Saturday, September 10, 2011

Out of Sorts


Did you ever feel like you are standing some distance from yourself, wondering why you don't feel like yourself? No? Well, that's me at the moment.

I don't feel well, I don't feel deathly ill, but somewhere in between. Coughing, difficulty breathing, leg pains, thigh pains. "Off": that's me. The older I get the more the city air (a loose term for oxygen, I know)affects me. I tend to shallow breathe. It might only be me but I feel it is toxic. It reminds me when I was down in Mexico City and my brother told me an environmental engineer with a fresh contract in his hand for a project, had moved his wife and family down there and three days later they all took the first plane out. He'd done some testing. And fled.

Does anyone test the air in Toronto? I know anyone who lands in St. John's to visit me remark about the air immediately they arrive as they suck in huge lungfuls of it.

I was feeling really sick last night and trying to sleep and a party next door breached many decibel levels. I'd forgotten that. Even over and above the traffic and sirens and airplanes overhead, how very noisy next door parties can be. Could be I'm a fully fledged geezer now.

I was going to stay on for another week or so, there were some events I wanted to attend but my mind is made up today. I am heading back out to Newfoundland at the beginning of this week.

I just can't take it anymore.

10 comments:

  1. I'm glad to hear that you're heading home with Ansa, it's where you belong. It will be the best place for you to be. It's where you are happy. The big city is just that, very big! A person could get lost in it. XOX

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  2. When I moved out of Toronto more than 25-years ago, I swore off the place. Have only been back once and that was a brief visit lasting not much more than a day. Have no desire to return.

    That being said, do yourself a favour and try to ensure that your discomfort is cityscape-related and not something else. Not a good idea to be starting a half-country drive if you're not feeling well.

    Be well.

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  3. Ditto what ViewPoint2010 said, WWW - I hope you're not coming down with a virus, but if you are, staying put might be the wiser option until it's shaken off.

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  4. It's good to leave relieved that you're getting out of there, rather than wishing you could have stayed longer. I love where I am but I still miss Toronto. And Vancouver. Sigh...

    Hope you feel better soon and have a safe trip home.

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  5. Yep, big cities can make one sick. Why would you leave paradise to begin with?

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  6. I get my big city fix by going to Vancouver a couple of times a year for an overnight. That's about all I can stand. The air is good where I am on the island, but on a clear day I can see the brownish smudge in the direction of Vancouver.

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  7. Big cities, I love them. Or used to love them.

    I never get to go any more. But where I am now I can definitely say that I get plenty of fresh air. I'd probably get tired of big city living very quickly. Besides, big cities are exhausting.

    Make sure you're well enough to travel before you set off.

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  8. I'm sure city air is a lot more unhealthy than we realise, but the authorities keep quiet about it to stop everyone fleeing. There are parts of London where the traffic pollution is horrendous but seldom publicised. I remember that when I was in Toronto it was pointless to take a boat trip on Lake Ontario because the smog from the nearby factories was almost constant.

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  9. Get out! Get out! Go home where you can breathe. I know exactly how you're suffering. Eight years in central Illinois, with its belching factories and filthy fumes, almost saw me off.
    Now I can breathe again. Every morning my first act on rising is to get out on the deck and inhale great lung-fulls of beautiful, life-giving, clean oxygen. It's wonderful! As for needing a 'city fix'. What's that? I know, of course, it's a personal viewpoint, but I never, ever, again want to get within a hundred miles of a big city.

    Go home, dear lady; go home.

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  10. Do I hear you! The air quality has gotten so bad in big cities and no one seems to notice it. Even Seattle, where our children and grandchildren live, seems polluted to me, but the residents believe they are breathing clean air.

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