Spoon Theory

In the ME/CFS arena it’s said that we have eight spoons of energy per day. And we do careful calculations so we don’t go over the eight because, woe betide me, going over means a week or more of resting and recovery.

Pacing is never going over your eight spoons per day.

Habits and routines are godsent, for they save me from having to make decisions. And decisions come at 12 and a quarter per spoon, if it’s true that we functionally have energy for only a hundred of the pesky blighters per day.

Habits and routines mean I am on automatic, doing stuff without consciously realizing it. Which can often work well. Though not today.

Today (Wednesday 10th) I sorted Lego in the morning. Used up eighty percent of decision making energy just deciding little things like which drawer, which container? More or less unconsciously.

This all, I am assuming now (Thursday 11th) so that I wouldn’t have any energy to do my usual wishy-washy, will I—won’t I, and just go … see Centrelink, and in the usual way fail to solve the problem due to not thinking it through before starting out.

Which is exactly what happened. I had about a quarter of the paperwork needed, and the operator organized me another appointment tomorrow (Friday 12) for an in-depth thing when they will put me through the wringer.

Own fault, though my good excuse is that I was, it turned out, half sick. Today, Thursday 11, whole sick.

Mongrel, 1

This is it! I’ve just let Draft 2 Digital (the publisher I’ve been with for about six years) know I’ll be serializing it here on my blog. Mind you, it’s not nearly Monday yet in the northern western hemisphere, so I am jumping the starter gun a bit.

And in addition, I said I’d write a post with Ushen’s letter. That’s not happening. It isn’t hard to read her story between the lines, and the details will keep till we meet her again as a grown up woman down the track.

Giving the manuscript another edit while turning it from a print format into an online reading format, I’m laughing about the bits that are already dated. I’ll be interested to hear about you tripping over them.

Rita de Heer, Mongrel, 1Download

In the Biesboschen …

In the Biesboschen
Four hundred begettings ago,
Hunting, fishing and gathering
We people followed the narrow under-tree paths
of deer and swine.

Otter-Wijf might then have been my name.
Hung with bones, herbs and a wisert’s skin
I walked and walked and walked the cool under-tree paths
Of our home range.

— — — —

With this painting and poem I’ve tried to manifest a dream in which I had the clearest sensation that I walked through sand–making those little squeaks–in an ancient Dutch setting. Otter-wijf was my name and I wore a leather shoulder bag with dried herbs in it, and a leather wrap about my shoulders.

It was the uncanniest thing when I woke, no longer wearing the wrap or the bag when only seconds before they felt as real, as the bed-sheets a few seconds later.