As I looked out my snowy window on a late February day, an ominous reminder permeated my thoughts. March was coming, and our life was about to enter chaos mode. Call me dramatic (and some do), but as far as months go, on paper there’s not much to like about this one.
I think my case has some valid arguments. The weather is irrational – one day it’s sunny and 65, the next our day care is closed because of a blizzard. Were you enjoying a steady sleep schedule? Ha ha! An hour of sleep just vanished overnight, along with your toddler’s ability to go to bed before 9 p.m. And don’t get me started on driving – let’s just say taking East Harrisville Road up to Hancock is a bowl of tire-spinning mud soup, even in all-wheel-drive. But hey, it’s either that or the potholes.
March also seems to have a spiteful side (Julius Caesar will back me up on this one). My husband and I had purchased tickets to go to a comedy show a couple of weeks ago for his birthday, our first “date” since September. But wouldn’t you know it, our son brought home a stomach bug a few days before our night out, and one-by-one we were taken down. No show after all. March had other plans.
As you can see, there’s no love lost on my end.
But this spring, I decided to have a change of heart. Everything is relative, and within each of these perennial inconveniences a positive side can be found. Although March seemingly comes at us like a barked order (well, MARCH!), it’s more like a friendly kick in the pants, a reminder to keep moving forward, because there is beauty and joy in the months ahead. The inconsistent weather and time change are like nature rebooting after the long winter, and just like a computer, sometimes you need to hit restart a few times to get it to work.
With my new can-do attitude, I jumped into the week of the vernal equinox with my senses open, and was once again reminded of the two things that make life here great – people and place.
On March 20, my little family and I went to Sugar on Snow, an event organized by the Dublin Recreation Committee. As we made the turn up to Frost Farm, I could feel a flutter of excitement as I saw the small crowd of folks outside the sugar house. There were people there, in person!
That joy was enhanced once we stepped out of the car, and our nostrils filled with the scent of the sweet, sugary sap goodness boiling inside the shed. It made me think of honeysuckle, and running free through my grandmother’s backyard as a kid.
Almost on cue, our son tore off towards the crowd. As he chased kids and canines alike, my husband and I had the opportunity to catch up with people we knew, and meet people we didn’t. Inside the shack Caleb Niemela fed the fire and gave us a lesson how to make the best-tasting maple syrup, and outside his wife Karen ladled the sweet stuff onto snow her children had packed away last storm. Having sampled a taste, I can confirm Caleb knows what he’s talking about.
After an hour at the farm, we had sufficiently tired out our toddler, and it was time to head home. It had felt so good to see friends and make new ones. We took the long way back, enjoying the scenery. Even the mud.
As the week went on, I took a few moments out of my daily grind to notice and appreciate more signs of “rebooting,” like the ice on the Dublin Lake breaking into glaciers, and the snow clearing from Monadnock (for now). I also reveled in the return of the late-afternoon sun falling on Temple Mountain, a view that always calms and centers me at the end of the day.
I felt this glow again as I sat in the meeting room of the Dublin Community Center on a sunny Tuesday. The DubHub’s program committee was bursting with ideas for the spring and summer ahead, and the room was filled with joy and excitement, and people. There is so much to look forward to. Thank you, March.
To share your Dublin dispatches with Maria Kulianin Finnegan, send email to mkfinnegandublin@gmail.com.