It’s April. Everything is new again. I notice that many people cite May as their favorite month, and May is wonderful of course–but I like April better. So many buds, and a lot of flowers already up, and the vibrating newness of pale green that Robert Frost has a poem about. Go out and experience April if you haven’t yet!
Spring in New York always reminds me of a certain Spring evening when I was young. I had just finished a babysitting gig and gotten paid, and I walked home down Riverside Drive in the fresh Spring air, comfortable in my T-shirt, in my skin. Maybe it was the first moment in my life that I really appreciated the season, or the city, or the notion that I was independent or would be, one day soon. Probably it was all of it at once, mingling to create a soft, blissful satisfaction. There were white tulips in the tree boxes, fragrant, reflecting the moonlight. Funny how so much can happen in a distance of only ten blocks; that night, to fifteen-year-old me, it felt like a transformation.
In subsequent years I’ve been transformed again in Spring. Not every year. But some years. Seeing the trees in bloom can do it–I recommend the cherry walk, also in the Riverside Drive area (at 95th or 96th Street), or the cherry trees all over downtown Jersey City that fill the gutters with pink petals. Or just sniff around, literally, and stop when you smell something beautiful. Gardens are around every corner.
