The end of April

“March winds and April showers bring forth May flowers” is a familiar English phrase, or the shorter trochaic version (“trochee” is a long syllable, or stressed syllable, followed by a short, or unstressed, one, often heard in Shakespeare, though used widely in children’s rhymes), “April showers bring May flowers” that was reportedly once “Sweet April showers/Do spring May flowers.”

All these are pertinent in the four seasons of the temperate zone where spring follows winter, and autumn that of summer, but On Saipan where it has 12-month long summers, the showers of April just means a wet season for the trees and flowers that bloom all year round, not unlike the flowering of mangoes and other fruit arbors on island, where location determines cycle.

April 25-26 was the Flame Tree Arts Festival and the shower did pour and the flowers did bloom, along with the numerous artists that graced the event, and the delightful performers on stage that kept the audience entertained.

The month’s corral of “awareness declarations” gathered a crowd. Autism took the lead by just the number of diagnosed members under a wide spectrum, 1 out of 68 at last count in an alarming ratio. Some 130 walkers showed up for hot dogs in Marpi.

Cancer took an existential hit as one politician’s brother succumbed to the oral variety, though the debilitating cell itself remains the object of intense research. Saipan Tribune staff, among others, walked to raise awareness from the JP Center (former publisher John Pangelinan succumb to cancer) to the Susupe Beach Park where former AG Herbert Soll and his wife, and educator John Babauta were among the marchers. MMAC got a boost.

The ladies are justifiably up in arms in the long entrenched patriarchy in society (that spilled into matriarchal Micronesia), which nevertheless ignores domestic and sexual violence in the home and workplace. Fire fighters took time to run for the cause. Pam Brown of the former Ombudsman’s Office crusades for CW rights and assists migrants needing legal assistance at the Business Center.

The DD Council and NMPASI, for the differently-abled, made April a time to inventory legislative gains even as DD members decry a lag in access to accommodations in community structures. Jim Rayphand tags the kids on TAGA Sports mag.

The “heroes” in blue took their turn and showed their pride in the pause and the jog.

“Ego/Eco” awareness is high in the pristine atmosphere of the Mariana Islands (or the illusion thereof). The ego (selfhood) when tied to the eco (planet) can be chosen to be sustainable; otherwise, it is communal suicide. The virtue of eco-balance is often sacrificed when mercenary capital comes flashing the $ign. The awareness is thereby in need of vigilant watch.

That April awareness needs to continue to be a 12-month practice is a universal desire. Slackening is not an option. Let April showers bloom Mayflowers, and ripen the fruits of endeavors resulting in awakenment. Autism, cancer, the differently-abled, violence at home and the workplace, heroes, and eco-selfhood require year round attention.