An Involuntary Mantra

Today, I’m thinking of this fragment from “The Nighthawk” again, written this month last year. I’m reminded of the sensory overstimulation and anxiety this time of year can bring, and I wanted to post it for everyone who can relate to that, as well as folks looking at another Spring with Long COVID.

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Late March, 2025. Someone on Reddit writes that they hate the term “Aggressive Rest”. But the term is suitable for me, because I’m still fleeing from the practice. I don’t stop myself from picking up a book, unlocking my phone, or turning on the TV.

“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good”, another mantra. If aggressive rest feels impossible, I can at least “pace”, or slow down my activities, taking breaks and omitting the less essential. But pacing doesn’t come easily, either. Listening to and accommodating my body is a learned skill, one I get tired of practicing. It’s an instrument I want to put down.

“The worst is all this lovely weather,” an involuntary mantra, a lyric from “Someone Great”. In just a few days, the temperature springs from 48 degrees to 78 degrees. I have always hated the first warm day. Suddenly, everybody is outside– shouting or barking, hammering roof tiles, playing electric guitar badly. Even before the worst of the noise begins, I can hear strange rumblings, like there is a freeway a few blocks away. (I thought I moved out of that house years ago.) I feel beaten back. I try not to take the blooming trees, the magnolias and cherry blossoms, personally. Even the ancient cycle of the seasons can’t ground me. The erratic climate has become as dysfunctional as my own sense receptors.