Medicine Stories

''Stories are medicine.''

We don't need pills. We need stories.

Having being feeling a little ill and run down the last few days, and after a hectic past few weeks of work, early morning starts and trudging long walks out in the snow and cold, I've felt the need to take rest in bed and not do much else. So on Tuesday morning, found with a full day to myself, I decided to do nothing, but lye in bed and read and write (and bake, I couldn't help myself, I went a bit nuts and made three cakes,).

It was lovely, resting up and not having to do much else.

After the nutty cooking bout, I soon became tired again and felt a headache coming on, my body and brain energy seemed half arsed too, and my attention span was floppier than floppy. So I climbed back into bed with a hot cup of tea and began to read, but found it hard to stay focused on the book I was reading, what with my floppy attention span and half arsed energy and all, I was zoning in and out, and mostly out of, interest. The book I was reading was too heavy, too deep, and I wasn't in the right mind set to read it. I lazily rolled my eyes over the bed and picked up a smaller book, a book of fairy tales by Hans Christian Anderson.

A few weeks ago I'd started 'The Little Mermaid,' so I carried on with that, then I read 'The Darning Needle,' I read it aloud to myself. It wasn't too long, nor too short a story, but ''just right'' (you know, just like Goldilocks). It was soothing too, and I gradually felt myself feeling better, my attention span slowly stiffening, my spirits becoming lightly lifted.

A full day in the house by yourself, can, after a good few hours, begin to make you feel a little shit, and having had no change of scenery nor a breath of fresh air from outside all day, it was beginning to take its toll on my mood. Your mind starts to wander, you may drift into the weary shell of putting yourself down because you're not doing anything seemingly worthwhile, and having no one around the house to talk to can heighten your doubts too. 

But after just a half hour of fairy tale stories, I found myself feeling better, with a little more energy, a sense of warmth, and a slowly rising erection of attention span surging over me. Admittedly, I did at first think it would have been nice for someone to read these stories to me, but this actually felt just as nice, reading to myself, nursing myself, healing myself better with stories. It was lovely.

Being alone you may find yourself losing yourself on a road to subtle self destruction, but through gentle story telling we can discover ourselves, once again taking hold of our shiny weave of ever unending thread, that connects us both to life and to ourselves.
I didn't need medicine, nor pills for my blue mood or headache, I just needed a story, a short, stimulating story to feed my feminine psyche.
 She wasn't lost at all, just hungry, for words of beauty.

If we never experienced hurt, there would be no room for healing.

If we never experienced life, there would be no room for dreaming.

Every time I hurt, I heal.

Every time I live, I dream.

''I may have made it rain.''

Your fingers are distant.

Be kind to yourself.

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