April First brings All Fools Day, April Fools… and your Convivio Book of Days Calendar for April. The tricks and practical jokes today are traditionally supposed to end at noon, but I’d be wary all day long if I were you. I’ll admit here and now: I’ve got nothing up my sleeve this year. Not a thing. But I always love hearing about your April Fools pranks, so please, share them. The comments below are an excellent place to do so.
Our Lenten journey is fast coming to a close and we come this month, in April’s second week, to Holy Week, with all its beautiful mysteries. Maundy Thursday always is one of my favorite nights: a pilgrimage of sorts. There are years when I don’t enter a church all year and there are years where I go more often, but Holy Thursday is the night when I go, typically, to three of them, in the dark and quiet late night hours, to sit there and breathe in the stillness. My grandmother Assunta taught me this, and each year I go and I think of her. This, to me, the core of tradition: to maintain those bridges across time and space. This year, I will think of my father, too. I suspect it will not be an easy night for me, but it will be an important one.
I know my writings have been few and far between lately, and for this I apologize. I’m here with you, I’m just having a hard time lately getting out of my own way. But folks tell me this is to be expected, and while the pain of losing a loved one never goes away, it does, I know, evolve. And so I am evolving. I’ll write to you when I can. Sometime during Holy Week, I am sure. Maybe twice, who knows? And most likely for St. Mark’s Eve on the 24th, and again for May Eve, Walpurgis Night… as the wheel of the year clicks again by one more cog, this time toward summer. There is magic to be had in all of these holy days/holidays … and my wish for me, for you, is that we all tap into that magic. My dad believed in the value of hard work and a job done well. I’ve got a job to do in writing this Book of Days, and I’d best get to it. He wouldn’t put up with me slacking off.
By the way, if you miss us, well… we do a better job of keeping in touch these days via our Instagram feed: @conviviobookworks. More of a picture book!