Collapse

On recognizing what plagued me 20 years ago.

There have been portions of time in my life when I could not move much.

Seattle, early March 2005. 

Most days, I felt like a marionette whose operator had walked away for a dinner break, so I lay there, limbs askew, feeling as though I should move, but not being able to make my body do this. 

Some days, I could move to the bathroom with ease or walk around my apartment without thinking about it. Some days, I could walk across the street to Ken’s grocery store. Or to Macrina Bakery, for one of their strawberry jam biscuits, which went into the day-old basket precisely at 4, so ½-off price. Or I ambled slowly to Malena’s tacos, a tiny, tucked-away taco shop, where I ordered their carne asada tacos every Thursday. 

When I had the energy, I used all of my energy to walk forward into the few stores on my block in Queen Anne. I missed people. 

But most days, after months of pain and exhaustion, plus endless medical tests with no clear answers—and when I was told to read everything I could about Irritable Bowel Syndrome—I lay on the futon with the yellow cushion and stared at the television set. The Oprah show. Old movies. Anything on.

And I lay there, watching with tired eyes, unable to move. 

This torpid time reminded me of Saturdays a decade before this mysterious medical crisis, when I was a high-school English teacher.