We made it through the long December, and April's finally here

WFAE’s Tommy Tomlinson says this "On My Mind" commentary isn’t a prank or an elaborate joke. It’s an appreciation of April 1.

For weeks now I’ve had that Counting Crows song “A Long December” in my head.

The older I get, the more that winter feels like one long December to me. Even though I know there are days when the sun comes out and the sky is as blue as cut glass, what lingers in my mind are the endless gray days and leafless trees and bitter winds.

And it’s not even that cold here. I don’t know how people up north do it. We spent a winter in Boston one time and survived it OK, but there were mornings when the snow turned to sleet and the sleet turned to rain and every step off the curb was a step into eight inches of slush. I walked a half-mile home on one of those days and when I got inside my pants had basically frozen stiff. I took them off and stood them upright in the bathtub.

My body doesn’t feel like that when winter hits down here in Charlotte. But my soul does.

April, though — April means everything feels warm and new. Those who celebrated Easter on Sunday have a ready-made story about rebirth. But you don’t have to be religious to have faith in the redbud and the ornamental cherry and the azalea bush. You don’t have to believe, to believe in baseball season and the Final Four and the Masters. The games are flowers–familiar, but also unique. You’ll never see another one exactly like it.

Most of us live in a world that’s tethered to the clock, when in some ways we could live a more fulfilling life if we paid more attention to the sun. Every other creature on the planet lives its life by the seasons. We like to think we’re more evolved because we don’t. I’m not sure that’s true.

All I know is that the long December made me feel like curling up and hiding somewhere, and the first of April makes me want to go out and draw a deep breath, pollen or not.

As I write this there’s a bumblebee hovering outside the window, taking a break between pollination stops. Pollination is basically how life on Earth continues — all those bees and birds and butterflies, keeping the rest of us alive. Something in the spring tells them to go out and renew our contracts for one more year.

I’m at the age where I have lived more Aprils than I have yet to see. Knowing that makes each one a little more precious. On the first of April we can all be reborn, in one way or another. Watch the flowers. See how they lean into the sun.