Feeling Better after Illness

I have been pained to write since all of last week. My Muse trails me like a shadow, determined to infuse my restlessness not with guilt but with that soft, tender ache...it acts very much the worried child waiting to be picked up and cuddled.

I have heard its cries and felt its perplexed sorrow at the very anxious thought, that it may be left behind. Alas, I have been ill and am only now on the road to a thankful recovery. I am seldom ever ill and itch to be rid of a subdued countenance once it happens.

Sadly, this means that although I have kept to a commendable focus of everyday living, I have not been able to write as gladly as I've wanted.

There is always that moment of careful adjustment...the art of attempting a skillful climb back into vibrance. It takes patient rest and a gentle diet.  It helps that  I have relied upon an assortment of artistic pleasures to be plumped up as soothing, cushioned friends. 

All last night, I stayed up, intently reading and so finished Teju Cole's Open City.  A haunting novel, the plot is made up of a series of personal melancholic journeys in Manhattan, Brussels and also Nigeria, that may be had to the seeking journeyer, a time of strange personal discoveries amid astonishing revelations.  This afternoon, I finished a small biography A Card from Angela Carter by Susannah Clapp. Its plot-intent circled around postcards, jottings and letters from the late Angela Carter to a friend. I have long delighted in Carter's novels of the absurb and fantastical - how happily her books adorn my shelves - that this biography appeared a godsend in many ways for me, the grateful reader. Without logic, the celebratory book prodded me on with matching bliss, to recall some Enya...Orinoco Flow, Carribbean Blue and possibly a touch of Moby. In once more, reading about Carter, all things surreal, rose like angels to meet my hand.

I am holding on to my Muse, with affectionate bated breath. Slowly but surely.