Some of us just fall On nature and not getting better

A poet and nature writer's memoir of chronic illness. "Constant pain changes the relationship of the person to place and to moments in time," writes Atkin, author of Recovering Dorothy. While anchored in her life experience as a person with Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and haemochromatosis, the author's memoir focuses on the contours of those place/time relationships that her condition necessitates. At the center of her story is a journey from constant injury, pain, and exhaustion, through medical gaslighting and misdiagnoses, to, finally, a correct diagnosis and an emerging sense of how to understand and manage her body and its limitations. Atkin pulls from an expansive variety of sources, including Virginia Woolf, Scottish folklore, and contemporary writers on illness and disability. She also draws heavily from her enchanting surroundings in Grasmere, the setting of William Wordsworth's famous contemplations--as well as those of his lesser-known sister, and one of Atkin's favorite muses, Dorothy--and home to the legend of St. Oswald. The author flits quickly among these sources, leaving them to jockey for readers' sustained attention. Atkin's lyricism, metaphors, and vulnerability battle with a scientific discussion of iron levels and a variety of medical tests, brief evaluation of England's National Health Service, and subtle warnings about climate change. The inclusion of so many disparate topics leaves most with only surface treatment, and the connections between them all come off as rather tenuous. Distilling an essential message from the many threads of Atkin's text is difficult, but beneath the mix of memoir, history, nature writing, and poetry hums a valuable lesson about illnesses and their cures, places and their boundaries, time and its trajectory, and, maybe most significantly, the relationship between nature and health. An empowered and patient story, at times murky and tedious, but still poignant. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.