If I met March and it could speak, the first question I would ask it would be "Why can't you make up your mind?" It might reply, "Because, didn't you know? I am a little mad."
Actually, I have always found it a delightful kind of madness. Contrary to most, I like the idea of warm being chased by the dying cold. Contrary to most, I have always liked the unexpected.
I like it when one day it yawns as it starts to come awake and the next day roars as if it has been awakened far too soon for its own liking. I like how, for all its madness, it coexists with winter. Because when I walk in the sun it gives a hint of spring and when I walk in the shade there is still the presence of winter.
Nor does it always roar. Sometimes, as the month fades toward April, it becomes a more gentle wind that whistles through the pines. It is then that it feeds its own popularity by being such a welcome visitor at the end of such a long time of ice and snow.
It is the month that carries the special burden of being the month when the tax man cometh -- and I arrange no bouquet of flowers to celebrate this event, I assure you.
One thing is for sure; I want to be astonished all over again at this showcase of seasonal change. I want to glory in the almost numberless differences the calendar brings. I want to find the different kind of joys that a soft snow falling brings as against what happens when it melts and green becomes the prevailing color. I want to enjoy the in-between modifications of March. They are quite grand you know – that is if you take the time to point them out to yourself.
I want March to be the month of anticipation and have it feed my imagination with what will soon be reality. I want to look at the ground still cold and sometimes bare and see there is a stirring and that an underground artist already has his palette of green ready.
I want to look down at heavily shod feet and have a vision of when I can cast those coverings off and wade in some summer pool. I want to be and stay the kind of man who can look to the future as a future of best.
So then will you do this with me? Start to throw a mental party for spring that is just around the corner. There is such beauty that descends in all the different months and let March be no different. Find some goodness there as well as irritation at what you may well have called a winter too long lingering.
The further north you live the more these words may fall shallow. I know that -- and that is why I call out for a spirit of optimism to reign along with the rain of April soon to come. For yes, remember, in the worst of this month there is life and how you look it.
These words spoken by an eternal optimist. This I confess.