I have been remiss. I’ve been consumed with the fire at my side. In my side. It’s amazing how encompassing it has been. Everything was pushed aside. Shoved aside. There were no neurons left over to expend on all of my daily activities.

My reading slacked off, especially my on-screen reading. The fact that the screen would do a periodic disappearing act didn’t help. I am now so far behind with my emails, hundreds that have piled up in the interim. I don’t believe I will ever catch up.

There were the faithful emails from Elise, my Spanish Word of the Day lady. Some of the words would amaze me. I didn’t realize I knew them so that when I punched her email open on my cell phone, I would think, Aha! I am more fluent in my native tongue than I give myself credit for. It felt like a small victory.

The emails from my quilting site only served to underscore what the hundreds of cuts of fabric, neatly stacked on a wall of shelving in my office were saying to me. What about me? What about us? When will you give us your time? My Tai Chi instructor emailed, Can we have some of your creations for our Mother’s Day Raffle? I’ve yet to respond. Mother’s Day was just another day with shingles pain this year.

The writing blog posts are also stacked up neatly in my inbox, awaiting my time and attention as well. I didn’t want to read them with blurry eyes and blurry mind; that would in effect cancel out their very purpose, which is to help me finesse my craft. I look forward to digesting them, in small bites, the better to savor them.

And, of course, my personal writing was suspended. It wasn’t for lack of material, but for lack of dexterity. My fingers lost their place, lost their connection to the home keys on the keyboard. The keys that are the base from which they launch themselves across the span of the key layout. My brain saw one word and my fingers typed up a close facsimile of it; the relay was broken. Or merely interrupted. Whatever it was, it was infuriating.

Regardless, I persevered and completed the projects I had pending; deadlines wait for no man, or woman.  But, it was slow going and quite a strange experience. They say you never appreciate something until you lose it; that might be true. All I know is that my fingers are once again.dancing nimbly over this keyboard. The circuits are reconnected, soldered together through sheer willpower. The embers of shingles pain still burn, and I am being careful not to fan them into bright, lacerating flames.