April and the Will to Live

Dear Adventurers;

tl;dr– this update is more of a full postscript, if you are familiar with my normal post format. the 2nd unofficial zelda cookbook is still coming along, I am still struggling with back to back health ridiculousness, but I'm trying to keep my eyes on the horizon, and the fire lit within.

how are you? I wish I had more to show for my efforts in the last month; it has been a foggy trial of the brain and body. Alas, pneumonia's lingering effects, the antibiotic turmoil done to my gut, and my autoimmune shenanigans meant I spent much of my wakeful hours battling one sickness or another (and the slumbering hours have had their own difficulties). I've just emerged from another cold alongside the tulips, and am quite hunkered down; determined not to catch another ill setback.

My new doctor at least agrees, and I've been given the pnuemococcal vaccine, usually only given to babies, the elderly, or 'special cases' (arm soreness worse than the og 90's tetanus shot, btw!). I am a 33 year old special case. My experience with pneumonia was frightening; and I have some pent up terror of getting it again (any sniffle could transform into that 'I cannot breathe!' feeling i battled for weeks). So the vaccine; which also lends some protections against meningitis and sepsis, has given me some comfort that this is unlikely to happen again.

The wheel turns, worry and unrest bombard; tis difficult to get my daily human and domestic tasks done, let alone my Work, my calling to finish this cookbook, so I can hopefully feed and more merrily-make all of you. but I've made some progress! Yet I fall short of the expectations I set for myself, and want to be done. Forgiveness, unprecedented times, new low baselines of my health and wellbeing, I take one shaky step at a time, thinking of you all every day.

Tis difficult to make friends in a new place while also disabled and chronically ill-- so I am very happy to have ya'll, and I've made one new local friend I quite admire! Little connections and little joys; they are foundational. thank you for the well wishes, your support, your messages and love. <3

Lately, (when I am able to think) I've been thinking a lot about the wilderness survival pyramid, lately.

I hope, as fellow Zelda fans, you enjoy a good triangle, a nice triforce. Zelda games, particularly Breath of the Wild/TotK have a lot of wilderness survival elements, so please allow me a brief tirade on the nature of survival, particularly when struggling:

The Wilderness Survival Pyramid. Only 3 levels!

1) On top, is your "Kit". Things you have with you; hopefully you've prepared in advance before running out into the wild. Your walking stick, your hiking buddy, your first aid kit maybe-- a hat, sunblock, water, granola bar. These things are often over-emphasized; Kit is important but less so than:

2) "Knowledge". Knowledge keeps you out of danger; separates good to eat plants from poison, helps you read the map so you don't get lost, reminds you to seek shelter before the storm hits, and what to do if someone bumps their head. But those don't matter without the base of the pyramid.

3) The foundation of survival is not Kit, or Knowledge-- it's the "Will to Live." The will to get through this snow storm. To keep trying; to start that fire, to keep looking for the trail, to leave evidence and signs for a rescue team-- you have to wantto survive.

That fire in all of us; that Will to Live; it doesn't matter if it's the wilderness or modern life-- we need hope, the determination to keep going, no matter what is happening. But the longer you need to survive in the wilderness; the harder it gets.

What keeps you going in the first few hours of getting lost on the mountain? Well, you only just got lost! Surely the trail is around here somewhere. This is only temporary! I don't want to die on some silly hillside on a sunny afternoon! I can do this!

But what about several days? Then, your Will to Live, your hope, lies with a rescue. There's a light at the end of the tunnel that keeps you going-- soon this will be over. You think of your family. Your friends. I can't leave my loved ones just yet! I can't just die! It's about to get good, I just need to hold on!

But what about months? Years? We have to dig deep. What do you hold on to; when rescue is uncertain? If it's been years on this forsaken, barren mountain? How do you keep maintaining the fire, your Will to Live, even then?

I am now a chronically ill, disabled person; but I was once quite able. As my injuries, surgeries, disabilities and diagnoses piled up-- when it was clear that this wasn't just a knee surgery I needed physical therapy to "get better" from, that I would never "recover"-- I needed a different kind of hope. Not a light at the end of a tunnel. I had no use for "it gets better," in the face of clear evidence that, no, actually, it could get WAY worse. My hopes have shrunk.

Not a dramatic rescue; just a decrease in pain. An ease of the worst bits. When you have to survive out there for a long time, you have to start building. You must imagine a life that, in the beginning, would have felt like giving up.

"I guess I live here now." So what would make this more tolerable? I find my joys where I can. I build up my tree house, find out where the berries grow, where the stream flows, and listen to the birds. I fantasize, I sing, I make things; I dance, I cry, I name the trees, the winds, the squirrels.

Over time, the mountain you are lost on becomes your mountain. Seasons of growth, harvest, decay; the feasts get me through the famines. I don't look for a way out any more, just a way through. The Will to Live. What hopes can you still find, wherever you are, whatever comes, whatever the season, the state, the weather?

I keep my fire lit. I've seen how one fire can spark another. I see your fires like tiny torches, even at this far flung distance, and I keep mine burning, twinkling back at you even in the darkest nights, whatever it takes.

I live for the next good book, my love, familiar voices on the phone, in a song, on a podcast, in a video, a warm shower, good food!, my darling cats purring in my lap! I live for the gamble of life; what will happen next? What possibilities will arrive on the morrow? I save berries for when I'll need them most; save silver thoughts for when the clouds come again. My making is a big part of my Will to Live. If I can make, then I can make it.

This is all to say; March was hard in a way that is difficult to express. So I am building up the foundation again, hoping for hope. Work continues, the road goes ever on and on. Thank you for bearing with me.

with a fire in my heart, keeping the beacon lit, doing my best,
Aimee

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ps-- below, a few new verses, revisiting and continuing chapter 4 "rebirth" from my little book of common meter poems, which began as a collection of 'pep talks' to myself, getting me through some hard times during covid. finding that life comes in cycles, the re-read is a relief-- I've felt this way before and have risen again.

Down to the weeping river deep
I’ve gone to find my soul
I come again, for shriver reap,
And pay once more the toll.

Her fingers slowed behind the glass-
My glossy heart beheld,
I better knew which signs to pass,
Closed eyes are not compelled.

I sank below ephemeral time
Called by her distant bells
Forever blinks between each chime
Down deep where darkness dwells.

“Forget me not, my tender one,
Give me your pain, behold—
To wards the dark you must now run
Or never you’ll be old.”

Wading the weeping river deep
I’ve found my swimming soul
I wake again, from dreaming sleep,
and let go of control

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and given this update is in need of some light-hearted whimsy; here are two teeny tiny watercolors. March Feelings below and Moon Mermaids above.