November Gray Day

   November 22, 2011        

             Barometric pressure shifts, high wind gusts, rain, overcast skies:  all contribute to the almost-flu feeling of fibromyalgia.

            My cells must be stretching and dumping old toxins.  It’s a drawing-down achiness head to toe.  Brain is in the fog zone.  Legs demand movement.  Lower back moans its lament.  Low-grade fever spreads its warmth.  (Actually, I probably don’t have a fever; I just feel like I do.)

            I should do something productive like write.  What comes to mind is word play:  Weather or naught, whether or not, wither or knot.  I sit at my computer rattling my knees as I listen to the dryer spin and the dishwasher wash.  I look out my French doors and note a breeze that shakes the leaves and billows the canvas tent of the portable garage.   Earlier I released a low-buzzing, dopey hornet on the glass pane to the great outdoors.

            We’re getting closer to lunchtime.  I’ve already planned supper, which will require a trip to the store for brown rice and tomato puree.  That’s okay; Mom loves our drives to Freeland.  When we land at Payless, she will push the shopping cart and comment on high prices.  She will stop and peer at store displays as she reminds me how she used to know where everything was. 

            On our drive home, we will ooh and ah over the tree colors, the sky, the clouds, the pine trees.  She will tell me the story of her mother’s dislike for Lombardi poplars and say she misses Michigan autumn colors.  When we pull up in front of our house, she may ask—as she did once last week—if we live here.  I’ll say yes, we will unload the groceries, and by then perhaps the old almost-flu feeling will have played itself out.