Down

Well, I caught Covid.

I have been down for three days with the standard array of symptoms, which are now in retreat, thanks to Paxlovid.

Down is our metaphor for ill.

Well is up, ill is down. 

When we're well, we feel up, upbeat, high-flying, on top of things.

When we're ill, we feel down. We fall ill, come down with a disease, keel over, are laid low, feel under the weather, and—if we don't recover—are cut down. 

In a pandemic, we sink fast and drop like flies.

When we suffer symptoms we're afflicted, from the Latin verb affligo, meaning "to throw down." We feel low, run down, down and out, down for the count, or just plain down.

Feeling down sucks. The chronic fever and chills, soar throat and body ache make it impossible to feel anything but down. 

I sleep a lot and watch old mysteries on TV.

Does illness have any upside?

Thoreau thought so. "'Tis healthy to be sick sometimes," he wrote in his Journals.

We can only guess what he meant; there's no more to the entry.

But we can assume Thoreau had in mind recovery.

An illness is an opportunity, first off, to recover our bodies, because in illness, bodily events become the events of the day.

In illness, we can reflect on the unforgiving primacy of our bodies; take inventory of the bad habits we should shed; and remember that our bodies are impermanent—that time's awasting and there's much to be done.

In illness, we can recover our selves. We can read good books—at least until brain fog recurs. (I'm reading, in fits and starts, a delightful biography of the painter Monet). We can read and reflect on our values, our goals, our weaknesses, our debts, and the things we've left undone. We can also cultivate the "attitude of gratitude" for our partners and caregivers—in my case, the same person—and for our family members, friends, and neighbors.

Last, but not least, in illness, we can recover leisure. We can be mellow, indulging ourselves with "extreme self-care." An illness is an excuse to take hot baths, drink soothing fluids, eat comfort food, crawl under a blanket, lounge on the sofa, and take constant naps. We can do these things any day, of course, but not with impunity, because over-indulgence can quickly turn self-care into torpor and sloth.

"I don't respond well to mellow," Woody Allen's character says in Annie Hall. "You know what I mean? I have a tendency, if I get too mellow, to ripen and then rot."