April

It is assumed that Spring is a joyous season, full of new life, renewals, and expectations for happy times to come. It is the start of journeys of sorts, like The Canterbury Tales, containing stories full of foppery and irony that illuminate truths about human nature in the most rib tickling and side-busting ways. I see that in April, but I also see it as a season that is a collection of memories, like a broken mirror, that is pieced together to form smashed psyches and landscapes of deep pain and regret, very much like The Waste Land. It's a sort of Yin-Yang, and I could never have one without the other.

For the first time in several years, I'm back East, not in Seattle. In Seattle, the coming of Spring is not as defined as in the East. There are two and a half or three seasons out there, and Winter to Spring is less dramatic. Seattle Winters are rainy affairs with little snow and mostly above freezing temperatures, so the effect of going from very cold to t-shirt warm days does not have the same flair. Perhaps it was because of this that I lost my appreciation for Spring. My life was a seed that was buried under the cold Winter ground, and I was waiting for rebirth, but I didn't know it. Like in The Waste Land, "Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers." I was content in my hibernation, perhaps even afraid to venture out of my state because I feared more soul crushing. To be covered, insulated, and hidden was far better than being exposed.

Spring, or I should say, April, took me by surprise this year. I found it while walking the banks of the salt marsh across from where my father's parents once lived; in the low-tide channels that lazed in serpentine grace around the great big mud and grass island that filled the marsh. Swans, ducks, and geese nested on its furry back. Snowy Egrets and a Great Blue Heron stalked for food. I heard April in the wind that talked through the trees in a soothing voice of hope that said, still your heart, trust yourself, believe in who you've come to be. But most of all, I felt April in the sun on my skin, so warm, energizing, giving me strength to recreate my life anew.