Please don’t ask me how my health is, ask me how I wish to live my life.

I bought Maria this poinsettia for Christmas, it is beautiful, growing slowly and gracefully. I have been paying a little more attention to it as I slowly rebound from a debilitating chest and throat infection.

A philosopher once said that when people get sick, they open their hearts, and when they open their hearts, they get better. When I get sick, I open my heart, and I feel better.

My coughing fit lasted two days and nights and wore me out in a new and different way. We had good friends over for dinner Saturday, and I cooked the meal, and I just made it through the night when my cold erupted.

In a way, I hate the humiliation of being sick and helpless; in a way, I love the softness and retreat of it.

So I won’t sugarcoat it or do the man thing. I am sick.  This is a mean one, my throat is raw, and I am knocked down. But I’m also quite lucky. I can recover.

My mother was a martyr; she cured me of martyrdom. We all get sick; many are much sicker than me. I am already recovering. I don’t need anyone to be sorry over me. If the refugee child can smile after 15 years in a camp, I can smile right now.

I admit to being a bit wary of calling doctors too often because when you have diabetes and heart disease, and you are older, you learn to hesitate because the health care people are quick to suggest going to the hospital to make sure. Still, I do know myself, and I was not sick in that way.

I do understand that things that are normal for others can be dangerous for me, but I have a good grip on it.

I have to ride it out. It’s almost over. Sickness makes me fatalistic, when I was sick as a child, my mother took me to my grandmother’s house and left me there, I was soon swathed in blankets and mustard packs, there was no illness my mother didn’t try to sweat out of me. She would pour soup into me, saying over and over again in Yiddish, “what can you do?, what can you do?”

This morning, I am diminished, but so much better. I am definitely on the mend.  I want to write. I took a couple of photos.

That’s the only question I ask:  is it getting better? If not, I know to get help. Maria is taking good care of me. She even made chicken soup, a not very Maria thing.

The dogs, as always, sense things they perhaps do not understand. Zinnia is glued to me, so is Bud.

I’m eating, I went into town for some chores, and I’m doing a bit of writing. Then I think I will have to get back into bed again as I am weakening.

I am not used to feeling weak, and I don’t care for it. I feel guilty and frustrated. What can you do?

I can’t get to Albany tomorrow, and I’ve canceled my weekly story reading at the Mansion. Maybe I’ll be back in business by Thursday. I miss the refugee kids at Bishop Maginn and Sue Silverstein and the teachers.

I love what Rumi said about sickness and wounds: “The wound is the place where Light enters you.” When I am sick, the light does enter me.

When I am sick, I truly relax. I let go of chores and responsibilities and news and obligations. I descend into myself like a tulip closing up at night, and I am at peace and no real rest. It feels like a beautiful meditation.

I devoured a new mystery yesterday called “Lost Hills” by Lee Goldberg. I like his new tough LA detective Eve  Ronin, she’s surrounded and challenged by the usual male blockheads and misogynists but is tougher than all of them.

She got a break to get ahead that she didn’t deserve, but you know what? She’ll take it.

Today, I’m starting a new novel called “The Shadow King” by Maaza Menigiste, an Ethiopian now living in New York City.

The story is compelling and beautifully written; it’s about war – Mussolini’s fascist invasion of Ethiopia World War II –  before and history, and it focuses on the women who fought in it and tried to hold together a world men (as usual) have torn apart. It is both devastating and hopeful.

Later.