March was a tornado of celebration and pain. Diametric oppositions or two sides of the same birthday coin? Yesterday, Virginia Woolf reminded me in A Room of One’s Own “By hook or by crook, I hope that you will possess yourselves of money enough to travel and to idle, to contemplate the future or the past of the world, to dream over books and loiter at street corners and let the line of thought dip deep into the stream.”
If anything, that is what my migraines are doing for me right now, they are forcing me to idle and to loiter and to let the line of thought dip deep into the stream of consciousness and unconsciousness as I move all day everyday in and out of the rooms (of my own) flicking off light switches, closing curtains, jotting down notes in notebooks, petting cats, and wishing that more raindrops were pelting my windows. Because there is something about the outside matching the inside that feels comforting.
When there is this melee on the inside and this endless sunshine on the outside, the disorientation is consuming. I want to stand on my rooftop in my giant bug-eyed Prada sunnies that take up half my face; my sunscreen so thick it looks like paste--the kind that the kid who next to you in kindergarten wouldn't stop eating; layer upon layer of cotton sheltering my skin; old-fashioned wide-brimmed, pointy witch hat on; screaming at everyone that passes by: “Put a fucking sweater on! I hate the fucking summer!”
All those fresh young things, walking around topless, bottomless, eating avocados fresh from the tree, gnawing on the pits for extra nutrients or whatever, popsicle juice dripping down their chins, flip flops slapping the concrete, just a line of zinc on their noses, suntan oil glistening on their shoulderblades, fringe peppering their everythings, particularly their midriffs—in their health, I cannot even an inkling of me.
I'm hiding from the sun, hiding from life, hiding from the cigarettes and smog and car-honking/ambulance-blaring that could accost my senses and send me into The Migraine Blitzkrieg of 2016 in the blink of a fake-eyelashed eye.
So here I am…really, wearing a sweater sewn out of four different kinds of cat hair, many mis-matching leopard prints, and unwashed hair. The right balance or natural light, electric light and candlelight, air filter plunged in and running, I'm keeping hydrated, I can't let myself get hungry or tired or cranky. I'm a damn good migraine wet-nurse.
When there is this melee on the inside and this endless sunshine on the outside, the disorientation is consuming. I want to stand on my rooftop in my giant bug-eyed Prada sunnies that take up half my face; my sunscreen so thick it looks like paste--the kind that the kid who next to you in kindergarten wouldn't stop eating; layer upon layer of cotton sheltering my skin; old-fashioned wide-brimmed, pointy witch hat on; screaming at everyone that passes by: “Put a fucking sweater on! I hate the fucking summer!”
All those fresh young things, walking around topless, bottomless, eating avocados fresh from the tree, gnawing on the pits for extra nutrients or whatever, popsicle juice dripping down their chins, flip flops slapping the concrete, just a line of zinc on their noses, suntan oil glistening on their shoulderblades, fringe peppering their everythings, particularly their midriffs—in their health, I cannot even an inkling of me.
I'm hiding from the sun, hiding from life, hiding from the cigarettes and smog and car-honking/ambulance-blaring that could accost my senses and send me into The Migraine Blitzkrieg of 2016 in the blink of a fake-eyelashed eye.
So here I am…really, wearing a sweater sewn out of four different kinds of cat hair, many mis-matching leopard prints, and unwashed hair. The right balance or natural light, electric light and candlelight, air filter plunged in and running, I'm keeping hydrated, I can't let myself get hungry or tired or cranky. I'm a damn good migraine wet-nurse.
And then, on the rare and momentous occasions when the pain has dissipated and trickled out of my earholes, when my brain is empty of sandworms and sandstorms and I'm left looking at these endless to-do lists (filled, of course) with doctors appointments and prescriptions that need to be filled and what do I do? I go to Disneyland, of course! Because in that magical fairyland of twinkle lights, white chocolate-kissed coconut macaroons, doom-buggy rides, not-really-poisoned poisoned apples, and endless unbirthday parties there is a freedom to just be.