The Ides of March

Here’s this week’s reflection. I hope it resonates with you and ask that, if you enjoyed, please comment and share on your social media. Heartfelt thanks for all your support!

Keeping the light on for you,

Carol

I was never a history buff. But as I age, I find myself writing down my husband’s and my personal histories for our daughters. Once these young women remove the blinders of young adulthood, they may begin to wonder why they entertain certain thoughts and exhibit odd tendencies and preferences. Since they possess half my DNA, I feel it my parental duty to pen some sort of narrative as a guide to what may be in store as they march toward senility.

One tendency is how unsettled I often feel during the month of March. My inability to articulate this disquiet prompted a little research into either a root cause or a misperception. 

I queried the popular phrase, “The Ides of March” and found both blessings and curses. The ides originally corresponded to the full moon and its foreboding omens. For the ancient Romans, the ides were the fifteenth day of March, May, July, and October, and the thirteenth day of the other months. It was also the window for settling debts (no stress there); concurrent religious observances may have hopefully offered a few blessings along with financial deadlines. And leave it to Mr. Shakespeare to elegantly craft some bad juju in his play, Julius Caesar, where “Beware the Ides of March” foretells the date on which Julius will meet his demise by assassination (in 44 B.C.E.) Since then, the connotation of doom during mid-March has been tightly woven into both history and many a contemporary plot. Centuries later, a global pandemic would rear its ugly head in martius mensis, the month of Mars (the Roman God of war).

Since history painted such a sour scene, I moved on to weather. Bewildering temperature and precipitation swings hint at the cosmos’s own indecision on any given day. True to the adage, March usually enters like the barometric lion, thrashes around with abandon, then calms down enough to lie down with the lambs, (or something like that). With the arrival of the vernal equinox, as the sun shimmies above the equator and the clocks spring ahead, I feel a bit out of sorts, at least temporarily, regardless of geography. Even during a brief stint in Florida, with its consistent climes and year-round greenery, I was aware of an internal awkwardness during March.

So, in the interest of optimism, not to mention sanity, I intend to take a more mindful, fresh slant along with Mother Earth. It’s time, after all, to bury the hatchet of doom and cut March some slack. For starters, several dear pals are Irish, and while my ethnic path bypassed the Emerald Isle, their blood flows green. St. Patrick’s Day is great fun in the company of those lucky to be in the lineage. With a whole lotta merriment, March 17 observes the death of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, and the arrival of Christianity to the land. Wearing green avoids a leprechaun’s legendary pinching, though, after a few years of isolation, a few pinches can’t hurt that much. 

If you are lucky enough to get away from snow and head south along with a few zillion other spring break travelers, fields of fresh grass are mighty nice to behold. A few daffodils or blooming forsythia don’t hurt either; all powerful tonic to remind us there is indeed new life on the horizon.

A loved one also has a birthday in March. This little guy entered the world early, spending time in a neonatal intensive care unit, graduating loud and proud to grow into a fine strapping young man. His life is to be cherished and celebrated for both his fortitude and the man he has become. And despite the woolliness of March, I am choosing to designate it a time of gratitude for both the cozy rest of winter and a necessary time for mental transition; much like the ground opens, so too our souls, as we reawaken from the cold, and bloom. And a final reminder that, no matter the temperature, a new season is is just around the corner.

It is my hope that my girls will appreciate this transitional month as much as I have come to, seeing it for what it truly is: a treasure trove of history, promise, spirit, and love.