OK, it is the last day of April but you know what? I still have to say that old rhyme to remember whether April has 30 or 31 days.
How many of you still have to say: 30 days hath September, April, June, and November?
But getting back to April. I am always reminded of the T.S. Eliot poem, the wasteland and the first paragraph of it.
“April is the cruelest month, breedinglilacs out of the dead land, mixingmemory and desire, stirringdull roots with spring rain.”
T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
As one with a PhD in psychology, I know that suicide starts spiking in April. They go on rising through the rest of spring and into summer. Spring is a more suicide prone time of year than winter. One would think that the bleakness of winter would lead to more suicides, but it is spring that is the time of year when people commit suicide. I’m not going into all of that here. I’ve spent many years talking and giving workshops on suicide and suicide prevention. But it does peak now, and it’s something to be aware of. That could possibly be what Elliot is referring to as the cruelest month – but it doesn’t have to be cruel.
Spring is a beautiful time of year in the northern hemisphere. It’s when things start to bloom, colors start to appear. Birds are welcomed back – singing their joyful songs and building their nests.
Above is one kind of allium I planted last fall; there are several around my garden. The second kind has not fully opened. It is also purple – why, you might ask? Those are the two varieties that Costco had when I was there last Fall.
Above is an enlargement of a cardinal that I had been hearing and it finally sat still long enough for me to take a photograph. It was further away, so I enlarged just the portion of the picture where you can see the cardinal. They are very easy bird to spot because the male is bright red.
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But given it is the last day of April, I thought I would reflect back on this month. It started with my being engaged in a blog challenge to post every day, full well knowing I would not meet that challenge. [I do know my own history.]
But in getting prompts every day, I did start re-working on some projects that had already been half completed. It’s a very good thing for me.
Anything that gets me back to stuff that I haven’t finished in the past is good.
I also learned that I have to get better at writing faster. I was there at one point but because I got away from it, it was those use it or lose things, and I need to get back to writing and finishing blog posts more quickly. Which means that I have to reset my templates and get my head back into the blog post writing, or article writing, or short form writing. That again is a good thing and it will happen in May.
The biggest and best takeaway from April came as a major thought yesterday while attending some very relevant online business sessions. That I even sat through all the sessions that I sat through was remarkable because I have been so not into the business aspect of life these days.
A few of the concepts hit me smack in the head – and sometimes it takes a real smack in the head to make me realize what I should be doing, so I’m going to do it.
