Pieces of April, I call them, in the most surreal of my surreal Aprils

A soft guitar case, a gig bag, is white with purple butterflies, a zipper, side handle, backback-type straps and ... wait for it ... IT HAS POCKETS! Two! And it's mine. It has my new guitar inside and is resting upright in a chair and angled against the side wall in front of an open window with purple drapes and my rhody behind it. The rainbow suncatcher my friend gave me is casting rainbow rays onto the white wall of my tea-coffee nook. The butterfly tablecloth on my small table in there is partially visible in front. A sign for Community Coffee (get you some) is on the wall.

Published April 14, 2025

Whatever day it was — a week ago, I see — I told you I bought a guitar. I am slowly adding accessories. It’s therapeutic, 162 days into this leave from work.

It almost didn’t get to me, but my gig bag finally landed on my welcome mat (which has butterflies on it, of course). My building is filled with honest, kind neighbors.

A note on the bag containing my new guitar gig bag that was inside a box says: So sorry! I accidentally opened this package thinking it was mine. I took a photo to record the kindness. My blue butterfly wall hanging is visible above the bag, which has a white bag with purple butterflies on it.

Although I wasn’t 100 percent sure of the contents, I was fairly confident my guitar gig bag was inside.

I was right.

A soft guitar case, a gig bag, is white with purple butterflies, a zipper, side handle, backback-type straps and ... wait for it ... IT HAS POCKETS! Two! And it's mine. It has my new guitar inside and is resting upright in a chair in front of an open window with purple drapes and my rhody behind it. The rainbow suncatcher my friend gave me is casting rainbow rays onto the white wall of my tea-coffee nook. The butterfly tablecloth on my small table in there is partially visible in front.

It’s like it was made for me, yes?

I took several photos, so I might as well show them to you.

A soft guitar case, a gig bag, is white with purple butterflies, a zipper, side handle, backback-type straps and ... wait for it ... IT HAS POCKETS! Two! And it's mine. It has my new guitar inside and is resting upright in a chair in front of an open window with purple drapes that are closed for this photo. The butterfly tablecloth on my small table in there is partially visible in front.

There’s been a purple-ish makeover going on in my kitchen since late last year, and maybe someday soon I’ll clean enough to show you.

But how about that case, huh? It seems happy here.

When was the last normal April?

In April 2017, I was preparing to come out as transgender, slowly letting managers at work know. I laugh now thinking about how I gradually began changing what I wore to the office on Sundays, dipping my toes in the process. Those clothes were not nearly as dramatic a change as what was coming, but I needed the slow bloom.

On April 2, 2018, a co-worker totaled my parked car by crashing into it while I was at my desk on what had been a routine night of editing. My whole life changed. With lucky timing, I found an apartment six short blocks from work and moved into it from 8 miles away. I could walk if necessary. My car was repairable; I bought it back from the insurance company for $114. I had to pay two months’ rent for April, two months’ rent for May, plus moving expenses, plus a deposit, and I moved.

I spent the last 12 days of April 2019 in the hospital after emergency gallbladder surgery and a follow-up surgery. During that stretch I had a close call with death, and my voice has never been the same for whatever reason, but I survived.

April 2020 was early enough in the pandemic to … well, you know what that was like. My hours were cut from 40 a week to 22 on the heels of a major financial blow. By April 2021, I had a different job and was halfway between having my car stolen for the first time (Feb. 28) and the second time (June 20). Life put many obstacles in front of me.

My state of mind in April 2022 is obvious if you read the second story hyperlinked in the first paragraph above. We were still in a pandemic in April 2023, although the end of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency in May fueled the erroneous belief that we were in a post-COVID world. Some of us continued to take precautions. Still do.

I don’t remember April 2024.

Now it’s April 2025. Was 2016 the last “normal” April?

I don’t know where to go with this

After making the collage I used as a featured image for this post, I put it in a LinkedIn post.

A collage of photos: At top left, Karen Yin’s book “Whole Whale”; in the center, vertically from top to bottom, an acoustic guitar in a soft bag of white with purple butterflies; at upper right, a purple rectangle with white words that say, “Honor the best version of yourself”; below that is a postcard with blue butterflies in a nature scene; at lower right, an editor’s affirmation card says, “I am resourceful and stay updated on industry trends and best practices; and at lower left, an electric kettle close enough to mint green or turquoise to be in my kitchen rests on the top of a tea cart on purple liner along with a container of tea, what I call a disco ball for steeping tea, a spoon rest with lavender painted on it, and Rarity from My Little Pony.

I haven’t worked in 162 days. Sometimes, being away, even under awful circumstances you’d never wish upon anyone, you learn so much about your professional self. I have everything I need for big-league editing. In a given shift, I might need a book to inspire me more than to guide me, tea to refuel and warm me, reminders that recharge my battery, and even a creative outlet to help me solve a problem by setting it aside for a few minutes.

A version of this collage included a decorative ampersand against a lavender-themed drying mat I turned into a companion piece of wall art. This one feels right. I call it: Pieces of April I’ll look back on, some morning in May.

I’ve got resources at my fingertips and editing buddies near and far, although some might consider Rarity a stretch. My Wonder Woman action figure would laugh at them, though she’s mostly the strong, silent type.

You’ve got everything you need. You’ve got this. Be confident, be fearless. You know what you are doing. Let each piece of your April give you peace in your April.

Hat tips to Karen Yin and Nadia Geagea Pupa and many, many others represented in spirit here.

Possibly, hopefully, maybe, I’ll show you the other collage someday. Unsurprisingly, there’s a lot of maybe these days.

Why can’t I remember April 2024? Surely it’s part of the fog of 1,857 straight days of mostly being alone inside this tiny apartment, afraid of what I knew was coming in November and every day after.

There’s nothing else to say. I hope you’ll enjoy the images. Pieces of April I’ll look back on, on some morning in May.

Why is this the most surreal (and scary) of Aprils for me? I’m a trans woman in America in 2025. Enough said.

If you spot a grammatical error or some other inconsequential mistake, please know:

Jones Don’T Care GIFfrom Tommy Lee Jones GIFs

Sending love.

♥

Thank you

If you appreciate what you find here and feel generous, you can check out the Tip Jar. Thank you for reading. Here’s a butterfly for you.

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Oh, one more thing

Calm down, folks, it was just an attempted assassination of a Jewish Democratic governor and his family on the first night of Passover, it’s not like somebody spray painted a dick on a Cybertruck.

— The Volatile Mermaid (@ohnoshetwitnt.bsky.social) April 13, 2025 at 7:24 PM

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