Goodbye March

the half-drunk, unpredictable, unreliable member of the calendar family

As a resident of New Jersey, I have never been a big fan of March. She is unpredictable and tempts us each week with the carrot of spring while bitch slapping us senseless with winter’s bitterness. The cold rain dances on the edge of freezing, changing states from one moment to the next. It isn’t pleasant. And so, I am not a fan of March, and I say good riddance again.

March is the one we run to when we’re desperate after months of winter and darkness. But when we reach March’s open arms we are repelled, repulsed by the reality of what we are running toward. All month we vacillate, running to her and bracing against her embrace. She isn’t the partner who you dream of, but she’ll do until something better comes along, namely April.

April is the pretty girl or the boy with the warm smile. April brings green, and how desperate we are for color after four months of brown. We are smitten with April. We run barefoot on the grass on the half-frozen earth. And although it chills us to the bone, we don’t care. We will even take the rain, because it no longer turns to flakes. The threat is over. We relax and watch the earthworms dance.

In April everyone returns to my backyard town square. The birds greet me with outstretched wings, swooping from one tree to the next in excited preparation. The red buds on the tree branches are promissory notes. They are announcements flashed on the Appalachian ridge like a neon billboard. The buds excite everyone. How are we excited about small protrusions on the tree branches? They are as exciting as a pregnant mother. They are like having tickets to an event that came to your mailbox one day. You hang them on your refrigerator. You want to look at them all the time. It is not the tickets, or in this case the nubs, that are exciting but what comes next - the performance. Each year I catch myself sneaking a peak at the trees in the yard, on the ridge, or in the dense woods I drive through. The anticipation grows and you wait for the beginning. You wait for the first leaves to be born to the new season, just as we have waited last year and the year before that.

It has been a year since we have witnessed the rebirth of spring, but it never fails to amaze. It is like watching a favorite movie again and again. You recite the lines. You know the timing. And it thrills you every damn time. I am ready to push March off for good. I am no longer desperate enough to embrace this half-drunk, unreliable partner whose unpredictability has burned me too many times. I’d rather focus on getting work done so that when the better suitor comes along, I’ll have some free time to go out and play. I’ll wait for April, thank you very much.

Am I the only one bitter at March?