April Fool’s Day and I wonder if I am the fool this year,
taking on a blog challenge when sporadic entries represent the sum total of my
blog’s history. The challenge? To post a
blog a day for one month (taking only 4 days off) and use the alphabet as my
guide for each day’s focus. From A to Z, each letter of the alphabet, what do
you mean to me?
My non-blog writing involves the “Art of being Alive” as I
explore the underbelly of ordinary in search of its hidden essence. Some days
that means a poem or three dances on my screen. Other days might lead to tales
of mystery, humor or relationship.
Writing about real life through unusual lenses fascinates
me and that will hopefully come out in the posts I generate for this month’s
blogging challenge, a mostly improvised serenade danced along a path through
the Alphabet.
Take today (please do!). I’ve rarely looked forward to
the first day of April, couched too frequently in the Angst of humiliation. I
always tried to be the first with the “joke” of the day, throw others off their
scheming plans to catch me off-guard. “See,” I would try to explain. “I know
what day today is, so don’t play your tricks on me.”
I grew up with an older brother in a family that found
embarrassing jokes outrageously funny. Of course, that meant I married a man
who enjoyed the same cruel (in my mind) delight in demeaning humor. One outcome
of all those fooled and foolish years became my attempts at training my children
to ignore the day, or at least stay on the sweet side of fool’s day tricks.
Though I achieved some success in this effort, I remained in the minority, my
reluctance to engage in ANY type of joking on April First seen as symbolic of
my status as an “old fuddy-duddy.”
Let me quickly add, however, that I’ve met many people
over the years that enjoy a good joke, a trick of the eye, a sleight of hand
that triggers mild embarrassment but remains gentle. Humor – ah, perhaps a good
topic for day number eight!
Was today’s blog a joke? No way. Or was it? And how will
you decide?
Happy (?) April Fool’s Day.
A-mazing APRIL (an acrostic poem)
Antecedent extraordinaire
Pushes winter’s final
Remnants away,
Induction ceremonies set
Let spring’s bouquets display
