Hello April, our old familiar friend. Life sure is crazy right now, isn’t it? If you’re feeling as displaced as the rest of us, that’s okay, we can relate. I noticed that you’re unseasonably warm still, and I’m not complaining because if this crazy mixed up world is gonna be all kinds of weirdness, I’ll take the sun and warmth for as long as I can.

I appreciate your kindness in holding off a little longer with the chill that will send us diving, head first under the quilts that cover our beds or are flung askew on the back of the furniture. There is comfort in wrapping up in them, but there’s also so much comfort in being wrapped in the long reaching tender rays of the sun’s own warmth.

Don’t misunderstand me, April, I do of course want your chill eventually.. the longing for star gazing on a crisp night as we huddle together under quilts sprawled on misshapen mattresses in the darkened backyard is something I yearn for while the kids are still willing to join me, and my back is still willing to put up with such shenanigans. Yes, we feel small and semi-insignificant under the dark hue of the night sky with it’s twinkling polka-dot stars, but there’s comfort in the familiar, and star gazing is familiar to me.

Fire pit weekends are also familiar and cozy, full of laughter and joy, so don’t stay away for too long with your cold fingers! Let them in, slowly, to greet us so we are prepared. Let us add our extra layers one week at a time as you festoon our yard with colourful leaves settling down for long winter naps.

I know some people complain to you April, about those leaves, but I am one who finds comfort in them.. their earthy smell that reminds me of years gone-by. Of raking up mountains of leaves and burying myself in them, taking large lung fulls of the beautiful crisp autumn smells that meant apples were in season and warm cozy kitchens with pots steaming on the stove, an oven baking a comforting meal, or a steaming cup of cocoa awaiting our cold hands and red cheeks upon the arrival back indoors.

So sprinkle your leaves liberally in my yard, I don’t mind! There may not be enough for giant piles to jump in, or even enough to stuff a small scarecrow, but that’s okay too. The little reminders will still be there, their yellow and gold hues splattered across the vivid green grass. Two seasons clashing into one, fighting to be heard the loudest.

If I could make a small request though, April, would you let the sun stay a bit more? Hold off the May clouds that settle around us like a mantle, encasing us in the fog of somber thoughts as we prepare for the long winter months ahead.

I’d be ever so grateful if you’d let the sun stick around just that much longer as we soak up every last minute of it’s warmth and brightness into ourselves lest we forget all about it. Perhaps I could indulge upon your good graces yet again and ask you to have a word with May?

Would you tell her that the world is feeling pretty shaky right now? Tell her, if you will, that we are all a little fragile, entombed in our homes awaiting word that the world is safe to enter again. We know that May will understand, after all she’d want us to enjoy her own beauty and marvels.. the flowers yet to bloom, the trees in their own splendour, the new life her rains will give.

Prepare her well for what she will encounter when her head peeks round the corner. Let her know that we aren’t afraid of her, we aren’t hiding from her. We miss her dearly, just as much as we miss each other.

If only she could bring some goodness to us all, the news, carried on her wings, that we most desperately seek to hear. Would you mind terribly April, to pass the word along?

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I wrote this one sunny April afternoon while the windows to my home library were flung wide open. Oh how I wanted to hold on to the last glimmers of autumn, the warmth of summer still lingering somewhere in the air, the hope that with a new season would come a new sense of change with all that we were enduring.

My father use to tell us that God has a great sense of humour, and I thought of Dad three days later when the new month arrived and brought with it the winter clouds, icy rains, and mountain chilled winds. I chuckled that morning as I pulled out a rain coat for my morning walk reflecting back on this piece I’d written.

It had no purpose other than to release emotions. It was part of my writing goals to write something, anything, during the month of April. I actually debated about sharing it because in my effort to offer a bit of beauty and with that a reprieve from the chaos of the world, yet I know that the final paragraphs hint at the isolation many of us were enduring {and perhaps still are} back in April.

However, when I reread this piece, what I felt was the changing of the seasons. I don’t know about you, but it’s a time of year I cherish. There is something so deliciously refreshing about saying goodbye to one season and welcoming another. While I don’t truely dislike any season, I confess that as the years rush by I am less a fan of the colder winter months, but still I like to welcome it and cheer each passing day by with the knowledge that brighter sunnier days are ahead.

And so in sharing this with you my hope is that you will not feel the closeness of walls and the frustrations of isolation, but that instead you can feel entwined in the changing of the seasons, the longing for one to stay while looking forward to the family traditions and joys of the season ahead.