Love List: April

an unlikely heroine | monologue of motherhood | light & legacy

April, come she will…

Simon & Garfunkel’s Sounds of Silence album, which I found buried in a box of records in the local charity shop and brought home for my youngest teen, is playing in the back room. The scratchy, soulful sound of vinyl floats through the house, spinning me back into my own teens when I played Homeward Bound—my favourite song from the album—over and over until I had memorised every word of the lyrics.

When streams are ripe

In the valley, the stream is straining at its banks, heavy and high after day upon day of April rain. My new, striped spring dress hangs unworn on the side of my wardrobe—instead, I pull on my rain mac again and make my way to the woods. The path that climbs the hill is waterlogged and muddy, edged by early-unfurling cow parsley. I pause to catch my breath by the bench halfway up. It has been reclaimed by the hillside—fading into the bank, enveloped with wild garlic flowers. Up in the woods, masses of them flow star-white beneath the trees.

and swelled with rain

Raindrops shake down from the branches, falling onto my hood. Waves of flowers twinkle, their verdant green leaf blades shining brighter in the wet. I step deeper into the wood to gather a few handfuls, pushing them down into my pocket—at supper time, they will be shredded and stirred through the creamy sauce of a macaroni cheese. Taking a huge breath of April air, I return to the path— homeward bound. When I open my back door, the record is still turning.

Here’s what I’ve been reading and loving this month: