Today from this Chair

I am sitting with my feet up, in a chair I bought with an ottoman before my POTS got reactivated (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, via a virus that was maybe covid but brief thank god). It’s a comfy chair, though Lulu the cat who has also claimed this chair has pulled threads out of the ottoman with her claws. And I’m typing on a lap desk with a keyboard I ADORE (Logi MX Keys S for Mac)—I got it after trying several not-great keyboards—after I coughed with my mouth full of coffee on my old generic Mac-ish keyboard and destroyed it. My computer is propped up on a portable stand so I’m not hurting my neck. I’ve got on my compression socks, and earlier this week I got prescribed a beta blocker by my cardiologist to help with the POTS, which also feels really good so far.

There are so many emails I should answer, and I suppose I will, and there’s so much work I should ramp up to do, but I have been very protective these past few weeks of my time to relax and be a person. I went out to Illinois to stay with my family, and I was nervous about that, but it turned out to be a super-fulfilling and enjoyable time. My 21-year-old son and I and my mom and my nephew Nathaniel did a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle. My son went with me to the Art Institute in Chicago and we looked at modern art and then we went to vintage stores. Then we came home and got him ready to fly to Berlin for a quick study abroad course over January term, and he flew out on New Years’ Day, and he’s having a great time.

I won’t pretend the POTS hasn’t been disruptive—it was hard to figure out what was happening, and there was a scary heart scan and an ER visit before I put it together—but I am also super grateful for the POTS people on reddit who listed multiple things that helped them, and I began to get sleep again.

And in the midst of this, I was collecting documents for an application for German citizenship, because my mom was still a German citizen when I was born, and there was a law that changed with a window where I fit. And then yesterday I had my appointment at the consulate, and everything was organized and there was only one document I am missing, so when we get that, it’s a go, and then that means my son can pursue the same option. There’s no specific reason other than the privilege of having documents—one of the most massive privileges on Earth—and the idea of having a safe alternative should one option become dangerous or unworkable.

And then yesterday after that appointment, I met my sister and her sons Nathaniel and Wiley in Manhattan, where they had planned a short visit before flying back to Australia. So we walked to Central Park to see some locations that were in Home Alone (I have never seen these movies) and it was freezing, but I had a big duvet of a coat I bought on clearance last year at Old Navy, and then we went to the American Museum of Natural History and saw a big old hunk of a Sequoia tree and the huge Blue Whale hanging from the ceiling and a video of a Blue Whale feeding, swallowing massive draughts of sea water and then straining the water through its baleen. We saw dinosaur bones and hominids and watched a video on genetics, including one that mentioned that the gene that allowed humans to survive the bubonic plague now gives people rheumatoid arthritis. Okay, I thought: at least there’s a reason, and that’s a good one. We walked through Times Square and I pointed out where I got arrested in the climate protest. And then we met up with my sister’s partner Tim and I ate amazing gluten free pizza. And then at a street corner I had to walk one way and my sister and her family had to walk another, and I hugged all of them hard and we walked away, and I was crying as I always do, because it will be years again before I see her, but it’s okay. And then more subways and I caught the train home in perfect timing.

So: I have been living and it has been good. I have been forced, by the changing needs of my body, to ask myself a lot: what do I want and need right now? And as my tendency is to forget that, and to monitor the horizons for signs of trouble, there is as always a way in which my body leads me in a better direction.

I am hoping you and your family are well and safe.