Cliches exist because they once accurately described a situation but wore out through repeated use. March is the month that comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. The metaphor may have originally meant to describe the weather, but regardless of the changes in temperature over the years, I never recall gliding serenely into the month of March. March comes in like a lion because February is the busiest month of the year. The winter holiday begins in December, drifts into January, and gradually–after all the resolutions and posturings–the year begins. We stop forgetting that it is 10 and not 09 anymore as we fill out forms or write checks (do people still have checkbooks and write checks?). The real business of my world shifts into overdrive during February.
For me, the first week in February is when I got married and little did I know when I married that I was setting a trap for myself. My wife and I were both professors at the University of Hawaii at the time–where we had met–and as we talked about the logistics of deciding where in the states we would marry: she was from Texas, I was from Michigan; she had family in Washington, DC, I had family in Ohio; no decision was made. Instead, one Saturday morning, we made our way down to the courthouse with a couple of friends from the University, quietly said our vows in front of the judge, returned to our apartment and called our families to tell them the news.
We celebrated our first anniversary worrying whether or not we could find day care for our first child, due to come into the world in one month. One year later we would celebrate our last anniversary together where it was the most important event of the week. Three months later I accepted a job at Punahou School, and from then on our anniversary always took back seat to some other major event. Punahou Carnival, one of the biggest fundraisers and all-consuming events I have ever been a part of, was always the first weekend in February. No matter how important our anniversary was to us, we suddenly found ourselves caught up in an event that became–as it was for thousands of others–one of the biggest celebrations of the year. It was clearly an event far surpassing our anniversary and as members of this community we embraced it as did everyone connected to the Punahou family.
Suffice to say that even after we left Punahou our anniversary has had to compete with teacher recruitment (starts the first week in February) and the Super Bowl (recently, the first Sunday in February). But those events are only the beginning for this busiest of months. Every year at least two major AASCA events seem to be scheduled each February; the Fun Run is in February; and at least one outdoor education trip was in February, and the list goes on.
For me, the metaphor of March Madness, a metaphoric description of the frenetic energy associated with college basketball and the NCAA tournament reminds us that the cliches of March seem to have something in common, and it has little to do with weather or basketball. For me, March is the month of metaphoric violence, so madness has always seemed an apt descriptor to me. The last violent storms of the year whip up at the end of February almost as if Nature is trying to remind us to be grateful for spring. No matter where spring falls on the calendar, March is its violent predecesor. The thaws begin, the floods, the winds, the rains. The ugly dirty snows of the cities, the white and aesthetically picturesque snows of the country fade from sight. The limbs that have survived sprout buds like adolescent faces sporting pimples. As we are reminded from our own experiences of bringing children in to the world, birth–the central motif of spring–is the most violent albeit miraculous event of the spring.
Fortunately we do not live day to day in the metaphoric world of March. Instead, the days of March and its attending madness will bring us the following: a visit from our new director, Mr. Greg MacGilpin, and his family (March 3-5); a professional development half day (March 3); the soccer championships (AASCA soccer, boys and girls, March 10-14 in Panama); the MS Choir Festival (March 17-21 at CDS); and the end of the third quarter (March 26). There will also be two college fairs, one for Canadian colleges and one for Catholic colleges; as well as a college night for juniors.
Although I don’t quite know what to do with the lamb metaphor and how all this wraps up and heads into April, I do hope we can all cope with the changes that March brings and that we find in April some solace. Let’s hope it is not, “the cruelest month” as T.S. Eliot has described it. Let’s hope it is the most restful month.
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