April is making me believe in God because April is a miracle
I turned seventeen and things are coming back to life. These are the daffodil days, when I notice and gawk at the green because it’s not normal yet. There are dandelions in yards now, and their faces are tipped up to stare at the sun. Every time I see them, I want to yell or laugh hysterically to acknowledge the phenomenon of growth.
I turned seventeen on a Wednesday. It was cold and reminded me that spring is fragile.
When I came home in November, it was white-skied and not cold but not warm and every tree was leafless. I guess I’ve been secretly waiting for the weather to let me move on, shift to a new frame where things are green and I feel like a girl and myself and almost an artist. I think there’s something chemical in the air of a person’s birth month that makes them feel the most alive. I feel alive in April, maybe it’s something in the rain; soaks into the ground, into tree bark, pools in thawed creeks, coaxes flowers up.
If there is a God, he was gentle with Auburn. It’s endearingly lackluster and bare of neurotic bon vivants. Downtown is striped with rows of cherry blossoms, which make everything look romantic and soft and quiet.
I find myself in a codependent embrace with this city. I just smiled as I wrote the word ‘city,’ because it’s really not a city. It’s past its prime and persistently trying to prove relevance, and both despite and because of that, it’s familiar and perfect and sort of jury-rigged, but mine. I feel indebted.
Last weekend, I slumped on the counter at the bagel shop, chin in my palm, while Tony told a prematurely botoxed mom-of-two about his target audience— prison guards, parking officers, wanderers. The bagel shop opens at six every morning for those folks. For the folks whose lives start two hours before everyone else’s, who live early mornings in this lonely not-city and wait for everyone else to join.
When I came home in November, I chopped my hair into a bob. It’s long enough to braid now, even though the braids are more woven sprouts that perk out by my ears. I’ve branded myself as the type of person who hates change, but I think I actually love change. In paradox, I hate that things have to end in order to change. But I love the golden flux-state of the first day of April. The first day of April feels like the moment Oz turns technicolor. Like you’re seeing the world for real for the first time.
The sun is still awake at dinnertime. My hair is long enough to braid. The world is growing and greening and breathing again. April is making me believe in God because April is a miracle.
