It took 26 years, but I get it now. There's something about that movement from winter into warmer, kinder conditions that just confuses the hell out of most of us. Particularly here in Virginia, the cold and hot seasons last so long... any semblance of calm seasons, spring and fall, and we don't know what to do with ourselves. Beautiful weather is something we're not used to... and I wonder if the rare blessing of a pretty day gets us uncomfortable.
Is it like too much of a good thing? Don't we know those other winters? The ones where life seems like a waiting room... and the news never gets better. Your birth father is in the hospital because he won't stop eating hot dogs and dreamsicles. Your best friend will probably have to move again and further away this time. That relative who keeps telling you you're fat as they shove another oatmeal and fake cream cookie down her throat. You are misunderstood and lose a connection to a friend forever and are walked on, discarded, no matter how much you try to defend your position. Your pastor or rabbi tells you to stop "giving power" to people... You can't control anyone but yourself.
So, can you? Do you find a way to accept the lovely day and control yourself?
April turned out to have nothing but grouchy things to say to me. She wanted to show me that Life isn't fair... how quaint. You've been hearing it your whole life, she must have tried to say to me, So, you might as well apply it and see why they say it. I must have shrugged and she took that as a challenge... Did I mean it that way? Probably... which makes me a little more naive than even I was willing to admit.
But, this time, April, has been here in other years, other months, and in other, less appealing ways. How do I take the time? How do I approach the phone call from a company that still thinks I owe it money when I've actually overpaid them? How do I see birds in the window that my cat tried to imitate in sound to lure them closer? How do I take a generally lovely Spring Day in Virginia in April when it's been a long, unkind winter?
I doubt I'm different from most. I swallowed hard with each piece of news that wasn't flattering to the season. I turned on Pandora and listened to Tori Amos and Regina Spektor... Hell, as I write I'm listening to Paul Simon ("April Come She Will") and something popular I don't recognize... the music understands, right? Good thing that's up to me... the music.
What else? The pastor said how I respond is up to me.
Great.
So, you accept you can't control what happens to you... You feel better in winter, you were accustomed to it. You even got to the point where you believed something sweet like "Things happen for a reason" and you locate all the good stuff that came out of something hard... Yes, your biological father has been hospitalized but you've reconnected with your siblings who now have more evidence that you're there for them... And what about that Aunt Gertrude or Uncle Barney who keeps telling you you're fat... you've lost 10 pounds just worrying about exams while your relative is 5'6" and over 200 pounds. And so what if your friend isn't who you thought she was... at least you know now before you pour anymore into that relationship than you ever should have... and besides, your best friend will probably write once in a while and call... she's been better and better about that in the past year, and you know it.
You tell yourself stupid things... comforting, but, not entirely accurate. Things like, "If that bitch hadn't dragged me to that party, I wouldn't be engaged to this wonderful man I know now" or "If she hadn't kicked me out over something moronic, it wouldn't have been so easy to leave and I wouldn't have this more comfortable apartment surrounded by my own things and a happier, calmer cat."
The Buddhists, I think, have a teaching about good and bad. That the two go in turn so much that no one can really call anything "good" or "bad". Things just... are. We are the ones who attach labels to events and people and things and we screw ourselves up that way... by not letting things merely "be"... Things just are.
Real helpful, right?
Because what things are are April, and April is the cruelest month... because she melted the cold of ignorance and revealed what was really in the water the whole time... because she's the bearer of uncomfortable news... but, at least someone told you.
Perhaps May will tell me how to not care so much about April.
