The Art of Convalescence

Commonplace Newsletter #23

‘The Convalescent or The Casualty’ by Carolus-Duran. Paint in some blondish-brown hair past the shoulders and you effectively have a portrait of yours truly.

As I write this (New Years Day), I am on the home stretch of recovering from ‘Covid’. Experientially, it’s been like a mild/moderate cold- had the virus not been virtually all anyone talked about or broadcasted for the thick end of 2020 I would have assumed it was a winter cold and shrugged.

This is the last I shall say of the virus directly. Politics is for the public house and not the public domain, at least in my book. ‘Takes’ -whatever their temperature- have a way of taking something from the proclaimer and the audience both while giving little in return to either. It’s a lose/lose, yet like all folly, how often we persist in it, in spite of our knowing better.

But I’m digressing already. What I want to talk about is the related but more general subject of convalescence- a beautiful word with a beautiful meaning that has virtually disappeared from the public imagination and discourse.

*Clears throat, rearranges pillows* Shall we begin?

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The Sickie as Sanctuary

Heartbroken matrons
On joyless beds
For those whose souls the iron has entered
And if I get to Heaven’s gate
I’ll doubtless have to wait
While St Peter investigates the inevitable asterisk

~ Half Man, Half Biscuit Surging Out Of Convalescence

That quotation has little to do with what I will in a moment go on to talk about, other than the fact that it’s funny and clever (Nigel Blackwell is the greatest lyricist of his generation) and its title features the word convalescence which is a beautiful word.

Besides the aesthetic truth of the fact that it trips off the tongue nicely and is fun to say, just look at the definition and etymology of that word. The Latin root convalescere means ‘thrive, regain health, begin to grow strong or well’ which with the centuries has drifted to the less powerful, but still respectable convalescence ‘a gradual recovery of strength or health after a sickness’.

The key word there, and the one that I argue the modern world would like you to ignore or disregard, is gradual. Recovery takes time. In fact that’s the chief thing that a bout of illness gives you- time.

This is why the schoolchild contrives his scampish Ferriss Buellerisms (affected cough, groaning, feinted loss of appetite, tin of minestrone down the toilet as ersatz vomit etc etc). He just wants a little time to himself away from the low security prison of school with its bells and homework and tedious social hierarchy navigations.

And Lord knows what other demoralising and grating innovations in spirit-crushing have been invented in the years since we collectively decided that allowing web-enabled tech to encroach upon every facet of our lives was a good idea. Hell, even Winston Smith had a corner of his room in which the Telescreen couldn’t see him or be seen. Do you? Do your children?

For adults the situation is really no different. That yearning for quiet time to yourself I mean. ‘Pulling a Sickie’ (feigning illness to get time off work, for my non UK readers) is rife in the whole Western world. Once or twice per year you might catch a brief space-filling story in the forsaken middle part of a tabloid that bewails how much workplace absenteeism impacts the Gross Domestic Product. I could easily search out and link to such a piece but I refuse to do so. I refuse to give that Quisling mindset the oxygen of publicity.

There are few truly recalcitrant malingerers in any given society, especially compared to the vast number of time-poor, energy-sapped near-burnouts who are just trying to make a crust and make it to the weekend. A sick day is a needed holiday in a world where the saints and the seasons have been forgotten. But most only have the nerve to take one or two per year, when they feel themselves perilously close to baseball-batting a convenience store because the price of Coca Cola has gone up.

But the sickie itself is lacking somewhat. Those not versed in idling (i.e. those who most need to prioritise doing more nothing in their lives) are prone to call in when they are at their wits end and then spend the couple of days they have off mostly preoccupied with work-worry. What people at the office will think, what work they might fall behind on, how the boss will react. Work as religion must still be in the ascendance because I see people martyr themselves to it all the time.

So to stop the neurotic mind of the work-dodger from spiralling, what is needed is a little actual illness. And fortunately, most winters the world proves obliging.

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Illness as Prioritiser

It seemed a delightful prospect… a four weeks dolce far niente with a dash of illness in it. Not too much illness, but just illness enough- just sufficient to give it the flavour of suffering and make it poetical.

Jerome K Jerome, On Being Idle

First of all: a four week leave from work, can you imagine? How far we’ve fallen from the glorious heights of the aristocratic disdain for work and the husbandmans method of doing what was required and nothing more before bunking off to the pub for a pint and a few hands of cards.

Second of all Jerome is right (whether I’m formally referring to him by his surname or casually dropping his first name as if we are both members of the same bowling club is ultimately up to you). We do sadly seem to often need a dash of illness to be able to mentally depart from the world of work when absent. How else does one explain the Friday night bender and Saturday morning bacon sandwich, y-fronts and headache routine otherwise? Past your mid to late twenties such antics are not fun fun anymore, and it is certainly no longer novel. But the lack of DTs, compulsion and typewriter selling means it’s surely not alcoholism right? Not proper alcoholism?

Jerome (so good they named him twice) was a 5th Dan black belt in the arts of idleness and flaneury, so we must defer to his wisdom in such things (Me, I’m a three stripe purple belt in indolence, while you, gentle reader, may still be a white belt with your work ethic and latent rat race Stockholm Syndrome mindset in tow).

You need a dash of illness sometimes to focus your mind away from the structures of the workaday world. Even I- your would be Virgil here to guide you through the layers of needless guilt before we take in the lofty air of living more artfully- have been known to ruminate on work after punching out for the week. So it goes.

But not during this current spot of illness, I’m pleased to say. I don’t have particularly complex and high-powered job, and I work an odd shift-schedule rather than a 9-5, which helps. But still.

As I type this the days pass, the paperback pages turn, the writing gets written at a forgiving and leisurely pace (I wonder, having now written essays lying down, will I ever return to the laptop and swivelchair convention?), the studio-era films get watched, the birds and the park-walkers and the road traffic get pondered upon from my cold balcony vantage point. Life goes on, slower than usual, but surely still.

Your beliefs about the limits of art and entertainment aside, these are the things that life is made of. A spot of flexing the old creative muscles (but not in a joyless, hurried, Stakhovite way), plenty of restorative imbibing of culture and beauty seasoned with a bit of schlock, some contemplation and dozing and taking in of simple pleasures.

Now of course some of this is made easier by temperament. I should imagine the more extroverted among you would be maddened by the reduction in face to face socialisation and the relative dimming of physical energy levels and novel stimulation.

(The last ten or so months must have been especially trying for you. My condolences, truly.)

But of course in these weekly rambles I speak for myself, not for everyone. Is it possible to do otherwise without becoming a bore? To speak to everyone is to speak to no one. To speak of yourself and your personal vantage point is to attract people who feel likewise.

So this convalescence time- to attempt to bring this ship back on course- has the potential to realign your priorities and afford you a bit of time in which to pursue them .

Assuming, that is, that you approach it rightly.

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Convalescence Done Right

I never saw a wild thing

sorry for itself.

A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough

without ever having felt sorry for itself.

~ D. H. Lawrence, Self Pity

As is so often the case as I round the corner to the third act of one of these essays, we are about to skirt perilously close to me giving you some advice.

Understand: whenever I seemingly dole out advice it should be read as ‘here is an idea I am playing with at the moment, perhaps you would like to play with it too?’

Savvy?

But back to the poem above. See, the thing that almost invariably mars a good bout of convalescence is self-pity.

(A little aside: I only know of that Lawrence poem because it is quoted by the short-shorted Viggo Mortensen character in G.I. Jane. Personally, I didn’t mind that film at all. Take from that what you will.)

Feeling sorry for yourself- tempting though it is- turns the whole thing sour. Just as you can delay the onset of a cold by adamantly refusing to admit you are ill or even utter (or think) words of that nature, so can you mitigate the misery of illness itself by refusing to play in to the woe-is-me aspect.

Trust me, if you are seriously ill the body’s survival instincts almost certainly won’t let you feel self-pity. Self pity is therefore a sign, in a sense, that everything will turn out fine in the end.

(Note that this is all in the context of convalescence from moderate illness. The occasionally felt anger and resentment at the unfairness of chronic illness or disability is a different issue and beyond the scope of this discussion.)

Don’t wallow in feeling sorry for yourself, but don’t beat yourself up or put expectations on yourself either. Now more than ever that toxic self-improvement recrimination garbage has to be put to the wayside.

Look after yourself. If you feel tired sleep. If you want to watch or read or listen to something that would bring tuts from the tastemakers then do it. It’s only a guilty pleasure if being caught could mean trouble with the actual police, not the fashion police or thought police.

Treat yourself like you would treat someone that you care about. Don’t rush the recovery process. Use the time to consider and cultivate some of those intuitions and instincts that the harried world has a way of dampening down.

Remember that first word in the Latin root definition: thrive. That’s what this business of living is all about. And though many an aspect of that has withstood the tests of millennia, a good chunk of it involves figuring out what thriving looks like for you.

And the sickbed is as good a place as any to take the time needed to examine all of this.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna fluff these pillows up and get a bit of shut eye.

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