Alchemic Verse

I wrote this blog using voice-to-text two nights ago and have edited it and added to it for clarity.

I’ve always liked thunderstorms since I’ve been old enough to no longer be afraid of their power but instead enthralled by their majesty. Nonetheless, I get chronic migraines from pressure changes and from stress, particularly when powerful storms roll in back to back. I am currently using various tools that enable me to still be productive with my eyes closed. The lights are off, a small tea light candle has been lit, an audiobook is loaded up and playing softly, and I lay sideways on the velvet couch during my second to last night in this location. Arrangements have been made for my next stay, which will shelter my sweet dog and myself for another set of weeks. I am trusting, or at least trying to trust, that I will find my ship’s course after this to the location where I belong.

Physical pain seems to enhance the mental anguish of uncertainty in the midst of this grand voyage to a new way of being and living. In persevering through trials and overcoming challenges with chronic health conditions like these migraines that have plagued me since elementary school, I’ve learned there’s a key to wellness that involves balancing mind, body and spirit. As everyone learns best from a story, I hope sharing mine can teach others how to heal from the things that would otherwise seek to imprison them in pain.

When one area of wellness is suffering, another may be enhanced with additional tender care to the betterment of the other two. The inverse of this is understanding how the suffering of one aspect can impact suffering in the other two. When feeling imbalanced, pouring into one or more of these three areas to better the others is a form of self-healing, simple and powerful in its simplicity.

I’m not sure if the mental anguish preceeded the physical pain of the migraine or vice versa, but I do know that pouring into the spirit was the first step to regulate today. I meditated, sat deliberately with ideas of how to be present with the beauty of my everyday world. Smooth cold coffee, books ordered to a local bookstore, and fall festivals that brought cheerful children there created the perfect quiet moments in which to reflect on how beautiful life can be. The children were lined up excitedly to have their faces painted – something I too love, even as an adult.  They gathered to play games laid out in the store – giant tic-tac-toe and miniature cornhole involving tossing small bean bags – and each patiently waited their turn.

Two girls finished their tic tac toe match and began tossing the bags like snowballs, each tiny thwack followed by “ow” and boisterous laughter. I discretely moved my coffee so it wouldn’t be spilled and smiled silently into a book of poetry that, behind my smiling eyes, brought tears of relatable pain. I stayed about an hour, holding the duality of observing joyful innocence in one hand, while also holding the profound tragedy within the words I was reading in the other. My spirit was calmed, remembering my own innocence still present beneath the hardening of age.

My spirit was also healed by a long conversation with my father, where I asked for his wisdom, of which he claims he has none. In his retirement, he is grappling with solitude while I, in the grand becoming of Life Yeet 2025, grapple with the same. While I tearfully recounted to him how unsure I am sometimes in the steps that I am taking, I recounted the past 10 weeks and reflected on the progress that I have made and continue to make every day, which in itself was its own healing. It reminded me that one can choose to focus on the lack or the progress not yet made, or one can choose to appreciate steps already taken and often forgotten when looking ahead.

I told him this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, harder than my difficult childhood, the abuse and trauma of my teenage years, the stagnation of my young adulthood, or really any trial that I have endured thus far. I said to him that I am proud of the strength and resilience that I possess, but still wish instead that I did not need these skills so often to survive into my mid-thirties. I told him that I still hope and wish to be soft, to be carried, to be helped and held, to not have to fight to move forward, to constantly pivot to persevere. The innocent child-me, with her face painted at the fall festival so many years ago surfaced from behind the hard shell of determination.

When he replied “Oh honey,” I felt the storm outside become torrential new tears pouring from my eyes. I was transported back to a similar scene, several actually, where I, the lost daughter, collapsed under the weight of circumstance, and he, the helpless father, tried to find the words and actions that would solve my problems. He would say that he always came up short in that regard; I would say that he always came with just what I needed. I, who have always found it so difficult to ask for help, am consistently humbled and reminded of his love in these moments. “Can I fly out now? I’ll fly out if you need me to, or even if you just want me to. I’d like to drive, but I don’t think I can do it anymore now that I’m older.” I am moved to further tears at the offer, even now just talking into this voice-to-text app about it.

I managed to croak out that I would let him know once I got settled at the next slip. We talked for two and a half hours, at the end of which my migraine made me so nauseated and wracked with pain that I was dizzy and struggling to even sip water. Knowing my body needed support, I sat cross-legged at the bottom of the shower and slowly, carefully washed, breathing deeply and letting my senses be as present as possible.

Touch – the heat of the water, the rasp of the salt scrub, the softness of the lather, the massage of my fingertips.

Scent – Rosemary and mint, citrus and rose, argan oil and musk.

Sight – the low lamplight of a wax warmer, the dim reflection of that warm glow off of the tiles, the shifting veil of steam surrounding my body.

Sound – the patter of the water and its resonance against the glass doors and against my skin, the hushed rise and fall of my own breath.

Taste – sips of freshness that calmed the stale nausea, the remnants of the green fruit juice I drank in hopes that simple nutrients would improve the violent state of my body and mind.

Those that have been treated for ptsd, anxiety, and/or panic disorders may recognize this exercise as grounding, pulling the consciousness from dissociative chaos into stillness and back into the body. When I finished this slow and deliberate bath, I took my time to moisturize my face, body and hair with my favorite lotions and oil – vanilla, brown sugar, lavender, argan, and more rosemary and mint. Swaddled in the soft warmth of my velveteen bathrobe, I felt well enough to prepare a bland dinner and recline to listen to A Wrinkle in Time read aloud, a favorite book from my childhood. The book opens with a description of hurricane winds and rain, and a young girl feeling frightened, frustrated, and out of place in her present time and development. The thoughtful mirror this presented inspired me to download a voice-to-text app and attempt to capture the words that I’m recording here. Trying to type right now with the backlit phone screen would surely reignite the migraine’s fury, but I did not dare lose the inspiration and fail to capture how to heal moments like these. The curly cue of my dog’s body rises and falls behind my knees as she dreams in comfortable closeness and I feel myself sinking into sleep.

To summarize the lesson, when the past and future pull you into halves, when a storm rages and threatens one or more parts of your wellness, slow down and pour into the present, into your senses and into the parts of wellness within your control. It does not have to look revolutionary; it can look like quiet reflection, a loving mirror, a hot shower, a favorite book, an embrace of your inner child. The afterimages of the migraine are still panging behind my eyes tonight some 48 hours later, but I know the storms will always pass, and I know what to do to avert capsize.