Monthly Round-up #5

April was transitory, as I suspected it might be. We arrived in South Carolina after nine days on national highways, unpacked the car, found an apartment, packed it up again, unpacked until we got tired and just gave up, officiated a wedding, and work, work, worked all the while.

Spring has always been bustling. I blame the bees; they set an unmatchable precedent. Even in elementary school, when Mrs. Borngraver whipped out those hand-cut paper flowers and the spring bear decor, we knew tests and yearbook signings and last-minute assemblies were hauling our way. Best to just lay down on the tracks and let the train drag you home.

When considering this month’s themes, the word “marauding” flew to mind. I didn’t actually know what that word meant, so I consulted the ancient texts (a dusty dictionary a previous tenant shoved under the couch).

Marauding (v.): “Roaming around” — exactly, that’s the word — “stealing, killing, or destroying” — oh — “driven by the motivation to plunder, raid for booty, or attack” — you know what, the word still works.

I’ve always been somewhat, oh what’s the phrase, short-fused? Confrontational? Quick to soapbox? Curmudgeonly? But this month, the grumpiness seems particularly acute. Connor will point out a rare slice of blue sky — it’s been raining since we arrived — and I will imagine jumping out of the moving car, just to get away from such a boring conversation.

This bout of perfectly reasonable irritability might have something to do with our new zip code. All of my friends and family are in California, Kansas, New York, Florida, and Central Europe. Myrtle Beach is nowhere near any of those places. I’d be walking for 135 days, swimming for 200, and probably climbing for some amount of time. That would be the thing to knock me out; my shoulders are really nothing special.

So I have Connor and the brown swallow who’s made her nest on the front stoop.

These pangs of loneliness are swiftly repackaged, wrapped, and bowed as freshly cut anger. Interesting. I wonder how long I’ve been doing that.

I’ve started making a list of potentially odd things that make me angry, thinking it might help to track the through-line, then avoid it for the rest of my life. At the top of the list: Tree-trimmers. I want them to all go missing overnight, and then I never want to talk about them again.

Bad thieves. Ugh — the only totally original thing is you. All you have to do is steal something, pass it through you, and bam — new thing. If that’s too much agency for you, I hope we come face-to-face and fist-to-fist in the trenches.

That lady who yelled at me as I drove past on my way to the wedding (something about “n’er do well”? “I’m in a well?” “You are going to die soon, I’ve heard tell?” I can’t be sure).

I’ve also been exercising more, with hopes of pushing out the rage, pulling in the triceps. Exercising, but not weight-lifting. I’ve successfully procrastinated that for three years. Why ruin a good thing? Nowadays I blame it on the cost of a gym membership, but one day that won’t be acceptable, and I will have to lift heavy things and put them down — for my bones, apparently.

For now, I stick to circular walks around the cul-de-sac and occasional MadFit videos. It’s an Arcade Fire spring.

Here are the things getting me through it: