April 2026

I love you!

This month I want to celebrate Nature’s rebirth. As we move into the light, let’s let the poet and philosopher writers fill our hearts with timeless, inspiring truths. Let their examples inspire us to act as though we were enlightened.

Begin with an open, loving consciousness, humbled to be alive to the mysteries and awe of our intimate daily lives. Remember Rainer Maria Rilke’s truth: if your daily life seems poor, blame yourself, for you are not poet enough to call forth its richness.

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love,” wrote Rumi, the 13th century Persian poet. “It will not lead you astray.” Rumi knew about being empty in order to be full. “This poetry. I never know what I’m going to say. I don’t plan it. When I’m outside the saying of it, I get quiet and rarely speak at all.”

Let us go outside and “get quiet,” letting love be in the fresh air we breathe. As the song goes, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love.” And plenty of love, more than ever.

On the first day of spring, March 20, the weather was freezing cold, dark and foggy. The next day, the temperature was in the high 50s. Drawn to envelop myself in the glorious sunshine, I took the bus to Mystic. I felt the joy of the warmth caressing my body as I walked about on one of my pleasant grooves. The sun and I were constant companions for the enraptured, delicious hours until sunset. Emily Dickinson poetically spoke to her muse: “Bring me the sunset in a cup.”

No restaurants were ready to serve out-of-doors because it had been so unseasonably cold (10 degrees lower than the average temperature for March 20, for example). Arriving in Mystic, I had lunch at a restaurant near the drawbridge, then meandered across the bridge, examining the boats in the river and noticing an increase in all the foot traffic. There was an energetic, happy celebration. People were smiling, laughing, holding hands. All tails were wagging with dogs happy for the warmth and to be with their happy owners, prancing around meeting and greeting. The gaiety was contagious. Intoxicating. The atmosphere had us all in her magic spell. Locals know we live in a magically beautiful paradise, and vacationers came flocking here.

This unexpected, unplanned ecstasy was a delight, to silently share with high-spirited people who were drawn to the spontaneous urge to seize the sunny spring day. We felt part of the collective energy of this environmentally lovely community.

One of my favorite jaunts is to Sift Bakery on Water Street in Mystic. I’m not alone in my praise. Year round, people wait in line to get inside the shop. This bakery is a happy place where people come to enjoy some sweet treats, sip coffee or tea and linger with friends and family. I was drawn to go, sit in the sun and read a book I’d picked up at Bank Square Books on my way to Mystic.

I landed at Sift in the early afternoon. I ordered a cup of decaf coffee, sat at a sun-filled spot and inhaled, sniffing the aroma of pastries in the sun-kissed fresh air. Exhaling, as though blowing out a birthday cake with dozens of candles, I knew there was no other place I’d rather be. I was living a dream, in a bubble. I was physically alone, but never more integrated or whole. The warmth of the sun filed my heart with light and love as I gladly received this grace. A nearby church’s bells chimed on the hours of two, three, four and five. Undisturbed, uninterrupted bliss, as Joseph Campbell knew so well.

Many of you remember my gratitude to Margareta Magnusson, the author who wrote The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter. Magnusson, known as the “death cleaning lady,” was a Swedish artist, widow and mother of five who always wore striped shirts. She died at 91.

What a gift she gave us when she led the way in sharing her country’s practice of “dostadning,” or tidying up, “when you think the time is coming closer for you to leave the planet.” Eight years ago in 2018, when she was my age, 84, she wrote a warm, enchanting memoir and a manual for us, so we won’t burden our children with our stuff when we “leave the planet.”

“No matter how much they love you,” she wrote, “don’t leave this burden to them.” She wants us to make sure “that someone else won’t be saddled with picking up after you.” 

I read Chris Kornelis’s obituary of her in the New York Times. Alexandra printed me another obituary by James R. Hagerty. He wrote, “Where others saw mere clutter, Margareta Magnusson spotted a moral issue: Who is responsible for what she called ‘the mountain of crap’ most of us accumulate over a lifetime?”

In 2022, she published The Swedish Art of Aging Exuberantly: Life Wisdom from Someone Who Will (Probably) Die Before You. Magnusson tells us that we should spend time with young people because they lack experience but are full of wildly high expectations. They think they’re going to change the world. The young remind us of how we were when we were young. “And if you are over eighty, even a seventy-six-year-old is young,” she wrote. “That, too, is happy.”

She instructs us to take care of our hair — “If you have any.”

“When you are eighty you will have wrinkles, you will walk slower, you are not twenty anymore. But having nice hair is a sign that you are still in the game.” Margareta’s writing is humorous, pragmatic and exuberant.

If you haven’t read both of her books, do. I’m inspired to reread both; one of the great gifts of having a personal library is our instant gratification in revisiting old, familiar friends.

I thank each of you for your major contributions to my flourishing by your endless thoughtful gestures of loving-kindness and wisdom. Your love is true, and I feel our spirits have met, where there is always a mutual presence. So many of you have suggested books for me to read, movies to see, art exhibitions you’ve enjoyed in your community and conversations about what’s meaningful for us to ponder.

Please know how grateful I am. I’m always glad to hear about you, your loved ones and what you’re passionate about. Please continue to share your stories that only you can tell or write.

Mark’s card — “Spring is here! Thinking of you at this season of joy and celebration!” —included two poems I want you to read to begin April. When you are a poet, April is not “the cruelest month!”