April gets off to a twisty start

But I don't think it's trying to be cruel, right?

Before we begin…

How does this April feel versus the Aprils of your past? Is it really the cruelest month?

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April does its thing

Photo by Jack Blueberry on Unsplash

I am traveling this week. One of those last-minute, urgent kind of trips that reminds me that life is what happens to people who plan. When you read this, I will be knee deep in family but, hopefully, not snow. Before I got the phone call, I was listing the things that came to mind when I thought of April. Here are some of them:

• April from the Latin verb aperire, to open.

• My son was born on April 20. I didn’t do it on purpose.

• Book events bust out all over in April. So do the poppies that have infiltrated my neighbor’s planted garden.

• When I was growing up in New Hampshire, it often snowed in April. God’s version of an April Fool’s prank. It made me cry sometimes when I saw those big soft flakes filling the wide-open throats of those tender blossoms.

• No one seems to know how April Fool’s Day became a thing, but it does seem to highlight that just when we think we are emerging from the dark days into the longer, lighter ones, the cosmos, or god, or mother nature, or whoever is at the controls, likes to mess with us just because they can.

• A lot of folks will be hitting the streets to shout their resistance on Saturday. I was planning to be one of them. Wherever you are, if you are out there, know that I am urging you on and doing what I can on the phone and by mail. You are my heroes.

That’s as far as I got. Who knows where I would have gone with this one? I can offer you a few other tidbits, though:

• A BIG thank you for helping to keep the laughs rolling in the comments to Find The Funny which, due to a glitch in my fingers, appeared twice two weeks ago. Keep ‘em coming.

• Because, however, April is National Poetry Month and it is a month when hope is especially important (especially now), here’s an infusion of poetry and hope from last April’s post, What is hope? It featured two poems, “Want” by Lisa Miller and Wendell Berry’s “The Peace of Wild Things.”

• This, from

  Sari Fordham
  in a piece for Electric Literature: “Seven Books To Read When the World is on Fire”

• When books met propaganda in the U.S. - Kelly Jensen looks back at wartime propaganda aimed at U.S. citizens during WWII and contrasts that with what is happening today.

That’s it folks. Gotta go. I will miss you. Not sure what the immediate future looks like. Hope to connect again in a couple of weeks but I will resist making a solid plan until April is well behind me.

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Ciao for now!

Gratefully yours,

Betsy

P.S. And now, your moment of Zen…and mine

Calling for Your Contribution to “Moment of Zen”:

What is YOUR moment of Zen? Send me your photos, a video, a drawing, a song, a poem, or anything with a visual that moved you, thrilled you, calmed you. Or just cracked you up. This feature is wide open for your own personal interpretation.

Come on, go through your photos, your memories or just keep your eyes and ears to the ground and then share. Send your photos/links, etc. to me by replying to this email or simply by sending to: elizabethmarro@substack.com. The main guidelines are probably already obvious: don’t hurt anyone -- don’t send anything that violates the privacy of someone you love or even someone you hate, don’t send anything divisive, or aimed at disparaging others. Our Zen moments are to help us connect, to bond, to learn, to wonder, to share -- to escape the world for a little bit and return refreshed.

I can’t wait to see what you send!

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