I said last year that I didn’t want this blog to be a place where I posted really personal stuff, like health issues. I don’t have any serious issues, but part of my doctor’s plan in the last few months was to try various medications to counteract symptoms arising from heart palpitations–and all of them made me nauseous and made me feel like a zombie. So I was walking around like an undead and feeling gross while also not feeling like doing much at all. This made me kind of numb and also pretty bored. She took me off those medications, and suddenly it is summer and I feel alive again. I’m back to the trail again and have all kinds of energy like I used to. The heart palpitations are still here; they are not dangerous, but do make me lightheaded and stuff. I’m hoping for another ablation soon. I guess I’m learning to live with them though as best as I can.
I have gone on several hikes in the past few months, and even a couple short jogs, but have not felt up to my regular activity until I got off those meds. Now I am getting back into hiking and even just walking more. Even just taking the train to work, if I walk up to the station and don’t take a bus from the train stop down to work, and walk instead, I can get about 3K in per day. That’s not including other walks or hikes. I’ve also been able to get on the trails around campus. I really feel like running a lot, too, though still have some issues with balance due to a weak left ankle/foot. I don’t see any reason, however, that I couldn’t get back up to running 5K a few times a week. It’s a slow journey and isn’t anything I can brag about really–though to me, it is a sure boon to my life because of the way I feel when I can run or even just hike regularly. I’ve also gotten back into editing my novel Back to the Garden for republication this fall as part of a new series I’m writing, and it makes me feel good to get into this again. I’m not really changing the story much–just trying to get it into shape to have a couple sequels.
So I have been reading this novel by Evie Gaughan called The Story Collector. It is set in Ireland and parallels the lives of two women, one living in 2010 and one in 1910. I will talk more on this novel later, but reading it at night immerses me completely into the memory and cradle of my beloved Ireland, and so many things that interested me about Ireland–fairy myths, Yeats, the wilds of Ireland. I feel like, though I have never met the author, she is a soul sister. So many things in this novel are inside my memory, reality, and dreams; it’s as if the novel was written for me, though of course it could not have been. The other big thing in Evie’s novel: trees and nature play a really important part of the story!
I recall so many times running in the past few years where I imagined fairy and other Irish myths, like when running in autumn and seeing a whirl of leaves caught in a gust of wind and flying and whispering around me. Anyway, just a quickie blog post as I have a million things to do.
The featured image is CC BY-SA 3.0 – Hawthorn tree, considered in local Irish lore, and Celtic folklore in general, to be sacred to the Aos Sí.