Yesterday was the last day of the month.  Although it was grey and misty outside I spent time earlier walking the yard just to get some air. The last snow has melted but we’re expecting another storm mid week. Spring takes its time here, so I sat in front of a comforting fire as I wrote while my dog Wanda snuffled quietly in her bed at my feet. She loves a nice fire.

Since seeing a journal prompt last week from The Clearing, Katherine May’s Substack, on the effect of seasonal transition, I’ve had March on my mind in a reflective way. After wintering so long, mood swings are inevitable, and for me, the life experiences I recognize have caused them. My attitude about March has not only formed over my lifetime, it has congealed. 

As a child, March represented no more than the promise of a week’s break from school. I’d get a new dress my mother sewed on her old black Singer — the machine she taught me to sew on. Often, the dress looked exactly like my younger sister’s new dress because my mother could only purchase fabric in precut quantities. If my sister liked the dress, it was a good thing because she’d get to wear mine after I’d outgrown it. We’d get a new pair of shoes and perhaps a hat for church on Easter Sunday when it happened to fall in March.

On that day, our family would squeeze into our faded blue VW bug and, with other military families stationed in Southern Spain in the mid to late 60s, head to the country for an egg hunt and hot dogs roasted over a camp fire. It signified summer was approaching, promising warm days of wearing cotton shirts and shorts, of bare feet and fun playing with neighborhood friends. It promised longer days of light and later bedtimes. 

My first boyfriend’s birthday was early in March — the boy I met in high school and was engaged to marry six years later but didn’t. And then there was my first husband, the father of my two older boys. His birthday was mid March. It’s always been a curiosity that the first two serious relationships I had with men had birthdays a week apart. 

Things changed after our divorce six years later when I went back to school to finish my degree and became a teacher. I married my husband of nearly 40 years as soon as I finished my student teaching assignment. With two young boys, March still represented that a family egg hunt would be forth coming and perhaps a baked ham my mother never failed to tell me reminded her of the picnics her family had. She didn’t like ham. 

Spring sprouted early in that sunny corner of the world and with a yard that had endless possibilities, I enjoyed being able to plant things and watch them grow. The time spent in the yard was a much needed break from the demands of my job, raising my boys, and sharing our home with my mother. I have fond memories of gardening with her there. One spring, She moved out in dramatic fashion on Easter Sunday and from that point on, I struggled to care for our half-acre property alone. Life was easier without her there, but the yard was never the same.

Fast forward a decade. Over the long relationship I’ve had with my husband, March took on new meaning. Because the nature of his profession requires long hours during certain times of the year, March became “The Stretch”. It meant the end of busy season was in sight, more a much needed relief than the childhood excitement over summer’s approach. Because he’s a devout college basketball fan, the NCAA’s March Madness tournament provided motivation to get not only him, but me to the finish line mid-April. It meant not so fashionably late dinners of high carb comfort food and a favorite show before bed to unwind — or at least try to. After my early retirement, I went into high gear to support this effort but discovered something else in the process: myself. 

Early Spring and long days alone meant I could generally explore what I wanted. It wasn’t so much that I couldn’t before, but I suppose I took advantage of the time I had at this point in a much different way. I no longer had a child in school because our son, like his much older brothers, had reached adulthood.

I spent a lot of time walking and exploring the chaparral covered hillsides near our home. I started writing in earnest, and became more serious about photography. I took on DIY projects at home. I planned wonderful trips that gave us both something to look forward to once the dust had settled. All in all the years between 50 and 60 for me were highly creative and productive. In part, I have March to thank for that. 

It was March six years ago that I flew to Maine to look at a house I’d found during one of my Sunday real estate excursions on line. My husband had changed firms and as much as he had hoped that would have helped level out the stress he was dealing with, it wasn’t working. I’m fairly certain he would have agreed to any house I’d found at that point and I was desperate to find it. For me, the call of Elsewhere was stronger than ever so the timing was perfect.

By March of 2020 we’d been in our new old house for nearly a year, excited about the changing seasons and busy creating our new life. The winter hadn’t delivered as much snow as we’d wanted, but no matter. It was all new to us. I purchased a ridiculous number of seed packets — both flowers and veggies. Since we had a basement I decided to learn about starting seeds under grow lights to give them a head start for our short growing season. It wasn’t long before I learned that March is perfect for this sort of thing unless we were like others who, wanting to avoid mud season, flew to warmer climes to sit in the sun. Since we’d lived in the sun all our lives, it wasn’t something we were interested in. 

My husband worked in his home office, and I in the basement with my seeds. March felt promising watching hundred of tiny sprouts push their way to the surface and stretch toward the light. When I wasn’t in the basement, I, like seemingly everyone else during COVID lockdowns, was learning to make sourdough bread. I painted rooms to reflect our taste instead of the previous owner’s. We took country drives to get out of the house occasionally. We joined friends for dinner on hockey nights. We waited for signs of Spring. 

I learned that in March Crocus are the first bulbs to appear — bulbs planted by former owners of our house long ago. They were a cheerful sight in the dreary brown of everything else. Before the end of the month, finally, it snowed once again. I remember being so excited. The unpredictability of the weather helped make the seasonal changes interesting. Summer would arrive soon enough. It was April just ahead with large galvanized bins purchased to build our veggie garden in. In the meantime, new growth was visible each day, with buds on shrubs swelling. Bright green moss grew plump on the granite steps out front. Birdsong was more audible. Walks to town without having to worry about slipping on ice more frequent. But not all was promising.

I learned that first March that someone had been paying attention to my husband. It was a harmless message left by the person paying the attention, but it caused an ominous feeling in me that persisted into April. I remember a sense of desolation but attributed it to the dismal news about COVID we heard every day. Early in May I learned she had been in a relationship with him since late November. Learning about it has altered the way I think about that first year living in a place we were both excited to be. It’s my Ides of March. As much as we have transitioned through the trauma of it all, I understand that now it’s an inextricable part of who I am and of what March represents. Planting seeds, watching bulbs shoot up… It’s all bound tightly together like a ball of yarn — one that unravels less and less with each passing year.

Six years have passed. To some extent, March has resumed what it has always been: a time of transition, of regrowth, of promise. It’s a reminder that life is about change and adaptability. It promises longer days of light and of learning. Of understanding the difference between the intricacies of life we have control over and those we don’t. Of finding myself once more, but forever changed.

“Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are always in transition, if we could only realize it. Nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we like to dream about. The off-center, in-between state is an ideal situation, a situation in which we don’t get caught and we can open our hears and minds beyond limit.”  

— from When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön