Lions and Lambs

As a former Kindergarten teacher I’m familiar with many rhymes and aphorisms about the weather. March this year did not follow the ancient verse that the month would come in like a lion and go out like a lamb. In fact it came in like a lamb and went out like a lion, at least in southern California, where we had one heatwave after another, burning and killing most of the still-tender plants my grandchildren and I had planted in January. And “rain, rain, go away,” is blasphemy in water-starved California, especially when the temperature is recorded in triple digits.

March often slips past me.  I’m usually still putting my house in order after Christmas redecorating and putting away of non-Christmasy objects. This year I was still trying to locate the miniature animals that lived on my sideboard before the holidays. Still haven’t found them.

March is when I organize the years’ invoices and other paperwork for my tax preparer.

March is when I attempt to lose the weight I always seem to gain during the holidays.  This year that endeavor was helped along by sixteen physical therapy sessions for my knee, which failed me in February and caused me to fall.

A Record-Breaking Equinox

Suddenly it was March 20, the astronomical beginning of the spring season in the Northern Hemisphere and the autumn season in the Southern Hemisphere. It didn’t feel like spring. In southern California we were breaking records for the hottest March in history.

I usually celebrate the Equinox and the return of light to our evenings with some kind of a party or decoration on my front door. This year the Equinox came and went without my notice.

And now it’s April — and even that is nearly gone.

I’m not apologizing for missing March and most of April – just explaining.   Starting as soon as the decorations were put away on the 12th day of Christmas I felt a rush of energy and began working daily on my cozy mystery. I began showing up five days a week instead of three for my 6:45 a.m. online writing support group, where we check in with intentions, then mute ourselves and write for 90 minutes, finishing with a checkout on our progress.  I began coming back to my laptop after breakfast, and again after lunch. Sometimes I wrote late into the night.

The Beginning of the End

And lo and behold – On April 15 I reached the final chapter and wrote “The End.” For those who’ve been keeping track, that makes five years since I started Harriot’s story on a whim during Covid.

Of course this isn’t really the end.  I sent the manuscript to beta readers and an editor, and when I receive their comments I suspect there will be several more versions of the manuscript before I am ready to query agents.  But it does feel like the end of a very long journey.

My first novel.

How were your March and April? What projects did you set for yourself, or finish, this spring?  I’m going to spend the rest of April gardening, sketching, and playing with my granddaughters before I dig back into writing again in May.  See you then!  Marlene

“April is a reminder that life is a beautiful, ever-renewing cycle.”
— E.E. Cummings

Marlene Anne Bumgarner writes primarily about food, family, and traditions. Her 2020 memoir, Back to the Land in Silicon Valley, is about raising children, animals, and vegetables on a rural plot of land in the 1970s.   Organic Cooking for (not-so-organic) Families will be out soon, and she’s working on an update to The Book of Whole Grains while also crafting a cozy mystery, Death on a Sunny Afternoon – a Harriet Palmer Mystery.