April--Arrival and Departure

In his ground-breaking post-war poem, “The Waste Land,” T. S. Eliot argues:

April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land…

What was he thinking, I wonder, other than melancholy reflections of how Europe and specifically London’s landscape and societal mores were forever changed by W.W. I’s devastation, changed psychologically and geographically. Would he say the same now after a pandemic malingers into year three and a war rages on in Ukraine with daily revelations of new atrocities?

April is here—has been for 18 days and its arrival brought crocuses, daffodils and a myriad little green shoots poking through hard, cold soil—resurrection reminders ahead of this weekend’s Easter celebrations.

But April is significant also because though its beginning marks April Fools Day, its ending marks the first third of the new 2022 year.

Think about it. A third of the year is almost gone. What has life been like for you so far in 2022? What have you done with time, with money, with relationships, with goals? Have your New Year’s resolutions come and gone? Some of mine—like writing a monthly blog have stayed. Others like writing four hours each day, walking each day, having less sugar each day, have…well gone into dormancy at times.

Sometimes, I must confess, in the face of personal and global disasters on some of those cold April days, I’ve watched hope slipping and I've have had to remind myself as the Psalmist did, to be mindful to count blessings, to “put my hope” where it belongs--firmly in the hands of the Divine Caregiver. “Why then be downcast? Why be discouraged and sad? Hope in God! I shall yet praise him again. Yes, I shall again praise him for his help." (Psalm 42:5)

Since April snow is less frequently a visitor and sunshine shows up more often, warming my shoulders as I sit in the front room, I've been cheering on April. As a gardener, I know too that the April showers will bring the proverbial “May flowers.” So these days I’ve also felt buoyed up and encouraged.

Then there was the drama and trauma of that Oscar “moment” and all its media “razz-ma-taz” following the slap. April has not been boring in the least.

How’s your April been? What selfie or landscape pic would you say is your signature April shot? What’s been a good, living, laughing April moment? Here’s to hoping April is both good arrival and great departure for you as April becomes, not just the “cruellest month” or most complicated month, but the month that forms the bridge into spring and the next two thirds of a year.

Here’s to April—to all of it, for we are not fools but people who use time well--all of time’s tools.