It is springtime OFFICIALLY and while my last memo expressed the cold, hard emergence into a muddy spring, now everything is tulips and daffodils (or as my mother says when reciting the Wordsworth poem, “daff-OH-dils”). Yes, the vales and hills are greening up quite nicely round here and casting petals and smiles in its wake. It is a time of optimism, right? I had a lovely weekend listening to Beyonce’s new album and the plethora of birds outside my window. We just celebrated Easter with some friends yesterday and ate good food and sat and laughed and reminisced which was great fun. There are big, puffy clouds drifting overhead and greening up our lawn for us. I feel pretty optimistic today and that comes with a little guilt. Is it foolish to embrace the optimism of spring when it will inevitably pass? Maybe, but I am leaning in. Even though today is April Fool's day, I am determined to embrace this springtime optimism even if it makes me foolish. I am reminded of the cynical voice of Edna St Vincent Millay this first day of April:
Spring
BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.
Edna had issues. Who knows what she knew those many Aprils ago when she felt sucker punched by the renewal and possibility of spring. April is foolish, I suppose, but at some point one wonders when cynicism becomes persistent. I think there is a time to feel cynicism and despair and then there is a time to (as Cher says), “SNAP OUT OF IT!” So I embrace it, I am feeling pretty optimistic these days. The larger reason for my optimism is that I am feeling better lately. I am on the journey of perimenopause and I begin each day with hesitant trepidation—wondering which menopausal malady will visit itself upon me. With these maladies comes a sense of dread that I will never be my best self again or that it will become too difficult to be my best self again. I am trying to lose weight, I gained weight during the panini and it has taken up residence. I am trying to build my flexibility again, I used to be flexible, I used to be able to do the splits. And I am building my strength again, my acupuncturist friend said that weightlifting can mitigate the symptoms of perimenopause. Ugh, it is a journey, nothing is instantaneous. I wrote about all this last year and I find that I am in roughly the same place I was. My efforts to lose weight, build flexibility, or get strong are not as easy as they were in my younger days. Being healthy is a trial and error process and it is full of discouraging moments. Just like life.
I have had a lot of conversations with people about discouragement during this first quarter of 2024. From major setbacks to health setbacks to grief to little turkeys that just trip us up, people have been feeling discouraged. And I think in the difficult times we are living in, discouragement feels heavier and more grievous than ever before. Not getting into the desired college, not getting the sought after job, experiencing a loss, having a health setback, these are hard things to recover from and they have to be recognized and grieved over. We have to let loss have its moment, otherwise it will muddy up any attempt to press onward. As a person who regularly (and willingly) wallows in pity parties, I know how discouragement moves from brief visitor to resident squatter in the blink of an eye. Fish, houseguests, and discouragement have a shelf life, and it is important to recognize the expiration date when it comes.
But recognizing discouragement when it comes and climbing out of the pit of despair are a little different. In addition to amplifying the feelings of discouragement, setbacks can make us forget all the skills we have previously used to get ourselves out of that mindset and onto a more hopeful path. The other day I was doing a particularly challenging exercise and it was so hard and I got frustrated. I remembered hiking with my dad. Hiking with Howard is like spinning a wheel of fortune: you could venture gloriously to a grand vista untouched by any other hiker, or you could arduously bushwhack in inclement weather to a point ten miles away from your car. I refer you to the photo below which Dad created to describe the many types of adventure to be had on an outing with him. In any excursion, hiking with my dad is more about the journey than the destination. This is not to say that Dad is a callous, selfish hiker, no, no Howard is an excellent hiking coach. He brings hot tea to combat altitude sickness, he sets a strong but doable pace, and he reminds people to take “rest steps”. The “rest step” is when you are climbing a particularly steep slope and you pause during each step to take a full breath. If the altitude is challenging you, take rest steps. If the fatigue has set in, take rest steps. If the person in front of you has the “altitooties” (flatulence from the altitude), take many rest steps and create a buffer zone. Listen, I hate hiking; I hate the blisters on my feet, I hate the uncertainty of destination, and I hate crumbling Nature Valley granola bars, but I love hiking with my dad. I know he will always make the awful parts of hiking tolerable.
Discouragement abates with time, but sometimes we have to help it pack. Patience is often lost in the process of change and transition. The only certainty is that there will be setbacks. But with patience, we can find out way to the optimism of spring without feeling like a fool. I know that I am the babbling, optimistic idiot strewing flowers today. Maybe it will last for a week, maybe a month, maybe an hour from now I will be in sad sackville, eating chips on the sofa and wondering where my youth went. The thing I need to remember in those moments is the rest step. In discouragement it is important to let the setback have its moment, but then to pack it up and keep climbing. I know how impatient I am that my life be magically transformed, that my flexibility be magically restored, that my menopause not create an impending sense of doom in my soul. It just doesn’t work that way. This living is hard work and it is inevitably about the journey and not the destination. It will get easier to do the challenging things when we practice moving forward. Keep breathing, the only way to change your life is one step at a time.
Howard once recited the "April" poem during a pause at the Brideg table and his dad - Ed - thought when Howard recited the last line he said "screwing flowers". Still laughing,
Reminds me of the time Howard took Marti and me (and some other fellow) up Long's Peak. Marti and I got so sick that we both wanted to die. Howard just said "OK, so long" and walked on.