feb inputs + outputs

Finding equanimity with a body that won’t cooperate

Photo by Europeana on Unsplash

The last few weeks have been cascading illnesses: first a flare-up and then a virus that left me stunned at my body’s ability to produce mucus. The majority of my time I’ve spent sleeping, or somewhere between waking and sleep, but not fully conscious. I’ve done a lot of thinking here, and I keep emerging from the fog with moments of clarity that sound totally absurd.

I’m entering my second year with an actual diagnosis for an autoimmune disease that touches every part of my body and life. Being in treatment, but more importantly, having a framework to understand why I’ve always Been Like This, is forcing me to sort through deeply held beliefs about my relationship with motion, productivity, my body, and my self-worth.

Finding equanimity with a body that won’t cooperate will be a lifelong struggle for me, as it will be for most of us. Our bodies aren’t machines, but complex organic systems that break down in all kinds of predictable and unpredictable ways. This month, I began to ask myself what it might feel like if I stopped fighting it.

Things I Made

1. This Luddite embroidery

2. A paper mache version of my Try Hard show art because yes, we are doing video

3. A blog about how white people were really into lunar new year this year

4. I finished a sweater and then immediately started making it again because I hated it

5. Lots of little drawings. I filled up a sketchbook and bought a new one!

Things I’m Digesting

1. Cool Town by Grace Elizabeth Hale - This is a history of the alternative music and art scene in Athens that started in the 70s. It was maybe one of the most impactful books I’ve read in a while because it recontextualized my time in Athens as part of a long legacy of a scene that I didn’t even realize I was part of until I left it.

2. What Doesn’t Kill You by Tessa Miller - More reading on chronic illness, we love it.

3. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman - I plowed through this in a weekend and loved it so much.

4. Kell on Earth - I paid $10 to buy the single season of Kell on Earth on YouTube. It was the third time I’ve watched it in the last decade, and wow: holds up. Watching them type on 2008-era Macbooks filled me with so much envy and sadness that I never got to work in an office like that before computers got slimmer.

Things I Bought

I made it through the whole month without buying anything, and then bought two things on the very last day.

1. Navy blue waffle linen trousers from Linenfox - These are for spring/summer. I have two pairs of pants from Linenfox and they’re basically the only thing I want to wear in the summer. My stretchy waistband creamy colored waffle pants are definitely seeing wear after three summers of near-daily use, but I think I’m going to try reinforcing them with sashiko stitches.

2. Vintage cowboy vest - I walked into a vintage store and saw this hanging and it brought me so much joy I could not leave it behind. It was $22, and the woman in the store thinks it might’ve been a theater costume.

Tally for 2026: 4 pieces of clothing, 2 new, 2 secondhand. This is not going well, but I am not mad at myself.