April Fools and The New England Follies, Part 1

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So what does it mean to be under the influence of the April or spring Fool? 

 

For starters it implies significant hope and an unquestioning, even unexamined belief in one's own automatic pilot or self direction. Not the deliberate blind trudging of winter, but a vaguely ignorant yet unshakeable faith in the future that trusts in something greater and guides one's own motives and actions in the pursuit of some holy grail as surely as we trust that spring will come again.

 

This sense of optimism responds to life like an Idol hopeful earning a golden ticket. The ticket is not the prize or actually a prize at all, per se, but it represents the potential, or promise of a next level chance; it's the sign that something exciting and fresh has been kicked off. It can also be envisioned as a revelatory sort of Page of Cups ta da moment many of us here in Connecticut anticipate each year with barely contained desperation.  In fact I would say that as people go in general, there is no greater collective Spring Fool than we New Englanders as a whole.

 

By late January, and driven less by want and more by need for a "golden ticket moment", we've long since traded cozy family friendly visions of sugar plums for romantic visions of maypoles, beach parties and expansive lawns of enviable perfection. As one, our hopes anxiously rise -- "perhaps", we wish secretly, "this will be the year we'll get to come out of hibernation with the groundhog". Hopes fall sadly; audibly, with the verdict every time.

 

Then snap! As if on some collective or hive schedule we start to emerge in type/order dribs and drabs; dazed and uncertain from that tedious sort of limbo -- that "down" time between joyfully pointing out the most exciting holiday displays to following the blooming progression of cherry and crabapple trees -- even forsythia (we’re a generous lot at this time) -- with unadulterated glee. 

 

And so we wake from this sleepy suppression of life -- a suppression whose sole purpose seems to be to enable us to appreciate the simple pleasures of living again. 

 

The very ambitious (or most desperate) emerge first. You know, the ones who have their spring cleaning done by March 22 and who seem to flaunt their overstuffed standard issue leaf bags along the curb -- lining them up like obedient but antsy soldiers about to be dismissed for a long awaited leave.  (Don't be jealous. Get to know this type; wave a lot, befriend them if you can -- they are probably not trying to show off but are anxious to mingle again and just want you to know that they're getting ready to throw a bbq before the next frost warning so Be Prepared: Have extra chips on hand because any invite will likely come at a moment's notice). 

 

Part 2 next time…