Compost Studios

In the American South, March is like a soap opera romance, full of high drama and improbable outcomes. March teases with its temperatures, sultry and welcoming one day, bitter and chill the next, each change marked by gothic winds, roiling clouds, and eye-popping slashes of lightning.

If we dare to embrace the unseasonably warm weather, we're slapped down in short order. Late in the evening the mood will alter, the branches will bend and whip, the thunder crash, and the rain beat violently on the roof. March is known for snapping the heads off of budding trees and giving the world the cold shoulder, and yet the presentation of brightly colored daffodils and redbuds makes us forgive and forget. March has us wrapped around its finger; we praise its charms as soon as the mercury rises.

March, after all, is a diva that thrives on its attention-getting contrasts. Its warm days feel warmer and are welcomed more than any in the year, and its cold is unexpectedly cutting and cruel. In the South, March loves its power to enchant and disappoint, to draw us out and force us to retreat, to always have us at its beck and call.

Here in Belgium, March is less a mercurial bitch and more an obstinate bully, territorial and unflinching, refusing to give up an inch of winter until the equinox insists on it. The sun may shine early and linger later and the skies turn pastel and lovely, but the temperatures refuse to budge, hovering in the 30s and only occasionally touching 40.

The weather is engaged in an interesting tug of war between cloudy and bright, windy and calm, raining or not. Snow flurries swirl around the budding trees and blooming crocuses which refuse to be manipulated by March’s brutish indifference. They ignore all the bad behavior and drama unfolding around them and focus on the task at hand.

Indeed, March teaches us to keep our balance, to cling to hopefulness, to refuse to be trampled by the violent forces in the world. We may shudder and shiver, but we won’t disappear. Like the perennials in the garden, we’re determined to come back and bloom.

March 14, 2006