Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!
Meditations in Taft Garden - 2
Difficult To Be Really Present With a Headache
I'm currently sitting on the third step from the front of the fountain at taft garden. I have never noticed these peculiar bugs before but they are tiny, tiny flies or mosquitoes of a creamy tan color. They are floating so gracefully, so carefree, gliding around in circles. I wonder if they have any agenda or if they are simply enjoying themselves, enjoying their life. They don't seem in pursuit of anything but rather just trailling around and around in a random motion. But of course I'm not certain. The sun is peeking through the clouds, trying to force its way through so that although the light around me is a grey-white, I still cannot comfortably look up because the sun is still bright. Maybe I could find a deeper meaning in that. I wish I could but at the moment, it is difficult for me to be truly present because all I can feel is either
a) a headache from nearly four hours of intense concentration and running around in Organic Chemistry laboratory
b) a headache from the acetone fumes I accidentally inhaled while washing my glassware with it
c) a headache from swirling things with dangerous and corrosive solutions (I was extracting caffeine from tea).
d) all of the above.
But the flies are still beautiful. I wonder if I can maybe telepathically send tiny bits of my weightless headache to the tips of their wings so that they could float away alongside them, dissolving into the evening.
Comments
Thank you Nan!
Thank you Nan for the lovely advice! I think just reading your words has helped in dimming it!
"I wonder if I can maybe
"I wonder if I can maybe telepathically send tiny bits of my weightless headache to the tips of their wings so that they could float away alongside them, dissolving into the evening." So beautiful. Sruthi, I hope that you will experience other sensations than the headache pain, perhaps a gentle coolness or warmth, a lightness or heaviness, tingling, even numbness, or like you say, floating away on the evening....
Sometimes actually drinking caffeine can diminish a headache! ( not extracting it in a chemical lab!) If you like, you can turn down the dimmer switch on the intensity of the headache, gradually from 10 to 1; just as you might turn town a very very bright light on a dimmer switch, and as you do, you may experience less and less pain as the the light becomes dimmer and dimmer. Or maybe incrementally as you transfer the weightless headache to the tips of their wings, the headache gets dimmer and dimmer as it floats further and further away on the evening....sweet dreams....