March Again

March Again

The March of Time 

The inexorable March of Time.

With five or so days to go in February of this year (2020), I took a nap and I had a dream that March had already begun. Man! I wanted those last five or six days of February back! I had things to do, I remember thinking as I came back to consciousness! I was glad, upon becoming cognizant, that we had only made it to February 23rd or so when I was fully awake. And alas, those days came and went. I did accomplish many of the things that I wanted to do in those last winter days, including finishing a book that I had checked out last September. Time flies.

But now we are here, March is upon us. Again.

We all come from different places, different times.

March probably means different things to many of us.

If you were born in Bloomington, Indiana, in 1970, like me, then March brings some hopeful madness. Fun and memorable things happened in my hometown when I was young, and it involved the sport that the state highly prizes. The state that adopted my parents, or that my parents adopted and endeared to themselves. Indiana.

Baloncesto, a popular sport in Spain I learned later, too. Popular in parts of Chile, I would find, when I went down there years later.

If you were born in San Bernardino, California, like my wife, in 1974, March has other meanings. The last rains of the winter, the temperatures really ascend beyond the Mediterranean coolness; not too much basketball or baseball going on, but other things...

If you were born in 2001, like my eldest daughter, March means a myriad of things...

Dad loves his basketball, even more than normal. Mom does her thing, which recently includes more work, teaching, done with classes that used to be a thing... School has its plays and then comes the plainer spring weather. Now it is college, finishing up a school year at the adult level.

Time marches on.

For my mother, born in a small town south of Boston in 1940, March meant the end of her mortal sojourn. Marches prior, to her, meant many things, including a few exciting months where she enjoyed our basketball Hoosiers in Bloomington, like me, like other Hoosiers, young and old. She would not know even one month prior to that March of 2014, that it would be the time to "March Forth", as her mother, Nellie, had proclaimed in her youth.  My grandmother, the 44 year-old mother of my mom, her fifth born, also born in small town Massachusetts in 1896, had joked about the date being spoken of in the Bible when my mom was small. "March forth", and the "Fourth of March", being puns. That was her day to depart.

Four days into March.

Today we are marching into our sixth day of this month, this month of madness, where my college teams are both primed to make me a little mad, a little excited, a little forlorn. I have two, and they both have a chance to dance on into March, a time of revelry, hopes, and hopes dashed. Thrills, not a big deal to some, unlike those like me where time stops. The shot dropped! Hoosiers win! Madness is sweet...

But the clock keeps ticking, of course.

Time marches on, whether we pay attention or not.

This March is different than all the rest: there are new people around now, like some babies, or new boy friends, or crushes, or colleagues or neighbors, or politicians or restaurants...

There are those no longer with us, through departure or death. Change. Moves.

Life and health and sickness and death.

The cycle continues and we are in it, another march in March. 

In a March when my eldest was turning six and the other two were toddlers, I learned to march the Army way. I practiced a little bit in Leesburg, Virginia, and way down south in far off Nottoway County, but the real marching took place at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Hot or cold, wet or dry, light or dark, tired or energized, we marched and marched, and we chanted and yelled, and our spirits were boosted by the drill sergeants who had been to Iraq and Afghanistan, and we bellowed the cadences, the funny ones, the sad ones, the nostalgic ones, the artistic ones...

We all had our favorites.

In marching in tandem, often from shortest legs to longest, with or without our rifles, with or without our rucks and other gear, we became soldiers, which meant we were brothers and sisters moving forward with a purpose, with a cadence, with a count two, three, four...

We were one: we were all one color, one gender, one team, one fight. One uniform, one nation under God and willing to dedicate ourselves to the flag and the ranks that marched us, from Commander-in-Chief on down.

We marched, and we like it. We marched to chow, to the range, to the running lanes, to the PX for hair cuts, to the laundry for our sheets and linens, we marched everywhere. Form up and march.

March on, we did.

Some marched out, some lost their muscles or legs or bearing. We cannot all march on able legs, there has to be a day to stop.

Let me march on, let me call on the cadence loud and strong...

Let me live to next March, may I see another sunny, wet, cold, wonderful spring.

Oh, yeah, and then there's basketball.

You can reach heaven in March. Basketball or no.

See you there.

Miss you mom. I will march to the beat of the drum that you left...

I'll see the stars in the March night and know that you are there, in March and beyond.