This morning I opened the back door and sat on the steps off my house. The air is different, warmer. Colors seem brighter, warm air is moving in. March is such a trick, pretending it’s warm and all, full of longing. I have been cold for so long. Now, though, it is almost May and there are bright cotton-ball trees, and the dogs chase rabbits, and just the other day I saw a child and her grandmother in a cardboard bakery off their front lawn, selling mud pies.
Spring brings migraines. They can happen at anytime; I live in a nervous kind of stream. Anything could come and when they do, I sit on the ground with my forehead in my arms, knees up, like I am receiving a message. There are visions. There are colors and shapes even when my eyes are closed. It is so painful that all I can do is surrender. The sun grows bigger. My migraine moves to the side, like the first swim in a glassy lake, arms straight and then woosh, the lake splits in half. I have to stop everything.
The migraines often happen in hot places or under fluorescent lighting: after a day in the office, the climbing gym, grocery stores. Stress, dehydration, a drop in barometric pressure are all triggers. And yet here it is, a beautiful spring. It melts me, changes me. We are all becoming something else.
Yesterday, I drove an hour to the Skagit River. There was a bakery nearby with one lady running it all. She told me, as I pointed to a baked good, that the sun made her feel mellow. I envied her emotions and how they sat on her like a coat. She exchanged energy willingly.