Hurtin’ in Idaho

Next stop: Boise, Idaho.  A place I would never have thought of a good reason to travel to.  So I made up a reason and booked a ticket to Idaho.  Alaska Air awards all of it’s  passengers with a free beer or wine on domestic flights.  Unfortunately, I was feeling too feverish for either of those options, so I ordered a ginger ale, and passed the comp. beer to Eliza in the window seat.

The flight was short and un-comfortable.  By Eastern Oregon, my throat was swollen and raw.  Touch down in Boise, fever and dizziness.  Jokes about naked jungle animals were un-naturally hilarious.  The back of my neck, was drenched in sweat.  My body felt like it had been put into a trash compactor and then removed, several times.

I managed a courteous salutation to my mid-western hosts, and sank into deep delusional sleep. Eliza followed my lead and fell ill the next day.  We felt our  plans for energetic collaboration and ambitious production slipping out of reach, replaced by mugs of ginger tea and vitamin C.  The nature of our collaboration took a turn onto the path of healing our broken bodies. Aparently too much Social Practice art can be devastating to one physical state.  Over the next couple days we conducted  an experiment in care and rest, ingesting strongly steeped tea, soups and other fluids…the sharing of remedies ensued.

A shared Recipe for wellness:

Two cups of water, brought to a boil

add:

Two cloves of garlic (chopped finely)

thumb sized piece of ginger (chopped finely)

couple pinches of cayenne

juice of one voluptuous lemon

honey, to taste

whiskey or brandy, to taste, (optional)

Drink obsessively until well.

When we finally mustered up the energy to emerge, rain and snow had fallen generously, and a car show was in town.