Happy Easter

Though I prayed and prayed and prayed, Jack Frost didn’t visit and deliver snow on this Easter. Thankfully, one summer years ago snow did line the hills of this city, and that is a memory I treasure.

Instead, this Easter is hot and dry and causing me to regret my clothing choices, but at least I’m no longer fool enough to wear black. Spring is in full swing, and summer is readying itself to pounce. I know that Easter is all about new beginnings, new life, and hope (if we go by what E. Aster Bunnymund from Rise of the Guardians wants us to think), but it’s always felt like the last hurrah before the crushing heat sets in. Maybe, if we’re really lucky, we’ll get some rain before the heat really takes over.

Still, in the kitchen my family is dying eggs. We have buckets of candy. The kids are shrieking and running around with toys. I’m pretty sure I’m the only one that detests the heat like I do. Everyone else is glad the cold is done and gone.

I used to resent this season. It reminds me exactly how much I don’t belong where I am and need cold, rain, wet, green – not dry, heat, bright, sand. But I’m trying to cultivate an appreciation for Easter, thanks to all the pop culture and fictional veneration I’m doing, and that starts every day I wake up and especially today. We have eggs. We have way too much food. We’re blessed. There’s hope in the air for the rest of the year. There’s change and possibility.

So, I give thanks for today, thanks for the blessings we’ve been given, and thanks for a giant alien rabbit that my brother adores. (And I do too, I admit.)