This past week was a mixed bag. Both lackluster and brilliant, at turns. I did not do what I hoped to accomplish and I missed out on some things that I had been looking forward to for some time. And the work I hoped to be writing about here — the work that was calling to me from the ether last week — is begun, but only just barely.
After my stress-induced neurological event at the end of last year, I am still facing some health complications. Mornings tend to be good, but nearly every afternoon the “migraine hangover” symptoms (postdrome) set in, and can be brutal. This entails an intensely painful aversion to light, sound, and movement; I am nauseated, and sometimes dizzy on my feet; my concentration leaves me entirely, my head throbs, and while an Excedrin will take the roughest edges off, it does not alleviate it. My computer and phone screen are permanently set to night mode (removing blue-toned light), I wear protective glasses, and I try to seek out quiet dark places; but this isn’t alway possible, and my evening commute home is sometimes unbearable. I’m about six weeks out from my night in the hospital, and still very much adjusting to my “new normal.”
While atypical, it is not unheard of for postdrome to last for weeks on end. It’s a mixed bag to learn this of course, because on one hand, it’s a relief to know that this surreal new physical reality is not a total abnormality and doesn’t warrant panic. On the other hand, it’s not encouraging to have no idea how long this debilitation will be with me. On my better days I have a what-are-you-gonna-do attitude about it, and I take medication, drink 50mg of CBD, take a walk in the cold to try to reset, and then attempt to work through it. On bad days, I get weepy, angry and overwhelmed, and go to bed. Sometimes at 3 in the afternoon.
This week my postdrome put me in bed on what should have been a studio-filled afternoon; it made me miss the opening of the GLEAN exhibition where a friend of mine is an artist-in-residence; it made me skip a phone call with my dad. It has not allowed me the deep dive into the new work that I am thinking about constantly, and finally feel emotionally ready to make.
But it also gave me some things this week. One night, too nauseated and light sensitive to ride the bus, it gave me an hour long walk in brisk air as the sun was going down. It gave me that view of my city, above, and the experience of walking actively through our winter crow roost; a little-known piece of Portland magic that I dearly love. Tens of thousands of crows spend the winter nights in downtown Portland, as the concrete density of the city center holds the temperature a few degrees higher than the surrounding woodlands. They descend on downtown together, and the sky is full of them at dusk, heading into the city from all directions. They are noisy, those fuckers, but even in my state I didn’t mind, because they are a thing to behold. (Those photos will get bigger if you click on them.)
For the family members reading this, don’t panic, my primary care physician is aware of all this. In fact last Friday night after a visit first to the clinic, then the lab for blood work, then the pharmacy for meds, it felt undeniable that the universe owed me some greasy french fries — and while sitting in the passenger seat of a car in a drive-thru, off of 82nd avenue, I was also given this view:
I am deep in the process of trying to take the good with the bad. I don’t want to make light of it and I don’t want to pretend like it’s simple or easy. This week was hard, and I wanted to write here at length about the work that wants to come through me now. Instead I slept, or I laid in a dark bed not sleeping, and I missed out on things, I had a few meltdowns and I got prescribed SSRIs. But that isn’t the whole story, so I am writing the other parts down, too.