April on the Prairie | Lunahrin Candles

April on the Alberta prairie does not arrive gently. It argues with itself for three weeks before making up its mind. Snow on a Tuesday, seventeen degrees by Friday, then snow again. You keep going anyway. You have lived here long enough to know how this works.

The full moon this month is called the Pink Moon, named not for the colour of the sky but for a wildflower. Wild ground phlox, Phlox subulata, native to eastern North America, blooms in dusty pink in early spring around the time of April's full moon. The Old Farmer's Almanac has been using the name for nearly a century. The Celts called it the Budding Moon. The Algonquin called it the Breaking Ice Moon. Pick the name that fits where you are standing.

What actually arrives in Medicine Hat in March and April: the northern flicker. It is already here, tapping away at siding and gutters and whatever surface will carry the sound farthest. The tapping is territorial, mating-season drumming, and it is loud and deliberate and completely indifferent to whether it is convenient for you or terrifying your mini aussi. It shows up in spring like an alarm clock nobody agreed to set.

The smell changes in April too. At some point the air stops being a closed thing. There is turned earth underneath everything, something green, cold water not far away. Not warmth yet. The suggestion of it.

The practice for April

Notice one small thing each day that went right. Not a list, not a journal. Just one thing, held for a moment before you move on.

Joy in April lives in corners. It does not stand in the middle of the room and announce itself. It is the particular warmth of a black shirt in the afternoon sun through the car window. It is the first time you step outside without a coat and don't regret it. It is the flicker hammering away somewhere on the street and your dog losing her mind about it, and you standing there in the yard, and it being April, and that being enough.