to make cups of tea, or the one who hogs the bathroom. We are rolling about, trying to get comfortable but are achy, disgruntled. We cling to each other for body heat as the chills descend. When my temperatures begins to rise, I ask Henry to “please get off of me”, to which he replies, “not possible.” He can’t sacrifice the minor heat I’m providing him with. We are morose but remark to one another that there is nowhere else we would rather be in this moment. Particulary, due to our proximity to the bathroom. And still, we grumble. It's when I’m in this type of vulnerable, depleted state that the contradictions in me rise to the surface. When I have less of a capacity to think in sensible patterns. On this surprise sick day, I am full of yearning. I am suddenly in desperate need to be in remote countryside. Now. And, to live there forever. But I also want immediate access to my family, the city that raised me, museums, restaurants, and constant people watching. But I also want to live in seclusion with Henry and a small flock of pets, and see no one, and I want to let my hair go grey and just read and write and cook and make no real money. But also, I want to get highlights again, and soon. And of course, I want real money. I also want, no need, the burst of East Coast spring as well as the Evergreens of the Pacific Northwest. I want all my friends to live within a 30-mile radius, but I wouldn’t want to see them all the time. I am exhausted by my wants, insatiable and opposing. There are some days, where none of this crosses my mind, but when I am sick, I am permeable. It’s harder for me to stave off my relentless need for something. My incessant seeking. When I doze off to bed for the third time before noon, I see in my mind’s eye a photo that you may have also seen. It’s of two Palestinian boys, huddled together on wet blankets, as though they are descending into the mud beneath them. It’s a scene that no human should ever be in. I am ashamed of my whineing, under our cozy soft sheets. The randomness of this universe never ceases to shock me. How did I end up here and those kids, there? It’s outrageous, disgusting, truly unimaginable that this is possible and continues to go on, in front of us all. It rattles me, as I slink deeper into my bed, buoyed by my partners warm feet on either side of mine, safe underneath our linen fortress. The arbitrariness of where and to whom you are born… I am a human being, replete with needs. A dry place to sleep, shelter, a toilet, clean water, warm beverages, healthy food, community, music, books, time alone, healthcare, art, beautiful fabrics. It’s endless. I am saying this because when I was laying underneath our dry sheets on top of our soft bed and pillows, feeling like a pulsating open wound, the absolute horror of what is happening in Palestine came into stark relief. Of course, we know this, we have known this for too long now. Decades. But it was something about what it would feel like, if I was in this sick state, but wallowing in the mud. Unfathomable. I have no call to action from this. Nothing I’m linking for you to donate to. I am just putting this here, to lay witness. There is nothing that could ever make this type of violence make sense or be worth anything. Something in the back of my mind tells me to look up that picture again, to confirm that I am remembering it correctly. When I do so, another dimension of this fever dream comes into relief. That photo is not real. It was AI generated. It was a week or so ago when I saw it on Instagram. I can’t remember through who. Now I find it, via Deutsche Welle, a German, state-owned broadcaster.¹ They say that photo, the photo that had been taking up so much real estate in my head, is false. Had I not confirmed the source of the photo, it would have just stayed in my mind in perpetuity, lodged there as truth. That’s terrifying to me. The falseness of this photo was so disheartening. So loveless. To think of computers generating even more photos of despair. Aren’t there enough real ones? Knowing that this photo isn’t real doesn’t minimize what I’ve said above about the mutuality of human need, between me and those imaginary children. They are real in all the ways other than literally. On this sick day, as the illness starts to lift, everything begins to feel a bit sparkly and divine. You know when your energy comes back online, your brain begins humming in its usual way, your body returns to its normal temperature. It feels euphoric, so far from average. I am overwhelmed that this is my baseline health. The vitality! Yes, I could explain it with whatever is happening in my body, like that the fever has passed, I’ve had enough electrolytes to drink, and I’ve slept it off. But no, the return of vital energy feels godly to me. I am reminded of how sacred this whole thing is. My body. How it has its own will to live, and how I just need to tend to it diligently and it will carry us forward. I can’t tell you exactly what my relationship to God is, other than that I often feel in communion with something. Most days, it can feel like I’m just with and by myself, but other days I know there is an energy that is receiving and answering me. I’m tempted to critique or forget God, whatever that may mean, at this moment in time because it seems like they are really dropping the ball. In Sheila Heiti’s novel Pure Colour, she refers to this world as God’s first draft of creation: “After God Created the heavens and the earth, he stood back to contemplate creation, like a painter standing back from the canvas. This is the moment we are living in – the moment of God standing back. Who knows how long it has been going on for? Since the beginning of time, no doubt. But how long is that? And for how much longer will it continue? You’d think it would only last a moment, this delay of God standing back, before stepping forward again to finish the canvas, but it appears to be going on forever. But who knows how long or short this world of ours seems from the vanishing point of eternity?”² The draft is looking bleak these days. Like, maybe God could have sat with it a bit longer, called in an editor before they released it. I’m not certain what I believe about God (or universe, or love, or spirit, or creativity) or don’t. I don’t think that certainty is the point. I think clarity might have something to do with it. Like in times of insatiable contradictory needs, or when the noise is too loud inside my head, there is this presence that occasionally cuts through it, and puts it into perspective. Like a whisper that says, “ok love, you can have all those swirly thoughts, or you could just continue on, knowing that the unfolding will continue alongside you.” As the sickness lifts, I pull myself out of the bed, determined to get a bit of sunlight before it dips across the river and behind New Jersey. I walk outside of my apartment and start scouring the neighborhood for any shred of sunlight. I go to higher ground and find the last little sliver of sunshine in Hamilton Heights. Benevolent. The color of Marigolds. The last sliver of sun. This Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. It would mean so much to me! Thank you! <3 Upgrade to paid 1 https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-ai-generated-images-of-children-in-gaza/a-68146699 2 Sheila Heiti, Pure Colour (New York, Picador, 2022), 3. 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