Covidity, Act 3 Scene 1

Dateline Januaey 2021

The year started quietly, slowly. The headache arrived on the 28th and dug in for the long weekend. 

By Friday afternoon, I could barely move my head for the pain of my skull feeling like it was trapped in a vice, consistent and unrelenting.  Sunday, I drove to the testing facility 3 miles up the road. That three miles felt like I was dragging my body across the asphalt.  It took everything I had. But by Thursday, I was able to take a shower, put on fresh clothes. Friday morning, I was able to make waffles. It took me two hours and two batches of batter, but they got made. Last night, I slept 14 hours, took the dog out for a 5 minute walk, then slept for another 3.5-4 hours. 

The weirdest part of the whole thing? That combined with fever was how aroused I was, how vivid the dreams, leaving spent and bewildered, sated but unsatisfied. It isn't that there is an absence of sex, mind you. It's more that I miss sex with another person involved.  And I had designated 2020 as the year I would build my post-divorce sex wall, a wonderful idea I learned about from Australian friends a few years ago. Well, my friends and the last season of 'Offspring.' Instead it was just an afternoon and can hardly count, outside of trauma bonding. 

During this hazy sleepewaking time, I dreamed about a dress I bought in the Hamptons in 1999. It was a Cynthia Rowley number, before she went mainstream. Silk, with thin spaghetti straps with a high empire waste, beautifully billowing. And it had pockets, which any woman will tell you is a luxurious essential. 

The last time I wore the dress was in 2005. I was introducing a new beau to friends and we were eating at Lavendar in Kennington. The beau went on to become my husband and he made a comment about how ridiculous the skirt was, so full. I sold it at one of my favourite resale shops. it closed years before Covidity and it pained me, such change.  Now dream of the dress, the sun on my skin. And I wonder if I'll see her again, that self. 

I think of the dress, and long days when like summers to last beyond their best, overripe berries and I wondered what would become of me, of us, but I can 't see who the 'us' I would have daydreamed of would be whilst I pedalleded to the top of the hill on a pink bicycle so that I could pretend I knew how to fly.

The wheels flew up and half turned I landed, it was into a jagged piece of gravel that has left this scar.  But in this netherstate, I am talking to myself and the composite points to her knees. It was only five stitchs but it meant no swimming for 8 weeks, when 8 weeks seemed a year.

The headache is not constant now but reappears very occasionally there, a spectre. I still tire easily, become overwhelmed. Overemotional, whilst I shed my skin.