{"id":63785,"date":"2026-05-07T06:49:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T12:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=63785"},"modified":"2026-05-07T06:50:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T12:50:17","slug":"63785","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=63785","title":{"rendered":"Seeing Past Illness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Spring and the Trial Moon<\/p>\n<p>Wednesday gratefuls: Shadow. Paul, Sarah, Kate. Snow. Cool nights. Dr. Josy. Melissa. Sleep. Food. This nation. Our lives in it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fruit<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Kavannah:\u00a0 Zerizut.\u00a0 Zest and Zeal. Enthusiasm. Risking a gray, homebound life. Need a push.<\/p>\n<p>Tarot: paused<\/p>\n<p>One brief shining: As sleep has improved, as my diet has gotten more varied, I can feel definite progress. My body feels better. Yet this journey has taken a lot out of me and full recovery will, I imagine, take months. Rehab, movement. More of each. Staying with sleep and diet.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been house bound for a while. Medical appointments the only exception. I can see how being a shut-in (not quite me, yet for the last few weeks&#8230;) might cripple a life. Unless friends and family visit, there&#8217;s no frisson, no healthy friction between my life and the lives of others.<\/p>\n<p>Why get dressed? Shower? Follow a routine of rising and sitting down, sitting down and rising. Bed to chair to fridge to chair. Of course I have my zoom calls, friends and grandkids visiting. Melissa twice a week. I&#8217;m not all the way down that rabbit hole, but its existence looms closer now.<\/p>\n<p>I pride myself on resilience. Take the hits. Timex. Keep on ticking. When my body kept signaling distress, when sleep seemed faraway, I found myself shrinking, diminished to a janky physical platform and an I can&#8217;t see beyond this mess version of my self.<\/p>\n<p>With sleep and good food, as my body has quieted, I&#8217;ve begun to see past my illness induced narcissism. I can be grateful, very grateful, for the kindness and love I&#8217;ve experienced. Tara and Eleanor. Ginny, Janice, Annie, Luna. Melissa. Ruth. An old man, especially when ill, needs folks who see where he is. Ruth comes at least once a month, cooks for me, tells me, &#8220;You&#8217;re not old, you&#8217;re wise.&#8221; Bless her pea-pickin&#8217; heart.<\/p>\n<p>Time for breakfast. Melissa made frittatas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spring and the Trial Moon Wednesday gratefuls: Shadow. Paul, Sarah, Kate. Snow. Cool nights. Dr. Josy. Melissa. Sleep. Food. This nation. Our lives in it. Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names. Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fruit &nbsp; Kavannah:\u00a0 Zerizut.\u00a0 Zest and Zeal. Enthusiasm. Risking a gray, homebound life. Need a push. Tarot: paused &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=63785\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Seeing Past Illness<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,4394,11,127,4317],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-fourth-phase","category-friends","category-health","category-shadow-mountain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63785"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63787,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63785\/revisions\/63787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}