Writing "April"

Crocuses in my front lawn

I can't tell you what a relief it is to be able to write "April."  To have this lovely word, this lovely month now part of our experience.  To have beaten the winds of winter with its cold, icy, grey days.  Winter (for me, anyway) always brings a built-in tension.  Will there be so much snow on the roof that I'll need to hire someone to shovel it off?  Will I have an appointment just when a storm comes up both icing and whiting-out the road?  Will the power go out and, with it, the heat?

But with April, when I take my snow shovel back inside for another six months, I find that I can existentially relax.  I can look out, not to a white landscape (as beautiful as that can be) but to one that is sprouting a healthy, rejuvenating green!!  (Well, not quite yet, but soon.)  The sunshine is strong enough now that I can sit on my front step and soak it in or lie on my sofa when the sun angles through the window there.

Even before the crocuses, the snowdrops appear.

Of course, spring and summer bring on the ticks, midges, black flies, mosquitoes, even unbearable heat and humidity to say nothing of construction season with the sound of back-up beeps, road work, bridge repair, plus the neighbor's barking dog because my windows are now open. 

But just writing the word "April" somehow loosens a lot inside me.  I sometimes think I should return to my old haunts on the California coast.  But family is here now and so am I, appreciating a month that stirs the juices!

Pansies and violas are always the garden center's first flowers.

As an aside ... this first week of April also marks the second anniversary of my posting this blog.