I've been reading about pain

The pain voice—something that in my imagination sounds like a wild, red head named Irene. I see her wildly gesturing to me, pronouncing blatant statements like you will never get better, only worse, death is near as is suffering. For God’s sake, do not leave the house.

Turns out, it is for my protection that my brain has conjured a ruminating Irene.

And since I caught Covid, Irene’s been sun hot.

But as Rachel Zoffness says in her new book TELL ME WHERE IT HURTS, hurt does not equal harm and harm does not equal hurt. Many of us with chronic illness have an ultra-sensitive central and peripheral nervous system. And the fantastic news is that the more I quiet Irene, the less I hurt. My negative thoughts and terrifying predictions are a pain amplifier. Irene, like a good wind, teases my pain flames.

I have also been thinking about the global wildfires, beach homes with red roofs burning on the Cap Ferret, our Canadian fires, the smoke coming all the way down to us here in Maryland.

The evening of the worst of the smoke, I came out and took this eerie shot.  

My pain voice surged. Symptoms began to flare.

Irene flailed beside me. “The world’s on fire!!!!” she cried.

I could have imagined my neighborhood going up in flames, the people I have grown to love evacuating, but instead I focused on the now, on my lens, on the tree branches still filled with leaves hanging over the red disk, and I said to Irene, “I am still here breathing and I choose beauty.”