It's only been a quarter
This year feels like forever but there's plenty of violence left, we can count on that.
It is The Spring Time: Easter, Passover, full moon in Libra. It’s 34 degrees that feel like 21 when I wake up early to write. It’s raining, dreary, dark. I have had enough.
I went to Sheep Meadow with the rest of New York a couple of weeks ago when it was 70 degrees and sunny on a random god-sent Saturday. Coming up over the hill, the scene in the park felt like what I imagine of horror movies. The heavy metal blood soak in The Substance (which I did see). Bodies, bodies, bodies, each one of them threatening. A tableau of humanity, a polaroid of hell. We dropped our gingham blanket close to the exit and I angled myself to face the outer edge of the enclosure, turning my back on the writhing carpet of flesh.
And the sound of it. The low, angry frequency, an anxiety pill, of hundreds of thousands of people wailing their pent-up desperation to be outside, to feel the sunshine, to feel something. Even before the temperature dropped 26 degrees in the span of an hour, every menacing gale blew through the horde like a wave riding fans’ arms around a sports stadium. The dull drone, hanging low over our heads, took direction. I could hear it coming. I’d turn to see what was rushing toward me from behind.
We were the hedgehogs that promised six more weeks of winter.
I bought a membership to an arts organization last year. I was inspired by their long list of way-out-there plays and performances. I wanted to support, and I wanted the ticket discount. Last week, they announced their first show of 2025. I bought two tickets while complaining loudly to my companion that they hadn’t scheduled more theatrical programming this year. That was the whole reason I’d joined! What a disappointment.
He reminded me that this year has only been three months.
Actually he said “it’s only been…” and while he paused to calculate, I chimed in with “half a year.” How hopeful, how wrong. It’s been a quarter. It’s been three months and it already feels like a whole year has passed. It’s not still cold, it’s cold again. It’s next winter already. That’s how long it’s been.
Even for the least delicate people I know, this year has been a lot. People who I expect to find it sort of lame when we talk about how hard it is to exist right now, under this regime, are just as exhausted by the low drone of destruction that is now our daily drumbeat. It feels inescapable. It feels permanent.
I know people who are finally joining the protests. I know people who have banned themselves from reading the news. The ostriches plunking their heads in and out of the sand hour by hour. None of us feel like it is helping.
I find the romantic ideal of springtime appealing. I do. A postcard of bright, sunny skies presiding over neat fields of tulips, blooms finally pushing out of their tight bulb bodies and up through the hardened dirt. All of the bunnies and the eggs. The feasts celebrating bounty, plenty, enough. Cute layers worn for fashion instead of warmth, sweaters draped over our shoulders. A sidewalk cafe table, dragged to the curb where we can watch the sun linger longer between the buildings each day before giving way to the dark.
But it hurts to push your skull up against the frozen earth that buries you. Every year I forget the pain of breaking through until I suddenly realize I’ve had this headache for weeks. Spring cleaning sounds nice, but emerging from the chrysalis that has protected it for so long is a struggle for the butterfly. It is a battle. A rumble. The snake sheds naturally but the shed is stressful. And eggs are expensive.
This is my song, now. I have abandoned the dream of romance and embraced the violence of spring.
So when people ask how I am enjoying the beauty of this season, I cock my head. The small talk is innocent, but I have forgotten my lines. “Joy,” you ask? What’s that? En-joy-ing. It sounds familiar, a distant echo, the name of a sense memory. Where do I find it? Will I know it when I see it?