“…If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze
that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house
and unlatch the door to the canary’s cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,
a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies …”
~ Billy Collins, excerpt from poem “Today”
April has arrived with a suitcase of living color and vibrant green! Azaleas flare in pink, white, lavender. Inside, I hide from bright light, replete with a splitting headache and a glowering blue knot on the forehead.
Last night (April Fool’s Day in fact) I went out to the dark back porch, bent over to prop the screen door open, and got whammed full-force in the forehead by a 30-pound bolt cutter handle. Luckily, I have a very thick skull (I know you’re smiling about that statement!) The handle missed my eye by two inches.
Hurrying to the freezer, I applied a bag of frozen coconut to the swelling lump. And cried. And cried some more. Taking my wounded noggin and deflated self, bag of coconut and streaming tears to the living room, with Kleenex box in hand, I cried more. I cried about pain, the fact that I should have turned the porch light on, and then the whole nine yards.
It had been a long, long time since I’d let myself have such a good howl. Sometimes we need to  feel sorry for ourselves, just a little bit. I cried because I had no one to feel sorry for me, to give a hug and offer sympathy; I cried because of worry about not making ends meet after leaving my day job back in January and living like a starving artist. I cried that there wasn’t a  comforting dog or cat to nudge up with sympathy, or parents to wipe away the tears and promise me that it’d all be better.
I cried because I felt alone in the world and the head hurt more, and…and…and….on the litany of hot tears rolled. It all came out…and obviously needed to. Pain just set it all in action. Later on, I took an Advil and went to bed to close the pity party!