April is the month to write poems. It is the time to listen to music that is played by heart.  It is a time to hope and  make wishes. This is my birthday month.

 Children born in April are often dreamers by nature and especially sentimental.  I don’t see how it could be otherwise.  Early on, the child of April, is outside  on the many gentle days.  They are introduced to blossoms and  breezes that may already smell like roses.  Just yesterday, our Lyla napped on a soft blanket under a flowering tree-she will surely believe in fairies and who can blame her?

So, I was born on a morning in April fifty-seven years ago, the first child to my parents, and the first grand daughter to my maternal grandparents.  I grew up in a happy time to be a child and I remain so very grateful for that. I didn’t just feel loved, but cherished.  The “world” was given to me in small doses and at fitting times. I was nurtured sensibly and unspoiled, though I didn’t want for anything.  I was quite unhindered in my youth.  Childhood took a long time to get through, as it ought to.  I truly believe that those seasons have made all the difference in my life.  Country folks are often considered “slow”.  I find them thorough and far from slow.  They think way ahead and tread with great consideration into the future.  They are careful not to “throw the baby out with the bathwater!”  Needs and wants are different things entirely.

The lessons I learned early in life have stuck with me “like white on rice” and I am not a bit sorry for it.  All of that imagination, that I used as a child has come in useful right now in modern times.  When ever I have found myself in a “rough patch”-it is imagination of a better time that has saved my heart from just giving up.  It is most valuable in the practice of compassion.  Imagination aids in understanding the heart of others.  It is most difficult to quarrel when you consider someones’ circumstances.  Imagination will not allow me to hold a grudge and “The golden Rule” isn’t nearly as difficult to live by.  I have listened to more than a fair share of sermons in my life-but it was my people and their way of life that they handed down to me that showed me how to live and how to love.  I love to say that”their sermons were in their shoes”.

I have always heard that “time flies when you’re having fun”.  It must be true, I reflect on my 57th year!  I think of all the changes in my life and realise first-hand that the ability to move forward is a never ending endeavor.  Often we have no choice in the matter.  It does seem to me sometimes, that with all of the  many conveniences this decade offers that we are busier than ever.  It is odd to me that life seems so much more complicated now than in Aprils passed. Just for good measure, I continue to “go kicking and screaming” sometimes in to the new way to do something.  

Youth is a beautiful thing- and so full of swagger, which is quite necessary at that particular time.  It is a time to build and gather.  Dream-weaving is a natural state of  young humans.  It is the truth for every one. There is such beauty in listening to my own childrens’ dreams. Many of my prayers are prayed on their behalf. I love every one of them “like rain” and spend most of my wishes on them too- the first stars and dandelion dust and the birthday candles.

 Even this birthday, has not made me feel too old to dream for myself.  I have gotten bolder as they all say you do in “old age”.  I have no shame in my “high cotton” dreams. I made a wish on my birthday and immediately saw a redbird-that has got to mean something-at least it does to a child born on an April morning, no matter how many moons have risen over the rabbit patch since.