The calendar says spring and although the weather is mild, I am suspicious. We’ve gotten some of our most punishing weather in March. The worst, probably, came a few years ago, when we had a windstorm that uprooted the neighbor’s massive pine and left me without power for three days – three days in which the temperatures plummeted to the single digits.

The spring holidays are my least favorite. They seem gaudy and false. There is a deep aura of melancholy to them. Even more since my father passed away in March, celebrations in the spring feel hollow when the world is working so hard to bloom again. In comparison, the autumnal holidays Halloween and Thanksgiving feel so much more festive. They come as a welcome relief, the end of another year. We celebrate the going of the light, put our masks on to scare death, we harvest and we gather with loved ones in the comfort of our homes to eat and give thanks. It’s always been easier for me to celebrate the culmination of a hard effort than the commencement of one. And spring always feels like a hard beginning, much harder than the dwindling season into winter.