My Contagious Angel...

 You New Yorkers have an excuse to have a cold in March, but what kind of sympathy can a girl expect when she's spending her days in a city built on sunshine? Well, I don't need your sympathy, dangit. Because even though I'm now on day 4 of a cold that literally had me so laid up all I could do was watch multiple episodes of "Say Yes to the Dress" (don't ask) and suck down theraflu, I have been mining it for all it's possible goodness. And goodness I have found:

And so I present to you:  7 Reasons Why It's Good to be (temporarily) Sick...

1.   If you're going to get a cold, what better reason is there to get it than going into the mountains with your fiance to look at wedding venues and getting such a thrill from a snow-covered meadow that you just have to plop down on the ground and make a snow angel? That's right people, you CAN get colds from angels.

2.   If you are the type who has trouble giving oneself a break, either physical or mental, then a big fat nasty cold might be just the thing for you. You see, your body is a generous soul, it will go and go and go, as fast as you can push it, but all the while it will drop little "hey, pssst...maybe you could slow down for a minute?" hints, starting at a whisper and growing gradually until--like a patient teacher who finally realizes that the only way this kid is going to Knock It Off is to send them to detention--your loving body will present you with the appropriate method of stoppage. In this case, a nice whopping case of head congestion.  Thus providing you with the perfect and impossible to ignore opportunity to sloooooooooow down.

3.   Voila!  A cross all your to-dos off the calendar day of rest!  A day when you are so foggy and groggy and achy and snotty that all you can do is lay on your couch and let the day pass over you like the orange furry blanket you've got pulled up around your ears.  Sa-weet.

4.   DayQuil makes it hard to think.  For the last several days I have found myself switching operative words in sentences all over the place, "I haven't gone to cold class because of this stupid yoga!"  I can't tell you what a blessing a foggy mind can be, just for a day or two.  I couldn't obsess about anything if I tried.

5.   Okay, I would LOVE to say that having a cold makes you take better care of yourself with food.  It should, right?  It really should.  I would like to say that I kept myself sustained on a diet of chicken broth and orange juice and shots of fresh ginger and cayenne.  That, unfortunately, is not the case.

On the first really bad day, when I realized that I needed food and we didn't have anything in the house that didn't require major preparation, I took myself to the store and promptly stocked up on bread and cheese and tomato soup, so that I could replicate the open-faced grilled cheese sandwiches and soup that my mom used to prepare for me on sick days.  That's right, CHEESE.  Did I mention I had a cold?  With, um, congestion?  Ah well.  It made my heart feel better.

6.   I still had to teach a few classes, while I was sick (but no longer contagious!), and I found myself teaching about...wellness.  We did a lot of immune-system strengthening and some chest and sinus opening, but the thing that I found myself focusing on and the most interested in, was the resting of the attention on the FEELING of wellness in the body.  I would ask students to just notice the aliveness, the prana, the vibratory energy in the body, beneath the layers of skin and muscle and bone, and I asked them to remember that this feeling--the movement of the energy in the body--IS wellness.  The force of our life, is the force of wellness.

And our body, this amazing, resilient, fluid machine, manages to keep most of us well, most of the time.  And though I am blessed with good health, I would imagine that even for those of us who bear the burden of more than the average share of illness, that this access point into the simple radical feeling of life moving through the body is there, it must be there, and could be contacted at any time.  Even if just for a moment.  Even at our very worst moments.  And that is just...that takes my breath away.

7.   Which leads me to the final reason why it can be good to be ill--and that is, the increased and focused desire for, and gratitude in the face of, wellness.  Walking around with a clear mind and a pain-free body, it is such a gift, and a gift that is so often overlooked, until the moment or moments come when the mind is NOT so clear and the body is NOT so pain-free.  And then we see it all--what a blessing we have in our health, what a beautiful thing it is to be able to live our lives not even noticing the state of our health.

It is so vital to be reminded that health is not something that should be taken for granted.  Especially when there are so many in the world who live with pain and with illness, on a day to day basis.  It really does seem that those of us who wake and go to sleep without pills and doctors and instruments and prescriptions crowding our days, should be kissing the ground in gratitude each morning for this enormous and ephemeral blessing.

So, Shanti-towners, if you're out there and you're feeling low...I'm sending you fellow-sick-one love, and inviting you to close your eyes and go on a little treasure hunt, for that sparkly feeling inside, the one that says, yes, this sucks, but YES, I am alive.  And for my Shanti-towners out there tearing it up, feeling perky and clear, if you haven't taken a moment today to say a silent thank you for all the health in your life...I invite you to take that moment now, and give thanks.