Wordstock 08: The Blank Page III

The first word I took from among the scraps of paper in her hand read: illness. I tried not to read too much into this. This was a topic I could write about.

You question your sanity. 

Am I doing this to myself? Do I punish my own body? Is my life an exercise in loathing so subtle even I cannot find the root of my discontent? I'm improbably writing my own conclusion with the misfired synapses and imbalanced chemistry of a flawed mind. 

Perhaps sanity was never mine to question.

Now, not all illnesses are like this. Some are just periodic interruptions of the seasons that we understand to be the result of outside influences— germs, or children, or a profound lack of sleep.

"Time." 

I'm to change words with the person next to me. She holds a scrap of paper that reads: hallways. Three more minutes is granted to formulate a connection between the first word and the second.

But the most unfortunate sickness is the undiagnosable: those ailments that occur, and reoccur, with such frequency that they define the shape of your life. These illnesses erect walls on either side of you, blotting out awareness of anything else until you walk a hallway of horrific fixation. A hallway where every step is in service of the proliferation of greater discomfort and self doubt.

And like that the class is over. The room has grown oppressively stuffy and the orderly rows of convention center chairs have lost their regimented appearance. Ms. Ergenbright offers us a quotation from Emily Dickinson and we leave the room a-buzz.