Hey there! Casual Rambler here, just wanting to thank you for reading my blog. I try to avoid marketing myself and I don’t like paywalling content. That’s why most of this website, if not all, is free. However, subscribing to my Patreon helps me keep doing it. Patrons gain exclusive early access to poetry & other creative works. Thanks again and please enjoy the rest of the site!
I was sicker than I thought.
That’s all I can think about as I write to you now, sitting in a nondescript conference room at work, wondering if I should even still be here.
I’m better now. But a cough remains. It spasm wet but leaves me dry, choking on my next breath until I force another cough & the cycle repeats itself again.
I need to rest but when I woke this morning I did so with only three hours slept. The past week has been a lesson & last night was the test.
And just because I didn’t receive the result I wanted doesn’t mean I haven’t been paying attention. I just got caught studying late. Much remains to do but still plenty was done.
What I thought to be the object of my weekend, a trip up to Seattle, quickly became unfeasible & instead the true purpose came within my view: rest, certainly, a tending to the self but also a tending to the space, to home.
Thus I cleaned a shower door caked in residue, scrubbing it finally clear. I gave the kitchen & living room a refresh, vacuuming & tending to a bouquet from mother, removing wilting stems & replacing the water. I tried my hand at cooking homemade soup for the first time & on first sip I could not have been happier. I called friends & made time for us to listen to each other, going beyond just checking in lending ears for the end of summer. I wished a happy birthday to my mother despite the distance of the Atlantic Ocean & multiple timezones forward.
And in between it all, I still wrote. Will it stop? Perhaps never. But why not take this illness as a reminder: you can still pause & continue later.
–The Casual Rambler
P.S. I wrote some haikus about what it feels like working while sick & not having any recourse to take a day off. They’re like the fire-breathing twin to this rather relaxed ramble. The yang to this ying. [Editor’s Note: Check em out!]
P.S.S. Also, I will be gone this upcoming weekend [Editor’s note: health willing] for what else but one more foray into the woods with my witchy friends. Poems & words are forthcoming this week & I will try to have something ready to go for the start of Oct. 4th or 5th or 6th but, er, no promises yet.
P.S.S.S. (I swear the last one) I am currently in what feels like a dogfight to verify my identity with PayPal, but once I have settled the dispute, I will return with actual methods & ways for payment so you can purchase your own copy of Lyrics For a Song I Don’t Know by yours truly.
Alright now I’m done, I swear.
I’d like to give thanks to my wonderful patrons, Jennifer, Carson, Christy, Chloe, Roshi, Zero & Phil as well as the many free members of the Casual Ramble. Without you, everything that has been would not be and everything that is to come would not happen. This post was released a week early to my Patreon supporters, if you’d like to receive early access to poetry, short films and other works, you can join the Casual Ramble Patreon via the link below!
