For the past four days or so, I've been unwell, lying down all the time albeit with a few breaks for eating, using the internet and the toilet. I don't know whether it is my illness of my acute ability to meander, my mind has been visiting uninvited memories criss-crossing by-lanes and routes that have been rarely visited. I travelled in roads that did not intersect the main highways of memories or rather in seemingly familiar paths that were there but seldom explored. Yellowed corners where my father was smiling at me while the radio played a tune that I have never heard thus far. While the tune was lingering, I was led into a dark corner of my childhood where the smells were of different sweets of pale white and brown colours. The flavours were exotic and while the tongue relished the subtle unknown flavours, my crush appeared from somewhere taking my hand and leading me through lanes that I have known only in my adulthood. How can a lane from adulthood be known to a crush who was in the pre-adulthood days? Do memories become coagulated and mangled when the body is ill, I wonder.
But being sick also means that there is nothing to stop the meandering mind - the memories flow while awake and transform into dreams after sleep enfolds the senses. When I awake at odd times to find everything dark and cold, I always get the feeling of having time-travelled into a zone which can never be completely recollected nor relished. People I haven't met, emotions I have not accosted with known people, incidents that never have been in my mind surface out of the crevices of the innermost depths. Sometimes I feel hunger - the hunger is part of the yellowed memories; I yearn to eat tandoori chicken and the green mint chutney. I wake thinking of the taste of the green chutney but in reality I have no appetite. The sight of food appalls me.
Today I feel a bit better. I have regained a fraction of my lost appetite but tandoori chicken is not what I want.
So, do you travel so while lying ill in your bed? We all love travelling, don't we?
Image 1: Internet
Image 2: Sachin Dev's
But being sick also means that there is nothing to stop the meandering mind - the memories flow while awake and transform into dreams after sleep enfolds the senses. When I awake at odd times to find everything dark and cold, I always get the feeling of having time-travelled into a zone which can never be completely recollected nor relished. People I haven't met, emotions I have not accosted with known people, incidents that never have been in my mind surface out of the crevices of the innermost depths. Sometimes I feel hunger - the hunger is part of the yellowed memories; I yearn to eat tandoori chicken and the green mint chutney. I wake thinking of the taste of the green chutney but in reality I have no appetite. The sight of food appalls me.
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| The dusty and unexplored parts of my memory is tickled when sick |
Today I feel a bit better. I have regained a fraction of my lost appetite but tandoori chicken is not what I want.
So, do you travel so while lying ill in your bed? We all love travelling, don't we?
Image 1: Internet
Image 2: Sachin Dev's
I rarely get any dreams. Mine is peaceful blank sleep, even when I am not feeling well. NO confusion, Pure bliss :)
ReplyDeleteDestination Infinity
PS: Do get well soon, don't take dreams too seriously, and get back into action!!
Pure bliss but no post ;)
DeleteI am doing better now. Thanks for coming by and giving me good words of wisdom, Rajesh. Highly appreciated.
I do that a lot without being ill.
ReplyDeleteSo do I but there is no one to interrupt and cut into your thoughts while sick. You can lie down eternally and keep travelling.
DeleteSo sorry you've been ill. I know our mind tends to get carried away when we're immobile. Luckily, I haven't been sick in a long time. But most of my family has and I suppose their thoughts have traveled to unexpected places.
ReplyDeleteHope you feel better and better.
Quite rightly said, Myrna. Great that I feel much better now. Hope you've been well and happy.
DeleteThanks for coming by and cheering me.
Hope you feel better and so sorry you are sick! I travel in my mind all the time—sick or not sick ^_^! Take rest and I hope someone is there to help you out!
ReplyDeleteThanks for coming by dear Katherine. I am feeling much better now.
DeleteThe Journey of the Magi
ReplyDeleteby T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)
'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For the journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins,
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death,
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
Mark, thanks for leaving a comment. "The journey of the Magi" brought some lovely memories of College and school when I first came upon this poem. What a relief poetry is!
DeleteI hope you are doing well and happy.
Once you come out of your illness, all these dreams feel silly! All negative thoughts will vanish!
ReplyDeleteDo get well soon, Susan!
Quite right, Sandhya. Now, I don't remember a thing. Thanks for your wishes.
Deleteohhh Get well soon, I hate it when I fall sick ..
ReplyDeleteTake care of yourself and soon you will be on ur feet running :)
Bikram's
Ah, even I hate being sick, Bikram. Glad to be well today. Thanks for coming by.
Deletewhen I am very ill, I am unable to feel anything coherent. I feel raspy in a weird way, unable to stop the feeling of raspiness and a sense of swollen body and head. I feel as if I am going to burst. No memories, good or bad, no dreams. It is indeed weird :)
ReplyDeleteGet well soon and stop letting memories make you feel worse.
Feeling a bit better today, Zephyr. Your thoughts indicate that the feelings are more physical than mental. It is just a feeling or it does happen?
DeleteHappy new year Susan and I hope you recover soon. I always thought I am the only one who gets weird dreams when asleep and crazy memories. I totally identify with this post!
ReplyDeleteThanks Charles. Ah, I get weirder when sick and imprisoned in bed.
DeleteFeel bet, Susan. Sorry you're under the weather. Sometimes your mind works differently when you're not well. Perhaps compensating for that illness attacking the illness from within the mind.
ReplyDeleteMaybe a possibility?
--
Chris
Yes, a possibility, Chris. Feeling a wee better today. Thanks for coming up and adding colour to my day.
DeleteHope you are doing better Susan! I tend to mind travel a lot. I also linger over happy memories or just incidents and memories. I also introspect quite a bit.
ReplyDeleteNice post, Mrs Sus! More like a travel post than sick bay meandering. :) Hope you're better now though.
ReplyDeleteI love traveling in my mind. I do that a lot, not just in bed or when I'm sick. I also do that while I'm literally traveling. I guess I also did it when I was a student, hence my low grades. Haha!
Be well, Mrs Sus!
We are standing in a corner maybe having a lame conversation with someone, but our mind travels faster than we could ever imagine and we have absolutely no control over it. And especially if we find something boring, our mind caters with juicy gossips, thoughts, songs and other forms of entertainment and sometimes in a negative way. However, I wonder how you relate them to the colour yellow! :)
ReplyDelete