Life and Lovely Things helps women fall in Love with life again…

We are in full swing, folks! The showers did in fact bring flowers and maybe some frenzy too. May showcases full-on evidence that we are alive - the bustle, the to and fro, the busy. There are coffee dates to be had, lighter clothes to pull out of storage, and plenty of weeds to pull and while I agree wholeheartedly with Wayne Dyer - “the difference between a flower and a weed is a judgment,” - I still spent three hours last week searching for lettuce and carrot sprouts.

We’re here, we’re alive, we’re excited AND we’re down on the ground, tending, sometimes taxed, and day-to-daying too. If you’re like me (the most introvertive extrovert any of you know), you couldn’t be more pleased about the sunshine and you might also be secretly dreading that dinner party or missing those quiet evenings of journaling and reflection. What a conundrum.

It’s Spring at last! Yet April necessitates patience and patience, by definition, is hard. Otherwise it would just be waiting. April provides an even more tangible promise of euphoria, while simultaneously requiring us to sit a while longer in transition. Our expectations begin to get the better of us. The snow has given way - well, usually (I’m looking at you Ohio) - but to what? There are days of warmth and sunshine to be sure, but very often there is rain and even a blustery reminder of the winter past. I hurry to my community garden plot to water my plants and keep them from burning up in near 90 degree weather, only to hurry back two days later to cover them and protect them from possible frost. “Gah!,” I project in my being. “Just hurry up and get there…arrive already,” my essence seems to say. But there are gifts here, in this space and time of year, to ease the hearts of even the most impatient.

“In tickly-toe grass,
a buttercup offers up
yellow nose kisses”

— Flower, Betsy Snyder

The breeze is faintly dewy. Bird song is welcomed by the golden-pink dawn. Crocuses and snowdrops dot the horizon with pigment, and something like the romantic haze of an impressionist painting begins to form. I watch intently and find myself caught in the slow, exquisitely deep inhale that is the return of Spring.

“Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby”

— April Rain Song, Langston Hughes

I sat on the front steps of my 1925 bungalow, surveying the street lined with its brick houses and big trees. A precious little leather-bound notebook lay next to me, beckoning me to pen my thoughts and reflections. I was in a sentimental mood so I obliged, opening the book and thumbing the pages until I reached the first blank one. It was full of promise and so seemed the world around me.

I often hurry March in my desire to get to Spring, overlooking the quiet beauty and rising energy of this month. It is a month of transition, of endings and new beginnings. It holds both melancholy and anticipation and suspends them together in wonder. It’s gifts come slowly in whispers at first and then all at once in celebratory cheers. It is a time of nuance and subtlety, begging us to tune-in and be surprised and delighted. I love how these writers capture the essence of this special moment in the year. Enjoy!