Reception

People keep telling me to just give in to feeling bad. To receive it. Ok.

So today I am still in bed and I have barely moved. It is 11:15 am.

I keep thinking each day I'll feel a little bit better but this has not happened yet and in fact it's going the other way. I'm asking my colleague friends to help me with grading papers, I'm asking my family to bring me food, and I'm letting my house settle around me.

Kindness is coming in from every crack and door and window. And ether. I have received so much love that it's just overwhelming. Thank you. Just in the last few days here are some of the things I have received:

Nail polish in the color Peach Daquiri
A heart shaped rock from the Rocky Mountains

A hand made ikebana (Japanese word for art made of natural objects) made from a piece of driftwood found near a mountain lake in the Rocky Mountains

A bowl of Lucky Charms

Sweet love notes

An adorable little make up bag

Salmon pasta and a salad made with avocados and pomegranate

A baguette

Martinelli's apple cider

A salad from Lucy's Fried Chicken

A hand massage

Cherry juice mixed with Sprite to just the right proportion

Fancy-schmancy eyebrow makeup

Words

Love

Robot stickers

A ride to my class and home

re·cep·tion

/rɪˈsɛpʃən/ Show Spelled [ri-sep-shuhn] Show IPA

noun

1. the act of receiving or the state of being received.

2. a manner of being received: The book met with a favorable reception. 

3. a function or occasion when persons are formally received: a wedding reception. 

4. the quality or fidelity attained in receiving radio or television broadcasts under given circumstances.

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Origin:
1350–1400; Middle English recepcion  < Latin receptiōn-  (stem of receptiō ), equivalent to recept ( us ) (past participle of recipere  to receive) + -iōn- -ion

And now I am to go in to a room in a hospital to receive water mixed with alchemy into my body to heal me from my cure. I am learning to accept the things I don't want to be given but why don't I? I want to be well and clean and be the one cooking the Burnyce apple omelet that no one but us has ever heard of here let me show you this marvel, not the one wishing for it at 4 am but no one knows what it is so don't even bother asking. I have thrown a multitude of receptions and I do it well so well and I kind of hate this, this act of receiving, maybe this is the therapy.

Song
by Frank Bidart

You know that it is there, lair
where the bear ceases
for a time even to exist.

Crawl in. You have at last killed
enough and eaten enough to be fat
enough to cease for a time to exist

Crawl in. It takes talent to live at night, and scorning
others you had that talent, but 

now you sniff

the season when you must cease 

to exist.

Crawl in. Whatever for good or ill
grows within you needs
you for a time to cease to exist.

It is not raining inside
tonight. You know that it is there. Crawl in.