VERY hard

It's taking a lot just to do this, today. I'm not "sitting" at a computer, I'm in a recliner with a laptop in my lap. I had imagined how wonderful it would be to sit at my computer, and actually write music. Ah, yes, wouldn't that be nice.

Sometimes I've gotten into a "Damn it, I am so going to do this anyway!" and left the house to pick up tea or a snack or go shopping or whatever.

I wish I could get into a "Damn it, I am so going to do this anyway!" for music writing. Who knows, maybe after I put this down, I will.

Or not.

I know that something about doing the physical therapy is truly profoundly soul-damaging. Not "body damaging," the therapists are too good, I can tell that what muscles are getting exercised are getting stronger.

But it is soul-damaging.

So is, I must also say, simply trying to do thing physically. Yesterday, I went outside to admire and water my tomatoes. A horrible, horrible experience. The tomatoes are fine, thank goodness, but I'm not. Trying to use my walker/transport-chair as a walker was nearly disastrous, I felt like any minute I was going to collapse hard onto the cement of the back patio. I didn't, fortunately, I spent the rest of the adventure seated, scooting the chair around as best I could. Which was, alas, none too well.

Everything is almost too hard to do. Everything.

I'm seeing my acupuncturist/MD tomorrow, and with luck picking up some new herbs Tuesday (the purveyor told me that they'd be getting a new shipment of stuff required for my formula Monday, it'd be ready for pickup Tuesday... that's the plan, at least). Both of these things do a pretty good job of dispelling darkness, and the new herbal formula is very good about soothing the vague aches that have been plaguing me (and are doing even now, as I type this).

I've read all sorts of things about what other people have described as their own MS experiences, but  this isn't about paralysis, or spasticity, or good-old-fashioned fatigue... it's something more horrible.

The Minbari on Babylon 5 had a word, "Seh'lich sakar": Soul-sick. I'm sure this isn't what Joe Straczynski had in mind when he created the series, but boy, am I ever.

So, what to do? An old saying holds "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water; after enlightenment, chop wood, carry water." Well, in my current state, I can't do either. So, I'll take some herbs, maybe make some tea. Will I try to write music?

We'll see.

And this is especially interesting (that's the polite word for it). As a composer, I've been "stuck," I've been "struggling," I've been "dry," I've been all sorts of places that are all about "waiting for the creativity to kick in." But those are all temporary conditions, and what's most different about those and now is that everything inside me was working fine, I was just waiting for the muse to alight, and once she did, things went just beautifully.

Well, right now I've got my head in a bucket of concrete, I've got a messed up nervous system whose "non-functions" reveal themselves in ever so many tragically surprising ways, and as Jon Stewart was known to say... "I got nothing."

And that is hard. Very, very hard.

Now, I do try to tell myself every once and a while I get what little gumption it takes to tell myself things that this too shall pass, and that whatever anguish I'm feeling now will create some sort of treasure as yet to be discovered. I know this is true. But even so, right now, the "going through" it...

It's hard. Damned hard. Very, very, very hard.