Kuwait City and Turkey Wattles
Well, Kuwait City has been a bit of a washout for moi. Both literally and figuratively. The first day it was lashing rain; yesterday it was cloud, foggy and humid but, today, the sun has got his hat back on again.
I was also a bit washed out too. The bug I caught a few weeks ago was lurking deep in my body and made a triumphant return yesterday. I got a fever and felt like a wounded old bear who climbed into the back of a deep dark cave, covered himself in leaves and waited for healing to take place. This is what I did. I upgraded to a single room and slept and slept.
I woke up this morning feeling better and went out in the afternoon for a ramble.
I reflected that the past two days I spent sleeping was the first time I had stopped for years. I was working all through Covid and the past year has been intense with work, study research etc. I wondered if the physical illnesses I have recently experienced are my body saying STOP.
I sometimes have an image of my body as something pink flapping about under my jawbone, a bit like a turkey’s wattle. Most of my being-in-the-worldness is located in my cerebral cortex, especially my prefrontal cortex and I certainly value reason and intelligence over emotion and instinct. Yet, this needs to be balanced and I think I have this balance wrong. My body is telling me to stop, for fucks sake, slow the fuck down. If you won’t listen, I’ll make you. And then it uses its chemical resources to stop me. It works but there’s an easier way….
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