A Day at Home

I usually feel guilty about staying home from work unless I am so sick that I hardly know where I am, and just stay in bed, just barely responding to anything except the feel of cool, clean sheets.

For the past week I felt as if I've been dodging a cold or to be more accurate, a cold has been stalking me. So on Thursday I gave up. I stayed at home and as soon as I made the decision I felt better. I wasn't dying but I sure didn't feel good. But perhaps the most therapeutic part of my cure was being in the apartment alone. No husband. No child. Of course you're really never alone. I had Miss Murray and then there were innumerable comings and goings all during the day. The housekeeper, the grocery store delivery, the dog walker coming, the dog walker going, the housekeeper leaving to pick up Kate and then Kate was home.

But the bulk of my day was spent lying flat on my back on the bed. I looked at the ceiling, considered the folds in the green and white curtains, listened to the whosh of pneumatic brakes on the Madison Avenue bus, watched the motes of dust dance in the sun and became aware of the rhythms of the building. In Ian McEwan's book, Atonement, he describes a woman lying in bed with a migraine. She is immobilized with the pain that results of she speaks, or even lifts her head but she is super aware of everything around her. Well, I didn't have a migraine but I became so aware of the sounds laughter and conversation floating up from the street, the vibration of the elevator doors opening ad closing, and the whosh of water running behind the walls when a toilet was flushed. That part of Atonement was just brilliant.

My day at home was wonderful.