Home, Sick

I am sick

I’ve had the flu all week. These artworks have come to the mucus marsh of my stuffy mind.

Soprano Singer, 1908
by Kees van Dongen

I feel like how I imagine this singer sounds.

I think art is most often considered a celebration of life; unique expressions of nature’s beauty. But what about all the suffering and pain? What about a bad singer? What about sickness? Art can shoulder all the weight of life beyond merely the pleasures.

The Night Cafe, 1888
by Vincent Van Gogh

Here, Van Gogh captures the shifting delirium brought on by to much alcohol. The colors are cast in a sickly yellow as the floor shifts beneath the feet. One might ask, “is this really the best place to spend my evening?”

Sickness both dehumanizes — disabling basic functions like walking — and humanizes — reminding me of my body unlike anything else could. It is easy to separate a person from their body when they are healthy, but when a person is sick, their soul and body are entangled in a unique way. I am not saying the state of the body is reflective of the soul. Rather, one cannot ignore the body that involuntarily hacks and coughs. The sick person is an embodied soul while the healthy person often forgets their body.

I won’t belabor my medicated musings. I will leave you with this poem which is fitting to ponder when the body is at a low point from sickness:

Prayer Over Dust
By Patrick Donnelly

Into the kitchen bucket 
go the bitter carrot tops, 
collard ribs, burned heels, 
drain-catcher leavings, useless 
skins of things or their stringy hearts.

To these I’ve begun to add 
my nail clippings and clumps 
of hair that catch in the brush, 
a way my mind chooses 
to practice a hard thing.

But my body has lost interest 
in the distinction between
Me and Not Me, rushes ahead 
to the black box in the yard 
with the mail-order worms: 
fungus rings germinate 
in my dark, moist places, 
rash flashes up my torso, 
my tongue wears white scum 
and a sour, clabbered smell.

You, who cause the chemistry 
of things coming apart
to give off an almost social warmth— 
when it’s over, let my body 
be useful, let little bears 
nose through my guts 
for grubs, let Destroying Angel 
lift its wild orchid umbrella 
where my heart used to be.