The Cruellest Month
April is the cruellest month...
...These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih
T. S. Eliot, "The Waste Land" from Collected Poems: 1909-1962.
Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licóur
Of which vertú engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye,
So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages,
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes...
Geoffrey Chaucer, "The General Prologue" from The Canterbury Tales.
I think a lot about T.S. Eliot, specifically Four Quartets. I also think a lot about how metaphysics appears in his work and how he alludes to both Christianity and Hinduism in much of his work. I think a lot about how he converted to Catholicism before he passed. I was raised by two ex-Catholics, having never been a Catholic myself. I don't find myself drawn to it – neither theologically nor politically – but the art is quite intriguing. My ex-Catholic parents raised my siblings and I in a Hindu temple. I was born into a faith that I had no cultural or ethnic connection to, simply two American parents dissatisfied with what they've been taught. For those early, developmental years of my life, I became attached to the mythologies of Hinduism. They were my reference to the world, despite the fact that my mouth stumbled through the language. I never learned Hindi. It wasn't until adulthood when I read the Bible. I was curious. I was also studying English at an American university, where the literary traditions are rooted in Biblical mythology. The distance between myself and the Western Canon grew smaller. Over the course of my life, I have found writers such as Walt Whitman and T.S. Eliot to be critical in the way I straddle that distance, the way that I reach around in the dark for meaning. I think a lot about meaning, about sound, about language. What is a word, really? Can we really ever translate meaning?
In February, the Lunar New Year marked the Year of the Fire Horse. According to the Chinese Zodiac, the fire horse is supposed to usher in rapid change and transformation. Patterns breaking – disrupted ways of being, thinking, and doing. Shortly thereafter, a slew of holidays (holy days) through the vernal equinox, up to early April. Ramadan, Lent, Ramakrishna Jayanti, Eid al-Fitr, Rama Navami, Passover, and Easter. One time, on St Patrick's Day, my therapist asked me what I thought about the local tradition of the city dying the river green, and I said, "People need a reason to congregate." I think a lot about the human need for rituals and congregations, despite the fact that I am deeply atheistic. Atheistic in the "I think that organized religion is used to spiritually manipulate people into political oppression" type of way, not the "religion is dumb" type of way. I don't think people who have faith are any less intelligent than I am, at all. I just think that faith needs to be autonomously given. And I think a lot about what it means to give in to faith.
I think a lot about the fact that Transgender Day of Awareness comes before April Fool's. I think about Judith Butler's Who's Afraid of Gender? and how the attacks on bodily autonomy are globally motivated by religious groups and organizations. I think a lot about what being transgender and genderqueer means in a world where religious fanatics don't want me to exist the way that I am. [See here: "I think that organized religion is used to spiritually manipulate people into political oppression" etc...] Not unrelated, I think a lot about The Fool. In tarot, The Fool is one foot off a cliff with their face towards the sun. They are ready for an adventure, an opportunity, a change of pace or a new direction. I suppose that's why they're The Fool; it is foolish to be so open to the world, to be wayward and hopeful. And what does it mean to be made the fool? To be strayed away and given hope? I think a lot about how, in the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer writes himself into the narrative. However, Chaucer the Pilgrim (opposed to Chaucer the Poet, himself), is written to be quite ignorant and foolish. It's a means to distance whatever Chaucer the Pilgrim says from Chaucer the Poet; thus allowing himself the freedom to say what it is that he wants. It's not him, it's the character. One could think of it akin to Jester's Privilege, how jesters could mock and tease without punishment. And is that not the purpose of a day like April Fool's? A day when one can cast aside seriousness, decorum, and politeness, and embody some shadow-self that feels mischievous yet truthful.
Perhaps that's what I am after: the mischievous and truthful. I identify with The Fool, its ungendered face ever bright with optimism. Their hands reaching for a butterfly, which flutters like meaning itself. I identify with Chaucer's artistic need to distance himself from his words. The way that poetry obscures that which it brings attention to. I identify with Eliot's pursuit of knowledge. April truly is the cruellest month. It doesn't just bring the natural world into pollinating, but it brings that which was dark into light. It brings us out of the cave and into the sunshine. We find ourselves stumbling out of our winter isolation towards a congregation. A pilgrimage, perhaps. And all of that restless energy from those long, dark days makes us playful, doesn't it? Don't you feel something tickling your toes? Don't you feel the revelry? Give in to spring's foolish nature. Make mistakes. Be messy. Begin again.
Binx
Poet, activist, and Editor-in-Chief of The Pill Magazine.