Fiction was not the only thing I read yesterday.

Not only did I finish the Sharon Kay Penman novel, but I also read a whole raft of articles on Yahoo. How our brains work. Why we learn nouns first. And why things get stuck on the tip of my tongue.

I polished off the cookies, too.

Had the best conversation with a gentleman while Lorelai’s safety inspection was underway. I asked where he was from “because I know it’s not East Texas.” He was from Syria! He commented on my knitting; his sisters knit, not socks but sweaters. He asked the English word for what I was doing, then confessed that he didn’t know the Arabic word for knitting, and I chided him for not bringing a sister with him.

And then we talked about food: samosas, baklava, baba ganoush (which neither of us particularly likes), our respective mishaps with curry powder, hummus. Because everybody eats, and if we are truly blessed, we get to eat more than just a small handful of rice every day; we get to try the comfort foods of many other cultures. Since the Tower of Babel, we speak so many different languages, and language is how we transmit culture (or so I was taught when I studied ASL and learned a little bit about deaf culture). But food? Food builds bridges, one bite at a time.

There was a modicum of knitting, maybe two or three rounds on the sock, but that’s all.

I bought cork grease for the recorder ~ which I think needs a name; if BB King can name his guitar Lucille, and a local bass player I know can name his Fiona, then I can certainly come up with something for this lovely, simple woodwind ~ and I had another lively conversation with the young woman behind the counter at the music store.

It was a good day. The baptism was wonderful, as most baptisms are, and Bishop had approved our changes to the visiting teaching lists, so I stayed after and entered the changes into the system, to be effective tomorrow.

Hrmm, I should probably notify my VT coordinator that what she finds in the system when she logs in to report the visits, is not what she will be expecting, because we have changed a lot of things up, and we are not done.

(I am here to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable; sadly, my VT coordinator will get caught in the crosshairs...)

The most interesting news to report [at least for me] is that my lungs seem to have stopped grumbling. I will have a better sense of that when I see how many of my meetings I can get through today, and if I am able to stay through Relief Society. I very much want to.

The thought that floated up as I realized I had probably gotten all the sleep I am going to get for now, is that my lungs are where I process not only air, but trouble. There is a strong connection between asthma and one’s emotional state. My parents smoked for 40+ years, and I grew up wreathed in second-hand smoke. And so, when I get sick, it is likely to be my pipes, which means that I have to deal with it. Not simply with the physically-getting-better, but also the emotional aspect.

And behold, it came to pass that we have my meetinghouse flooding because of a burst pipe, plus my exquisite sensitivity to mold, plus a major red flag going up in the romance department, plus an ongoing foot condition (which may or may not be metaphorical as well), all arriving at the same four-way stop simultaneously.

And the hidden blessing to this, is that unlike gastrointestinal responses, which are acute and frequently messy, respiratory responses force me to slow down and ponder and synthesize. When I am living from cough to cough, and from breath to breath, I only have the energy to deal with things which are truly important. This cannot be a bad thing.

I managed to avoid asthma [just barely]. I managed to avoid bronchitis [ditto]. I managed to avoid depression [amen!] And something seems to have happened yesterday, some indefinable key that was turned, and I cannot say how or when, but I feel that I am finally getting well again.