On Staying in Bed

With the kind of anxiety which can be put nowhere to use, and the heavy head which undoubtedly results, our lady friend has, after weeks gone dry, whetted her feather in ink. Her weak hand is evidenced in it's writing; the thin and noncommittal strokes of her letters and their lazy extensions below the line, but she assures us half convincingly that this sunkenness she rises from is not so grave as we might have taken otherwise to believing. In place of the autopsy to assuage retroactively, or the black-box clue to catastrophe diagnosis, we have rather, the low-grade determination of searching a knit for the one dropped stitch.

She reminds us what we already know though have likely forgotten; a wisdom left untouched in recent days or years simply because we've not needed it or have not had time to act on it. Silly, we reflect that such simple things are counted even among the bits of wisdom which we treasure upon remembering. We know that this thought itself accompanies every wise remembrance and so count that as well among them.

Such, she says, is life. We shall, for the moment, take her word for it, as we know she knows little else of life than her own, and that is enough for us. When bellies are empty, they want to be filled, and once full work only to be empty. The sun rises high wanting only to fall, and the moon chases endlessly after. And yet, given all, she confesses, our friendly adventuress had fallen herself to fatigue.
I read her confession, and sighed. Letting the parchment drift to my lap, I thought, somewhat angrily, "I could have warned her! But the darned dear girl never signs her address!"

Curious it is, the remedy of rest and the fact of remembering your body's water. For surely we must know by now, that if upon laying temple to pillow, a pounding resounds and persists, pushing sleep to the side and if upon rising, the back of the throat is coated with what won't go down, the eyes slow in peeling resenting the light, and if with a start, the big leg bones do rattle the hip, your pelvis shrugging and brushing it off, then it goes without saying what ought to be done. That in looking behind, and finding the hole in the scarf where the stitch ought to be, we are bound to see also the weeks without sleeping and excess of cheese, the wanting of water, the breeze and the sneeze. It won't take too long now we know this is true, just a day and a night, and hot cup of brew.

She signs her name smilingly tender, "with love," and presses the dot over "i" with satisfaction. And as I slip this thin envelope onto the stack and lean back in my chair, I wrap right around me the shawl which she made so many years ago, and recall that a sick day is always a good day to knit.