hems and haws.

April, April.
What do I think of April?

 I'm lukewarm on the month, mostly.  February, I realize, is for many the dregs, rock bottom of the winter belch barrel.  I get that.  I feel the same way about March.

But by April, it gets a little scary funny.

 For one thing, April is when winter divides us, North from South, inland from edgeland.  By April, in Ohio, there are daffodils to speak of, and yolk yellow forsythia, already come and gone, and the possibility, if not the reality, of blooming tree.  Rain boots, slickers and bumbershoots replace cold weather gear, and the (often unrequited) hope for the end of the white stuff. We landed four inches, last week.  The week-end was cancelled.  We won't be planting peas, anytime soon.

You know I'm over inches and igloos, and you probably hear my happy dance from there when the sun comes out.  But lately, such splendor's the exception, not the rule, and I am more than a little melancholy for it.  Winter has entered its epilogue, I hope, the thrill of those early chapters behind us. Any snow that falls now inevitably brings thoughts not of firsts, but of lasts. Lasts are wistful, but not when pertaining to snow.
 
Mostly, April's snow's a half-hearted thing.  Usually it's damp, heavy, and by the next day, halfway to gone.  It may snow for days. Accumulation: Zero.  It vanishes, on the way down.  It's a different snow species going forward, flyaway stuff, with no plans to stick around.
The season itself seems spent.  But the finish line's still a ways off.  

By March, this year, Winter started to wane.  It did not follow that Spring kicked in.  Sun happens, March through May, in small, non-contiguous, biggering bursts.  But it will be a good month, anyway, before Spring is here to stay.

April is, after all, no stranger to snow.

And so, closets bulge with three seasons of clothing.  Shoes multiply, snow boots, rain boots, flip flops. The mud room teeters between clutter and chaos. A few weeks back, it was 7° Monday morning, 70° Friday afternoon. A spread of sixty-one degrees.  Five days.  Same week.  In March. In Ohio. It's as if March, and its doppelgänger, April, can't decide which way to go. Winter, Spring?  Spring, Winter?  Eenie meenie miney mo...

So, how best to address this, maybe this time of year deserves it's own season.  A fifth, transitional, in-between season. Wing?  Wring?  Maybe Sprinter...  To, you know, get us through quicker. And I think that's the thing that gets me about April.  I'll not mourn Winter when it goes, welcome Spring when it lands, but where we are now is a no-man's land. March waffles, equivocates, hems and haws.  It's ambiguous at best.  I am not. At my best, around ambiguous, that is.

just sayin'.