a prelude for march

I remember as a child at school, the calendar for March was decorated with a lion on one day, a lamb on the next, a cute and literal reference to the old saying that it comes in like one creature and out like another. March is the month when the promise of spring is fulfilled, and when we find out whether the bargain we struck with nature this year was Faustian or not--the saying is not strictly accurate, but it gets at the deeper truth that spring is chaos. Spring is the time when old man Winter's endless battle with Summer resumes: she is still weak and sluggish from her long imprisonment but his strength is waning. And what a terrible thing it can be when powers at their lowest lash out at one another.

This month was a month of bad news and near misses, and I've been mostly avoiding delving into it in an effort to spare my mental health, but if this is to be a faithful chronicle I would be negligent if I didn't at least mention the anti-vax rioters in Canada who have been laying siege to the country, shutting down the borders and occupying the capital; Texas's all-out assault on the lives of LGBT people, specifically trans people; Russia's invasion of Ukraine, giving the sabers of Western politicians some opportunities to be rattled and breeding new life into fearmongering, disinformation, and grifts; and American politicians' decision to lift protections such as mask and vaccine mandates despite every non-compromised health organization in the world begging them not to. But I'm too tired to follow these things as closely as once I would have.

I almost wrote "as closely as I should" there, and I had to stop myself. It is important to take care of yourself; it's been, what, six or seven years of nonstop bad news? We are not built for this much stress. I've known multiple people who have had to take time off work because the stress was so bad it began to affect their physical health. And we hear empty platitudes from our leaders about "these trying times" and we have to watch humans at their worst. It's hard.

I like to think of spring as a month of respite, a reprieve from the cold of winter before we are subjected once again to the heat of summer. Soon the flowers will be in bloom and the city will come alive, and even with everything will still be beautiful. No lingering chill nor gathering storm can ever take that beauty away from us.