April’s Things

Comfort and Joy in a Wild Month

May 01, 2024

April was a wildly beautiful, wildly WILD month. There was so much that I loved, and it doesn’t fall neatly into categories hardly at all.

Flowers

Wildflower season in Lady Bird Johnson’s Texas continues in April. There are few things that I love more than a bluebonnet, though an overgrown YARD of mixed-up wildflowers is one. So is a patch of flowers growing out of seemingly nothing but rock. I also, hilariously and most joyfully, ended up with FOUR simultaneous bouquets of flowers in my house last week, and couldn’t be happier.

Cowboy Carter & The Tortured Poets Department

I know there are a LOT of opinions about these albums (I was scolded by a child when I described Beyonce as “someone who just put out a country album; we agreed on “genre-defying” as an appropriate description) out there, and I have chosen to just listen without wading too deep into the commentary (unless it’s by people that I know that love these artists, and then I can’t imagine anything more fun). I also love that there’s evidence to suggest that Beyonce and Taylor Swift work together to avoid messing up each other’s ratings.

Spring Candles

My biggest lifestyle change and ridiculous indulgence that lasted beyond the pandemic days was fancy candles. I have waaaaayyyyy too many candles, and at least four favorite brands. I’m not even that good at burning candles, but I do love them. I love fall and winter scents the most, but this year found some surprising joy in switching out for my more springy scents, including Golden Hour, Tea & Happy Things, Cactus Blossom & Rose, and A Walk in the Garden.

Permission to Dream about Next Year

While presence is important, and not something I’m notoriously great at, April in public education is the time for starting to think about next year. It’s what I can dream about during planning periods when my brain is mushy on testing days, and how I keep myself sane through testing season more generally. I’ve started to think about how I’m going to fix things that I couldn’t get right this year and what kind of world I want to create for my students (who I’m moving up with), and it feels deeply hopeful.

NOT Working on a Plane

This one is WILD for me. I LOVE working on planes and in airports. It got me through grad school; I looked forward to my zillions of conferences because I knew that I would have at least four hours uninterrupted worktime when I couldn’t be distracted by the internet (at least not without paying $8 for wifi) each travel day. I agonized about whether to bring my laptop to the Grand Canyon (not to use while there, obviously, just for the plane/airport); after texting my friend who is never wrong who immediately said, “Take your computer” with not additional context, I did. And I was glad I had it for financial reconciling and publishing Canvas modules at the very end of the trip, but I did not end up working at all on planes or the airport. I just sat. Or read. Or walked around. And that was a good change of pace for this time.

This book about changing our definition of friendship by Rhaina Cohen. My favorite quotes:
- “To be with M was to be pushed to grow, and I would later see this element of our friendship mirrored in the account of a couple’s romantic relationship. One of the partners, on her blog, described a core principal of their relationship as ‘Mutually Assured Non-Complacency.” (emphasis mine)
- “I realized this is why I’ve felt such a strong urge for people to learn about platonic partnerships; they are a case study in resisting defaults. Whether you’re in one or you simply take time to understand them, these friendships take us off autopilot.”
This more-honest-than-usual gardening book that made me laugh, cringe, and sign with recognition.
I finished my second-ever woven wall-hanging. It’s not perfect, but I texted two people, one a fiber person and one not, to say, “do you know what this is?” One said sunset on a beach and one said sunrise on a beach, and was very proud of that.