a summary of recent things.

Within the warm, post-winter air, I swear, must be a drug.

I walk outside this morning. The air smells sweet with fresh-cut grass, and lilacs. This season sedates me, cradles my head and lays me back into a contented, unyielding state of daydreams. My inner child pulls at my hand, tugging me away from routine, responsibility, obligation. Anything that even resembles work, she insists I escape.

“We need to go,” she says, “There is so much out there!”

I am intoxicated with nostalgia, dragged backward into memories of the black road moving rapidly behind me in the middle of the desert somewhere. There is something about Spring, that demands variety, adventure, something to make you feel as new and alive as the world has once again become.

A few weeks ago, Drew comes down with a cold. A week later, I come down with a cold. I have a photo shoot, then a wedding, and another wedding, three days in a row. Not much time for rest. I can hear my mother’s concern over the phone, “Meghan, you need to lay down. You’re sick, you need rest.” I drink more caffeine and push through, because you can’t reschedule a wedding day.

I have dates with friends that I can’t cancel, don’t want to cancel. If I cancelled, I wouldn’t see them until June. I can’t cancel because these individuals are my sanity. I have band practice, because we have a show in a week, which also can’t be cancelled because you don’t cancel your band’s second show that’s going to take place somewhere with an actual stage, with an actual sound tech and actual drum mics.

I am coughing, here and there. Which turns to coughing constantly. Which leads to a night of a hopeful dose of Nyquil, yielding a foggy mentality, but no sleep, because of the coughing. The clock keeps changing numbers, and I am still awake. Watching The Office again, because what else do you do at 4 a.m.?

I fall asleep, finally, at 6:30. What is it about the sun coming up that seems to raise a white flag? Drew kisses me goodbye, leaves on a business trip. I sleep until 1:30 p.m. I schedule a doctor’s appointment. Moving is difficult. My entire face hurts. And my teeth. I use two entire boxes of tissues and all of the toilet paper. The doctor tells me it’s Bronchitis and a sinus infection.

There’s something so validating about being told by a medical professional with an expensive degree that, yes, something is wrong with you. Here are some drugs.

I go home. I take showers in the morning and baths at night, because the hot water soothes the battle going on inside of my nose and throat and chest. What a luxury it is, to be able to breathe through your nose. You don’t appreciate things until they’re gone. How lucky I am to live in a time with antibiotics. If this were the 1800’s, I’d probably be on my death bed.

Though it kind of feels like I am anyway.

I reschedule photo shoots. I lay. Kind friends bring me food and supplies. Three days alone and coughing. I wonder what on earth I would do if I had kids right now. What do sick moms do? How?

So many tissues. So much of The Office. I really focus on it. This is a serious viewing, with pausing when I have to leave the room to pee, rewinding the parts I had never noticed before. I’m sure the world will hate me for this (because the world is good at that), but I almost like it better after Michael leaves. It’s fun to get to know the other characters in greater depth.

Also, I’m not saying that spicy Thai soup is the cure to Bronchitis, per se, but I am saying there’s a lack of research there.

It’s May, suddenly. I feel a little better every day. We play our little show at Kilby Court. I’m always surprised at how many people show up. All of these people I love. Two sticks in my hands, I sit behind the rest of the band and my drum set. I see the faces of my dad, mom, brother, so many friends. I drum my little heart out. I feel like I’m buzzing, electric, I feel like me.

I realize that I’m a little bit addicted to this. Playing music is another level of being. Because, most days, I walk around feeling like almost every interaction I have is pointless. But I’ll get to that another time, in another post. It’s just there seems to be so little room in life for real connection, the honest conversations I’m interested in having. I really have to work to make them happen, find the people who want to have them. I guess that’s why art exists in the first place, as an outlet for the things you feel, but don’t feel able to say.

When I’m playing music, watching music being made, it feels like connection. It feels sacred, otherworldly. And that might sound cheesy, but I don’t know what else to call it.