Letting Everything Happen: A Covid Journey by Clare Naden
“Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final” - Rainer Maria Rilke
Never have so few words meant so much. I first saw them last December. It was at the end of Jojo Rabbit, a film that was creating quite a stir at the time as it was a satirical take on Hitler seen through the eyes of a young boy. Some thought it was completely disrespectful; others, like myself, thought quite the opposite. It showed how utterly absurd the war really was. Like everything, it all depends how you look at it.
A few months later another type of ‘war’ was declared, and soon after, I began my own battle with Covid-19. Little did I know that these few words from a film would be a savior in the dark days ahead.
At first I wasn't concerned. I wasn't 'at risk', so I paid more attention to the symptoms of friends who were sick at the same time. Each day we would check in to see how everyone was faring. 'Je respire' became our catchphrase of the moment.
Until day four when I found myself gasping for breath and calling an ambulance.
What followed was many months of terror and very little beauty. I had every imaginable symptom, including breathlessness, extreme fatigue, violent diarrhoea, a brutal loss of smell and intense muscle pain. I lost 10% of my bodyweight, went to hospital twice, took three full months off work, with a further 6 weeks half time, and spent many, many days oscillating between the couch and the bed. I poured money at things that didn't help at all, such as energy healers and naturopaths, and others that did such as osteopaths and respiratory physios.
I made use of the crisis counselling service offered by my employer in the times when I couldn't handle it anymore, and my friends felt helpless in my plight. It allowed me to cry shamelessly, and the counsellor even made a useful remark: Sometimes we place judgements on certain symptoms that aren't necessarily correct. Being breathless or having that crushing feeling on my chest, for example, didn't necessarily mean it would intensify and I would die.
It was the worst of times and the best of times, living alone and terrified of dying with no-one to feed the cat, mixed with lots of loving messages and calls and friends running errands and everyone asking after me.
But it went on for months, and when, despite all the tests and scans and doctors perplexed I was still battling away, I realised that the only one who could save me was me.
I discovered there was a 'rehab Covid-19' centre near Paris for those with persistent symptoms, with lots of helpful advice. I took all I could: a psychologist for post-traumatic stress, a respiratory physio to get me breathing normally, and eating eating eating to get the weight back on.
I also asked myself so many questions. Why did I get it so badly? Why am I even alive? What is the point of life if it is riddled with so much suffering?
One thing was clear was that I couldn't return to my life pre Covid. There were things that had to go. Toast for dinner every night was one. Being so harsh on myself (a work in progress) was another. So too was a university course I had applied for related to the wine industry, which I longed to work in, which felt like an impossible task and had caused many many sleepless nights. Out that went. Going out five nights a week was finished. I asked existential questions, explored spirituality, religion, the afterlife.
September came and I went on holiday with a friend and felt happy to be alive. I felt that Covid had been a gift. It made me put things in perspective, appreciate what I did have. Take things slower, be kinder to myself.
Yet when I returned from holiday I fell into a black hole. Everything had changed yet nothing had changed. I continued to get relapses, albeit much milder and less frequent. I felt worn down by it all, and by the million tiny hurts, such as the incomprehension of friends, the cancelling of plans and the inability to make future ones, the fragility I felt. I guess I had hoped that there would be some great reward at the end of all this. Yet my life was the same, and my health even worse.
I continued with the search, signing up for a retreat along the lines of healing body and mind in a remote part of France. It all seemed rather unpleasant, but the teacher convinced me he could 'fix' me and all would be so much better in the end.
Yet halfway into it, the teacher fell ill.
I felt a huge surge of relief. Hallelujah! The following day I found myself crying with joy in the middle of a vineyard in the Côtes du Rhône region.
Why on earth didn't I do this before? I didn't need to have a reason, or a university degree to wander in the vineyards! I felt so happy, so alive.
It finally hit me that I didn't need to improve anything. I had everything I needed right there. I had friends, good ones, and a job, also good. I had health that was 'good enough'. I was done with fixing. It was time to start living.
While on one hand Covid has weakened me, and I still suffer from 'bad' days and bouts of anxiety, it has also given me a confidence and insight like never before. It stopped me still in my tracks to make me be here now instead of constantly striving for better or more. I would never have known that simply staying on a winery would give me so much joy. I would never have allowed myself to just be.
As for all the existential questions, well, the only conclusion I came to was that I didn't have one. I just had to live.
And when the pains return and the stress of this period weighs heavy, I try and remind myself to let everything happen. The beauty and the terror. To just keep going, because no feeling is final.
Clare Naden is a New Zealand writer living in France and working in Geneva.