If I’m lucky, my seasickness will go no further than it’s
primary stage of an incurable popping in my ears (made somewhat tolerable by
constant, simultaneous yawning and nose-plugging) and some nagging tension in
the back of my neck. But, as my
luck often has it, the seasickness moves beyond that, and the ear-popping
intensifies and spreads to my throat, causing a thick, goopy sensation that
feels on the verge of gagging me (although it never does). No amount of water can fix the
second-stage throat-clog—not that I feel much like drinking water at that
point, because the tension in my neck has stretched its sickly tendrils towards
my jaw and up into my head. The
resulting headache (often localized in my forehead) in turn makes me feel dizzy
and nauseated. This is my cue to
suck on a ginger candy, my nausea treatment of choice (pills: drowsy, still nauseous;
wristbands: bullshit), although results vary.
Sometimes the seasickness stops here and I’m left with a
dull, nagging, and for lack of a better word, moldy feeling in my stomach.
But much of the time, that original neck tension ekes its way into my
shoulders. Thus begins and achy
chain reaction that spreads to the tips of my toes, and I’m left wanting to do
nothing more than hold my knees to my chest and sleep…or cry. Or both.
That’s the other thing about seasickness; while it’s not
making me unintentionally fall asleep or vomit over the side of the boat (for
which the aforementioned nausea is commonly responsible), it’s very emotionally
taxing. Somehow, it manages to
sneak into the deep corners of my psyche and drag out every unhappy detail of
my life—details I’ve been trying no to focus on: homesickness, dissatisfaction
with my work, old romantic wounds, you name it. Rachel and I spent 3 wretched hours below deck the other day, while
we were supposed to be cleaning, crying and feeding each others’ fires and just
validating the living shit out of each other and our miseries. Anyway, after this 60-ish-hour crossing,
I’m hoping we won’t have anything too much worse, although we might. I’ll cross my fingers for the former,
but the fact is, I feel better now and we’re anchored, so I can sleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment