"March"

                                                                   Sydney M. Williams

Essay from Essex

“March”

February 26, 2022

 

“It was one of those March days, when the sun shines hot and the wind

blows cold; when it is summer in the light and winter in the shade.”

                                                                                                                                Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

                                                                                                                                Great Expectations, 1861

 

March is named for Mars, the Roman god of war, fitting for a month that “comes in like a lion,” to cite an old English proverb. It was named after Mars because it was the month when military campaigns re-started following a winter hiatus. While it is supposed to “go out like a lamb,” it does not always comply.

 

It is the month that brings us spring when the sun crosses the equator on its trip north. Nascent plants and warmer days fill expectations that “April’s showers will bring May’s flowers.” However, like Eliot’s April, March can be cruel. The “Blizzard of ‘88” (1888 that is, on March 12-15) dropped 40 to 60 inches of snow on New England and shut down New York City. 105 years later, the “Storm of the Century,” over the same three days, brought hurricane-force winds, with gusts hitting 144 mph on top of Mount Washington. Typically, however, March is neither fierce as a lion nor docile as a lamb. It is more like a puppy, bounding about outside one moment, then lying by the fireplace the next.

 

In rural New Hampshire, where I grew up, the state’s public relations people – anxious for Massachusetts’ dollars – claimed New Hampshire’s skiing was best in March. While I agreed, for many residents the month was better known for mud, a time when the ground was no longer frozen and new grasses had yet to germinate: “The frothing, squirting, spurting, liquid mud that gurgles along the road,” as Mary Borden wrote in her World War I poem, “The Song of Mud.” On the other hand, March is the month when sap starts running, when above-freezing days follow freezing nights. At Hogback Mountain in Vermont, March skiers were offered a taffy-like snow candy made from placing boiling maple syrup on clean white snow.

 

On the lighter side, the month reminds us of Lewis Carroll’s March Hare, and the old English term, “mad as a March hare.” The latter, having nothing to do with basketball’s March madness, is derived from the long breeding season which, I suppose, might put either gender out of sorts. Hares, with their furry tails and elongated ears and hind legs, are of the same family as rabbits. I have always understood the latter to be promiscuous, but never thought of them as mad; though it is possible that sexual frustration, brought on by long, unconsummated courtships, could drive either a buck or a doe to madness. Certainly, the bunnies who once populated Playboy Clubs had cause to get mad at intemperate customers, but it is not because of ill-tempers they are remembered.

 

We cannot control the weather, so we must accept what March brings. I no longer ski, so will miss out on maple snow candy. Happily married, I have no interest in courtship, so March madness should not be in my future. And if I avoid tramping through the woods, mud should not be a hazard. I do, though, look forward to budding leaves, the peeping of peepers, sighting my first turtle and the return of songbirds.