Proof Positive

Went to Miramichi on Friday. Stacy picked me up at the train station and we went to the Wharf Inn for supper. It's hard to eat out when you're trying to eat healthy. In Miramichi, at any rate. Miramichiers like their deep fried wieners and stuff. We ended up with chicken quesadillas (hold the sour cream). Who knows if that was a good choice or not? There are no MANGO stickers on the menu at the Wharf Inn. New management there too. New menu since the last time we were there. We would've got the steak special but we were in a big hurry to get to the movie theatre.

Even still, the movie had started by the time we arrived, so we just missed a bit at the beginning. Saw "The Good Sheppard" with Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie. It's a Robert DeNiro film. I enjoyed it a lot. Want to see it again on dvd. There were a lot of distractions in the theatre. I tend to forget what it's like to go on Friday evening when all the kids are in attendance. Sometimes watching them is more interesting than the movie. We had wanted to do some stuff afterward, but the movie was much longer than either of us realized and everything was closed when we left the theatre.

Saturday I interviewed the couple being featured on the cover of the next BnM. Went to their house. The whole point of the trip. Easily there for two hours. Got a good interview. Watched a full-length feature film on Alistair Macleod when I got home. On loan from the Sackville Writers' Group. Then watched Breakfast on Pluto with Cillian Murphy. Recent purchase for the collection. Love it! Love him! In bed by midnight so I could rise pretty early and catch the morning train back to Sackville yesterday.

This kind of flying trip is in some ways easier to do than the three or four day kind, and certainly much easier than the week or 10 day trip. Friday night I couldn't keep my eyes open past midnight. And I slept late until nearly noon. Yesterday afternoon I went to bed at 5pm and dozed off and on between television programs and phone calls until 11pm when I went to sleep for the night for real. I slept until nearly 11am this morning. I feel like I'm back on track now. So I've only lost 3 days really (if you count today, which maybe I shouldn't because I am getting considerable amounts of work done), whereas the longer trips I lose (or feel as if I've lost) all the days I'm away and a good two or three days after I get back. So what is this bone weariness, you ask? Well, it's exactly that--bone weariness.

This flying trip is proof positive in my mind that my arthritis is effected by this travel 3 hours north and then back south again. I feel pain. Pain causes exhaustion. Therefore I sleep and am worthless. The climate change is actually quite considerable between here and there. It's damper up there, and colder. There's more snow in Miramichi. It's dryer here, and warmer. There's been no snow here yet this winter.

Around about Rogersville as I journey north, my knees start to lock and I get uncomfortable in my seat. My thighs will ache. My wrists and elbows. If I stay up there long enough, I acclimate, and then I'll experience discomfort about Moncton on the way back. There's a period of readjustment when I return. This is one of the reasons why I must move back to the Miramichi to live. Why the back and forth is so hard on me. If I've learned nothing in the several years since I found out I had arthritis, it's that I need to listen to my body, nurture its needs and not fight against it, try to force it to bend to my will.

It is a given that my work needs me more there. It's also given that my family needs me more there. And I know the back and forth is really hard on me. So, a move is inevitable.

Mood: okay
Drinking: coffee, black
Listening To: doors slamming in the main house
Hair: greasy, greying