April

Each month of the calendar and it's season becomes my favorite as I live it, however June is my birth month and I apply an enthusiasm to the days in June not given to the rest of the calendar. I look forward to sharing that same excitement when the birthdays of my parents and siblings rolls around.

Birthdays are a private matter with a quality not attached to holidays or anniversaries. Often times a day becomes special for sentimental reasons and as years pass, each of us acquire special days that belong to us alone, that we recall with pleasure. Sentimental days come and go, depending on their importance in one's life, but many last long after the reason for the sentiment has passed. One such day lives in my memory, as vivid today as it happened many years ago.

My husband and I were living in a small hamlet a few miles outside Paris after traveling extensively in Italy and living in Paris for a year. Our life in the small cottage with its cherry orchard and surrounding fields was so idyllic we rarely took the train into Paris.

When the month of April rolled around, the spring days were so lovely and the air was like wine with the fragrance of blossoms. One couldn't help but think of poems of April and the song, April In Paris.

Having been in Rome during April the year before, I wanted to spend a weekend in Paris. Reasons for not going were valid and as the days of April came and went, it looked as if my romantic idea of a Paris in April was going to come to naught. As luck would have it though, we were able to spend the last day of April in the city.

I have no idea why I should remember that day over others; nothing of great importance happened, nor do I remember all the things we did that day, but walking down the boulevards on that April day has lived in my memory all these years.

The day was a mixture of sparkling sunshine, a sprinkling of rain, and flurries of snow with wind gusts strong enough to send one's hat flying. As we walked along the sidewalk, buying bunches of violets from street vendors, we encountered all of the above as we walked from one corner to the next, and we couldn't help but laugh at the capriciousness of spring in Paris.

April in Paris
Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong