Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Ebb and Flow

This morning I spent three hours in the waiting room of the Clinique des Médecins d’Urgence. As I’ve written before, I’ve been having difficulty sleeping since my mother’s death. I tried over-the-counter sleeping pills, most recently Dormex, but to no avail. It’s hard to function on two to three hours of sleep each night, especially for someone like me, a light sleeper to begin with. So I decided to see a doctor for advice on how to regulate my sleeping again.

When I arrived at the clinic, shortly after 8:30, the waiting room was already full. The number I pulled from the machine was 30; number 2 was being served. That’s when I knew that I was in for a long wait.

I had a choice: I could listen to the people around me complain about how our taxes were paying for this poor service (I really wasn’t interested in hearing about their long list of illnesses that they freely shared with others) or I could make valuable use of the time. I chose the latter.

I pulled out my notebook from my bag and began to write. I wrote, and wrote, and wrote until the doctor came into the examination room. It reminded me that I can write anywhere, any time. A novel, a short story is written a sentence at a time, a page at a time, and it doesn’t matter where. I felt a certain ebb and flow this morning that I haven’t felt in a long time. For the first time since my mother’s death, I’ve felt hopeful, like I was getting current.

When I left the doctor’s office, the unusually warm October air brushing against my skin, I had reason to feel hopeful. The doctor had listened to my concerns, offered solutions, and I came away confident that my sleeping would return to normal. I still felt exhausted, but I returned home, ate lunch, and then ran a few errands. A stop at Home Hardware, the bank and the dépanneur. On the way home I went into a new café called Le tassé, where I was greeted warmly by the owner. While enjoying a slice of chocolate cake with whip cream and an allongé double, I wrote some more. I grabbed a coffee to go and headed home again. The day was too beautiful to let pass me buy, so I grabbed my keys and headed downtown to return a book an employment counsellor had lent me back in June. Then I made my way to the Marché de poisson and returned home long enough to change before going for a run along the Saint-François River.

The day held promise, and the hope that life would once again return to normal … with time. It was nice to feel the ebb and flow of life, of the life I was used to living.

1 comment:

  1. I am so pleased you are doing some creative things, my dear. I hope you can get some rest, and I look forward to seeing your efforts when I visit you! Take care of yourself.

    ReplyDelete