March

There were times I would refer to this as the Season of Storms or the Days of Lions and Lambs. I was younger then, full of silly poetic attempts. It's most likely I was far too impressed with my own intelligence and the tongues of metaphor. So it goes.

It is March. The third page, the third chapter in the calendar's novel. Stories branded upon the synaptic pages of memory. Here is the bardo between cold and warmth. The official validation of spring from winter. A time of transition.

March is when the ice races end. This when the waterways begin to thaw and the ice-fishers migrate away. Spring break and the Cabin Fever Dance. Bulbs begin to push their way out of the cold earth. The snows really begin to melt in March.

March is death. My divorce happened upon the fabled ides so many years ago now. My father's mother succumbed to her illness. Jibril...sweet, intelligent, mutherfuckin' amazing Jibril, had his heart give out. Any attempt beyond friendship between the gypsy and I-her curb-kicking, and me saying done and over-happened in March.

March is rebirth. Sabina made good on her break from the musician, and from the immolated ashes of a vampire queen came to rise the phoenix I have had the pleasure of always knowing beneath the Voodoo mask. There was that day, after I'd buried my father's mother, after Jibril's death, she grasped my hand, fed me kisses and Japanese food, and helped me get South African wine, a minor curiosity and a major paradox-though there are those who would call me, baselessly!, contrary and laugh! when I argue the point-that such a tragic time would hold one of my happiest memories. For the sake of records, spring really springs! in March.

March is bittersweet. Love and hate. One cycle is ending and another begins. So it goes. My mother was first told she was sick, but vowed to fight it, and it's just unfortunate about the outcome those eighteen months later. Three years later, I still mourn. Whilst out on walkabout, I found myself thinking how I might actually miss the snow, how it makes the landscapes so alien. I think back to all those memories, good and bad, which may, or may not, have happened in March.

March is the moment. The eye for the main chance. Sabina and I fought our final battles for the House of Owls and Bats, made deals with demons and forced them to our whims. That blood money monkey's paws from my father's mother helped. It is that time between the death-sleep of winter and the waking of spring. March is magic and mystery and Koo-coo-kachoo.

March is get back up and we can do it all over again. Chevy's arthritis isn't as bad. Whistler defies his fourteen years, imploring us for the shorter walkabouts and Milarepa restates her puppy-like youth. The cold doesn't fuck with my own twisted skeleton quite as bad. Movement is easier come March.

March is the launchpad. Time to fully break out of the cold and gray apathy between December and February. The days lengthen to that halcyon of the summer solstice. This is the prelude. And, as I think back to those silly metaphors of years gone by, one really one fits for March; here is the omen, here is forever after, here is the moment...ready, set, go!