April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.”
--T.S. Eliot
I never did understand this, even though I had to write an essay on this supposedly classic T.S. Eliot poem in an utterly useless English class in college. Living in New England, April seemed to me anything but cruel. You want cruel? How about November, where howling winds lash cold rains that plaster the not-yet-raked leaves into hideous accumulations. If you don’t succumb to your Puritanical guilt and deal with them then and there, they’ll be trapped under snow and ice, harboring a combination of mold spores, road salt, and sand. But, I digress.
This April, memories of Aprils long past seem to be seeking me out, for reasons I have yet to understand.
Follow along below the flowering cherry blossom for more...
I remember my Dad taking me to the First National grocery store on Saturday mornings when I was in elementary school, while my Mom and baby brother stayed home. I remember the joy I felt when he would buy me a hula hoop with its shush-shushy gravel marking each spin around my scrawny waist, or the vinyl-headed hobby horse, or the marbled plastic inflatable ball. Such simple things, but because he set aside his frugality and practicality with a conspiratorial wink to buy them for me, they meant the world to me. Now when I see the big bin with those inflatable balls appear in spring, my always-dry eyes tear up.
I remember particular dresses I wore in high school. Some that I made myself, others that I convinced my mother (who would have dressed me in her frighteningly quirky hand-me-downs) to buy so that I could have some slim chance of sneaking under the bell curve of what passed for normal attire. I remember my desperate quest to define myself as an individual, to embody in my clothing the surging emotions – from unwarranted euphoria to melodramatic despair - that overwhelmed me in adolescence.
I remember a senior-year kite-flying contest, where others designed and flew kites of amazing and not always aerodynamic design, while I walked away with “most colorful” for my rice-paper, balsa wood, and poster painted entry which, after a surprisingly successful flight, headed for the tall trees near the landfill. Little did I know that landfills would later loom large in my life.
I remember organizing my high school’s efforts for the “original” Earth Day with a few of my science nerd colleagues, who thought better of their selfless act of volunteering once they saw how few of us there were. Undaunted, I emerged as the head of our tiny committee and convinced the others that this was something important, and that our hard work and creativity would make a difference. They certainly made a difference to me, as I would eventually go on to a long and rewarding career in environmental work.
I remember waiting for letters from colleges, four of which rejected me in short order, to my dismay. As a teenager, I really did not need any more rejection than what I endured on a daily basis as a nerdy social outcast. I did get into my state university, and – mirabile dictu – I was accepted (after all these rejections) by the college with the highest entrance criteria on my list. Who can fathom the ways of the world?
I remember Vietnam War protests, including a candle-light vigil with my dad on our town green, which had also been the site of the start of the American Revolution.
“By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattl'd farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world”
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every April 19th, we would rise in the chilly and damp pre-dawn hours and head out to witness the re-enactment, imagining that if a handful of farmers could take on the Redcoats, pretty much anything was possible.
My dad, the consummate pacifist, found intriguing ways to convey important truths to me about the futility of war. For one of my “source themes” in high school, he suggested that I look into the possible relationship between the guerilla-like tactics of Francis “Swamp Fox” Marion in the Carolina swamps and the tactics of the Vietnamese during the American incursion. Long story short: even lacking sophisticated training, forces fighting to protect their homes, farms, and way of life are underestimated at their peril.
You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.
--Pablo Neruda
I remember a visit to Washington DC during an April vacation to meet my boyfriend’s family. I thought he was “the one”; they thought I was “the one”. He, as it would later turn out, had not fully bought into this elegant plan. Still, in these early days together, we enjoyed a week of cherry blossoms, paddle-boat rides on the Tidal Basin, night-time trespasses into the bamboo-filled woods of Dunbarton Oaks, amazing ethnic foods, and fevered romantic encounters.
In April, when every sense is overwhelmed, we imagine that anything is possible. It's probably better for us in the long run that we can't see around the corner to the less idyllic reality that awaits us. Unaware and full of optimism, we can revel in our joy for a little while; enough to form the memories that will later sustain us until they are supplanted by more lasting happiness.
April prepares her green traffic light and the world thinks Go.
--Christopher Morley
In April, something calls to us to get moving, to grab some boxes and clean out those closets, to sweep away the accumulated dust and grime, to make way for the new, the clean, the bright, and the beautiful.
Yet as we hasten to follow this urge, another quieter voice tells us to slow down, to linger awhile and recall the wonderful experiences of Aprils past. I plan to heed that voice, and savor for a while longer these memories I cannot bear to discard, at least not today.