Using your down time creatively
But when you are ill, is that even possible?
I rarely get flu or colds that last longer than three days but recently I was one of the many knocked down by the worst flu epidemic to hit Australia. For the whole month of August I coughed so hard day and night, I fractured four ribs and ended up in hospital being treated for severe pneumonia.
My facebook feed gave daily news of the latest casualties among my friends, while the unafflicted offered sympathy and home remedies. African Sea Coconut Cough Medicine was among my favorites! People seemed to get well only to relapse days later, many told of an expected 4 to 8 weeks duration before symptoms lifted. Friends and family brought soups and flowers and told me how scarily skinny I was looking (which is not a good look on my already slim frame!)
Meanwhile what to do with all that time spent sitting up in bed? Even to sleep I had to sit up!
Maybe I could just keep working…on my book, on other peoples books, write about the experience…
No way. My energy (creative or otherwise) had gone, had slithered away in the night along with those extra kilos. While I had spent the first couple of weeks in an agitated state railing against this insidious intruder … “I never get sick, why me, what about all the work I have to do!”
I soon realised, I would have to surrender, would have to give in to simply doing nothing!
Luckily the day before I became ill, in a nearby street library I had found a copy of Salt Rain, the first novel of award winning journalist, Sarah Armstrong. And luckily I had enough energy to read. When I woke at 4am and couldn’t get back to sleep, I dove right in and kept going, delighted at the universe’s choice for me of sick bed companion.
Salt Rain is set in the wild tropical valleys of Northern NSW where I had spent some time in my early 20s. I felt as if I knew every waterhole, rainforest fig tree, creek and waterfall Armstrong described. As it turned out I later found that it had been set in the same valley where I had lived way back then (pre Nimbin)with my surfer brother.
Hungry for more, I tracked down Armstrong’s next two novels on Kindle. His Other House and Promise. Again I read late into the night or early am and I was not dissapointed.
Why hadn’t I found the time before now to read her work?
Why did I rarely have time to read anything these days, except on plane trips and airport layovers?
I went searching for more Australian authors. I read the late Georgia Blain’s memoir, Births, Deaths, Marriages and her brilliant novel Between a Wolf and A Dog.
I was impressed with Pip Smith’s debut novel, Half Wild, the fictional telling of the life of Eugenia Falleni who lived her life undetected as a man in New Zealand and Australia in the late 1800s to the 1930s.
My only problem came when I ran out of titles, although I have a substantial unread library on my kindle and indeed on my virtual shelves. I have a bad habit of buying titles for my kindle ( after hearing reviews or interviews with their authors) then of dipping in and out of them, leaving many only partly read. One of these was Gwen by Australian author Goldie Goldbloom who now lives in the US. Gwen is another fictional telling of the life of the artist Gwendolyn John, her fraught relationship with her famous artist brother Augustus John, her love for her favorite life model Dorelia and her secret ten year affair in Paris with the scupltor Rodin.
Luckily after a coughing spasm at 3 am I took up reading Gwen again and for the next few days was completely enthralled.
I read other authors (not just Aussie women) too including Hanif Kareishi’s (UK) latest novel The Nothing, which intrigued me but didn’t grab me, and reread Deborah Levy’s quirky novel Hot Milk.
My latest read was Josephine Wilson’s Miles Franklin winner, Extinctions. which “explores ageing, adoption, grief and remorse, empathy and self-centredness” (Richard Neville). I may have left it on the shelf too had I not decided to overule my habit of abandoning a book if the beginning doesn’t grab me. A third of the way in I was gripped. An excellent read!
I peppered my reading with occasional online viewing of Ellen sitcom reruns (from her ‘coming out’ episode on, ) and other mindless docos and programs as if I was on a longhaul flight unable to sleep.
When I ended up in Emergency at the hospital a well meaning friend suggested I think about what the meaning of my illness might be. I promptly told him to EFF OFF and that half of Sydney was down with the flu.
Now I can tell him rather than finding a meaning in my illness I found a reminder…
Don’t forget to give yourself time to do nothing, to curl up and read, to ponder the space around you…
for surely this is the life breath of all creative people.
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Jan Cornall is a writer/performer/teacher. Her books, Take Me To Paradise and Archipelagogo are available here. She is currently working on a travel memoir about following the footsteps of the French writer Marguerite Duras in Veitnam and Cambodia. Jan also mentors writers and leads international writing workshops and retreats.
Next trips heading out:
Moroccan Caravan, Mar 4–17, 2018. A camel riding/writing adventure into the Sahara, with optional add on 5 day residency.
Haiku Walking in Japan, March 27 -April 3. Following the footsteps of Basho along the Nakasendo Way in cherry blossom time.
©Jan Cornall 2017
