sick

Burning itchy sore throat. Thick sneezy cold. Achey limbs, droopy eyelids.

Yes, I'm doing the Vitamin C, Vitamin A, zinc, echinacea, throat coat tea, cold care tea.

But there's a kind of liberation that being sick confers. It releases me from the demands I make on myself. Creates a space to listen to my body. To feel a tenderness and appreciation for her that falls by the wayside when she's healthy and functioning. Each small action takes effort - and feels like an accomplishment. From brushing my teeth to walking to work to paying a bill.

Jetrosexual

Word I just encountered in a Sunday Times article:

Jetrosexual (n): someone whose career, homes and love life are spread across several continents, and who has become completely at home with international air travel.

Draws a wry smile from me. Partly because I recognize a little of my own life right now in it. And partly because it's an elite group. Jetrosexuals are the Richard Bransons, the foreign correspondents, the entitled who claim space anywhere in the world by virtue of EU or North American passports, internationally recognized credit cards, wads of hard currency.

Poor multiple migrants - the ones who cross borders silently to work the building sites of Dubai, the US army bases in Iraq, the brothels of San Francisco; the ones who are trafficked from Asia, Africa, to Europe, to the Middle East, by the most roundabout and exhausting illegal routes - they aren't Jetrosexuals. Even though their livelihoods, homes, loves, must be parcelled out across continents too. They're just - migrants. Usually dark-skinned, or if light-skinned, from Eastern Europe.